Usually it was an exotic ottoman, a set of new dishes or even a substantial piece of living room furniture, but not this time. This time she brought in a brown wooden guitar with 6 pegs and 4 rusty strings. I was eight and she was thirty-two. I have memories of plucking a guitar string and listening to it reverberate. I was mesmerized and hooked. My best friend Mindy was rich enough to have private guitar lessons in 1970 and so I would traipse over the 2 blocks to her house after her lesson was through, and she would share what she had just learned with me. I picked it up quickly too. Chords were a place I could escape to. I found my singing voice a few years later noticing that not everyone could find theirs. I remember goose bumps with harmony, sitting in the middle of my elementary school band, power in the guitar strings , 6 of them now and friendship with music connecting all of its totality. Paired with an old electric piano with only 30 keys and buttons for chords, accordion-like that a neighbor gave us, I was set.
Music has always amazed me, with or without lyrics, all styles. Now as a fully evolved human I can’t even stand how fragile and unsatisfied I would be without music. No, it is even deeper than that. I would feel lost and less human without music. As I grow wiser and paradoxically know less, music rushes at me and returns to me as my constant companion, the place I go to find solace, magic, intense sadness and complete gratitude.