Category: music

A Guitar

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I’ve been learning how to play guitar for a while now. It’s a slow process, made even slower by aging hands and the associated pain that comes with them. A few months ago, at our Sheep River Library’s monthly Poetry on the Patio (by the Fireside) gathering, Marika read aloud this poem about a guitar to the group. Before she read it, she dedicated it to me. How wonderful is that? I’m still a little overwhelmed by it all. : )

Marika said I could share her poem. It sure gives me a different way of looking at a guitar. Her perspective inspires me to keep learning so that I might, one day, give my guitar the life it deserves.

A Guitar

 

Heavenly Day

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I cried twice yesterday, and again this morning. It surprised me.

It’s not like I was having a bad day or anything. Although I guess yesterday wasn’t so great when I think of it. I had no energy to do much at all, despite it being one of those Most Beautiful Blue Sky Summer Days, the kind you mark in your calendars. But this troubling lack of energy had nothing to do with why I found myself in tears. A Teen Burger, a goodly dose of Vitamin B12, both recommended by my very concerned husband, pretty much took care of my not feeling so well in a physical way.

It was heart trouble that had me in tears. It had just been pried open like a sardine can. Immediately, quickly, effortlessly. Its protective cover ripped off so unceremoniously, I sat there raw and tender and grateful. Especially grateful. For all the heavenly days I spent with my dog, Bear. We had almost 16 years together.

It was a song that started it all. The crying, that is. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that it was my musical journey, the one to do with f-i-n-a-l-l-y learning to play guitar, that set off the waterworks. Because yesterday a song was shared by a member of a how-to-play-guitar-for total-beginners group that I’m in.

I had never heard this song before, nor had I heard of the artist who wrote and performed it. The artist’s name is Patty Griffin, and her song, the one that sent me for a loop, is called “Heavenly Day.” Patty says it was the very first love song she ever wrote, and that she wrote it for her dog. Thanks to my life with Bear, I totally “got” every word, every phrase, every moment of simplicity and grandeur that song portrayed.

I invite you to watch this recording of a live show featuring Patty performing this song. See if it will have the same effect on you. If it does, know that you have been blessed with a beautiful life, or at least a beautiful time in your life. And that is worth crying about.

Namaste.

 

PS – Patty Griffin is a Grammy Award winning artist! (What rock have I been living under?!?) Wikipedia tells more about her wonderful musical career here.