Sometimes you want to give up the guitar, you’ll hate the guitar. But if you stick with it, you’re gonna be rewarded. – Jimi Hendrix, American guitarist, song writer and singer
I started learning to play the guitar at a very late stage in my life. My brother was always the talented guitarist in the family. In fact, when we were kids, we used to be the family entertainers, he would play the guitar and I would sing. He was too shy to sing and my only ‘fun’ with the guitar was when I broke it to spite him during one of our big fights. We did not speak to each other for a year after that.
But moving back from fights to music. We were the only two musically inclined people, and though he was a talented musician – even going on to form his own band later on while being an engineer and all, I had my voice. I loved singing, still do, but my singing was confined to only when my brother whipped his guitar out, or when I drive and sing along to the music from the radio.
I would write down lyrics, memorise them and then belt out songs like a diva when I am alone in my room. I would imagine I am on stage to an audience of thousands like a rock star and people are cheering me on. The crowd goes mad, lapping up every note, and a star is born. In my head.
Knowing that would never be a reality, I decided one day that I would learn to play the guitar just so I get an excuse to sing again, at least to myself.
I learnt to play by ear and by figuring out the chords myself. I never went to a proper class. I picked out songs that were easy to accompany by guitar and started with easy chords and chose songs that had a maximum of four to five chords, learnt to pluck and strum on my own and invented my own simple way of playing.
That was about 10 years ago. It was a slow process and I got better and better. I would get so excited every time I learnt to play a song and I would want to sit and play for my then husband, but he never really seemed interested to listen, so I just played for me. I realise now why he was not interested; it was about the time he was having his affair and his thoughts were elsewhere. Two years of guitar playing and we were divorced.
My life as I knew it stopped.
As I struggled in a sea of conflict resolution, my guitar lay in a corner and collected dust. Music stopped in my life because joy was an emotion I hardly remembered. The caterpillar crept into its pupae and lay dormant in darkness while metamorphosis worked slowly on it.
As the butterfly crawled out and felt sunshine and saw a flicker of light, slowly music flickered back. As confidence, happiness, adventure and love entered my space again, music followed suit. I learnt to trust again, to feel joy again, and inevitably my fingers reached out for my old guitar end of last year.
I dusted her out. I changed her strings. I searched for my song sheets again. I practised again every night after I would come home from a long day’s work. And I would not feel tired playing it until 12 midnight, alone in my room. I just felt rejuvenated.
Then I went to Nicaragua and broke my left hand in February.
My guitar was relegated to its corner again.
I struggled with recuperation, while my guitar gently wept, as Prince sang in his hit song. For a short period of time, it had felt loved again, and then it went back to not being touched.
It has been five months now since my surgery, and I can start playing the guitar again. The fingers have more strength now but I have lost my flow, which I need to pick up.
My partner bought me a brand-new guitar, symbolic of a brand-new life and asked me to play for him. When I play for him, he looks at me with so much admiration and love, and never tires to watch me play. He thinks my voice is wonderful and encourages me to play as much as I can as therapy for a recuperating hand.
I remember the contrast with the ghost of a man from a past life who would rather focus on his cigar than me. And it struck me that life always gives you what you need, even though at that time you think whatever happens was an absolute failure or disaster.
I understand now nothing in life is a failure. These are merely our misconceived perception. ‘Failures’ are detours to the best part of our lives.
They will break you but they will also make you.
DISCLAIMER:
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune. Feedback can reach the writer at beatrice@ibrasiagroup.com
