The Licked Soul
photo by Nkem
She mentally rolled her eyes as she picked up her guitar from her “wall of wonder”. Did she always have to warm up with scales? She preferred to jump right into practicing the finger-style picking, which — hey — was actually getting pretty good. These days, she could attribute her arm consistently on the verge of carpal tunnel to all the social media she was engaged in trying to amplify her new website.
A wave of nostalgia washed over her. She kind of missed the initial days of awkwardly sitting with her guitar, silently cursing the string gods (or her personal one) for making the finger-to-string connection (stringer, anyone?) so painful. These days, her left hand comfortably held the neck of the instrument in the same way a loved one would come to caress the hand of their muse.
Closing her eyes and beginning to run her right fingers through the strings playing the tune of her soul, she softened. She felt herself exhale, though she couldn’t hear it. She was already in her mind by then. She felt her arms relax save for the slight tension in her right shoulder, existing somehow to keep her guitar from falling off her lap. She made a mental note to let go. No tension was necessary -- not where A minor was concerned.
A spiked vignette crept from the periphery of her mind, causing her to center her deepest thought: Who do you think you are?
“Fuck!” she expelled, exasperated. “This is not the time for all that.” She stood up and rolled her shoulder back, as if to ease the tension in her thoughts by easing it in her body. She strode to the kitchen to rehydrate, preparing herself for round two. “Look, you don’t have to have a goal to enjoy playing music. You can write for yourself. Okay — let’s go.” Somehow, talking aloud to herself, either in the form of discipline or permission-giving, clarified things for her in a way that self-help quotes just couldn’t. “When I close my eyes, I can feel the sun. The sun I used to know, the sun that used to glow on my cheeks… Giving me yellow butterflies, that chased each other wild, that got each other high off their needs…” She cleared her throat, agreeing with herself that she probably sang that in a key one fret too high.
The guitar was beginning to melt into her hands, into her chest. Her left fingers gripped more comfortably to the strings as she progressed through the chords. She felt her soul was being licked — well, she felt warm inside, almost wet. Her internal landscape mimicked a coastal Sub-Saharan climate. Incidentally, that’s where she found herself in her imagination as she breezed through the same four chords in repetitive sequence. A minor 7, F, C, and G would always hold a place in her psyche and in her heart, marking the end of an earthly romance but the beginning of her journey into her heart’s love. Her soul was singing, almost louder than her vocal chords were projecting, at this point.
Exhaling as though she’d been withholding her secrets alongside her breath, she returned her guitar to the “wall of wonder”, legs cracking as she walked. Mind empty now, she picked up her song book and flipped through the pages. She felt a little embarrassed to see her experiences, her imagination, scribbled down in a shorthand she created probably a glass of wine in. What would someone think of me if they read these? Would they try to understand?
Smiling, she closed the book and went to bed.
