Lucas and I were jamming yesterday and I think he got mad at me. He kept telling me things about the guitar I never asked about, like how he used to take lessons but doesn't anymore, and how he isn't studying the guitar at all because he doesn't have time. He went off on these things and stopped making eye contact with me. He might have thought I didn't notice, but I did, because it was familiar.
The thing about New York is that everything here is backwards. Here, I am the one who makes things happen. Here, I do the dishes, and cook, and give advice at the gym. Here, I am a leader, and not a follower.
I wanted to tell him about meeting Scott and Ian and Tomas and Ryan and Drew for the first time. I wanted to tell him how it felt to watch my senses of status and confidence slowly fall out of my hands and onto the floor below me. I wanted to tell him that I, too, tried to justify my complete and utter lack of skill to the masters of their instruments, sounding off impossible riffs with such aplomb that I could swear they made them up on the spot. I, too, looked away, and felt my shame turn to jealous, and jealousy climb, ascending the tower of my rational mind until I could think of nothing else but the envy inside of me. I wish I could communicate the irony I feel now.
I spent my whole life behind in Nashville. My music was stale and insignificant in the shadow of the great giants of today that my friends would sing along to in practice rooms, garages, and backs of cars, leaving me in silence. I didn't even have a record player for the vinyl records they held up with pride. I spent my whole musical life under par. It got me angry enough to practice, an hour a day, every day, but even that was futile, because everyone else was already doing the same, independent of my own feelings or concerns. I stayed behind.
It took me years to realize that the ones that mattered didn't care. Everyone came around to making it clear: they accepted me. I played in bands with them. I jammed with them. I created music as equals. They made me realize that there was never a race, only a common destination we were all walking towards, a path we are still on today. I stopped caring whether or not I was good enough or knew the right music or acted the right way, and I started worrying about having fun for a change. And I did have fun. So much so that I would kill for another garage packed with everyone in the neighborhood. I want my microphone back, and my bass, and Drew's thundering drum kit behind me, and Scott and Ryan and Tomas' triple threat of guitar work mercilessly assailing the audience. I miss it every day of my life. I found family on that makeshift stage. I'll never forget that.
Now? Now I sit down with my guitar and imagine us all, in one way or another, doing the same thing. I imagine Tomas sanding his right-hand fingernails down, about to write his next riff. I imagine Ryan moving chord shapes around the neck of his SG just for the hell of it. I imagine Ian, fresh on the high of a Kaki King record, ready to pull something else out of his acoustic. I imagine Scott warming his fingers up on his favorite Ibanez, waiting for the new words to come to him. I imagine Drew on those four familiar strings we share, picking through his favorite anchors and closing his eyes, going crazy on the frets like he always used to. That's why I practice now. An hour a day, every day. Not out of envy, but solidarity. Out of the bottom of my heart.
Here, I am the guitarist. Here, I am the songwriter. Here, I am the musical conqueror. I bring the sound to everyone I meet. And I do so because I learned from the best.
I wanted to tell Lucas, right then and there. I wanted to let him know that it was okay. I just couldn't find the words. But maybe, there are no words. Maybe it's a feeling you get when you're with the right people at all the right times and you let your instincts take over and the jigsaw finally falls into place, the way it did for me.
