Amish Guitar

I came across a letter the other day. It was a letter I had written 20 years ago to a friend, but never sent it. Apparently my friend and I had shared sharp words. It's not unusual for me to write letters and then not send them. It is unusual for me to keep them, however. I found the letter in an old notebook I had kept from high school. And it's been bugging for a few days now.

I don't remember having a tiff with Susan in '89, but the tone of my words have really stirred something up. She had taken me to task, apparently, for not being happy. My reply was to say "what if I'm just a sad person?" This would have been 2 years before I ever knew from depression, three before I was diagnosed with depression myself.

And still the question remains, "what if I'm just a sad person?"

Granted, I'm no longer a 19 year old young man with more ideas about life than experience. Granted I have a better understanding about the causes and effects of this particular mental illness. It still a struggle, though, trying to work my way through emotions brought on by the brain chemistry and those brought on by situation.

Twenty years, or more, have gone by since I first began to ask those questions. Intellectually I know I am closer to being whole than I feel a large part of the time. I have learned to trust that the sadness I feel is not real, if only to keep it from taking me further down. Still, the struggle remains.

Depression is hard to explain to those who don't know, don't understand. Picking yourself up by your bootstraps can take you far while dealing with a depressive cycle. Sometimes, however, the straps break. Sometimes the cognitive practices you learn to get you through the cycle don't do the job. Sometimes you are simply at the mercy of overwhelming emotions.

I have nearly always experienced depression as an intense and singular sadness. Others describe angst, low energy, anger. For me, I always feel like I've just spent the last hour having a good cry...except that I haven't. And realizing now that my 19 year old self had already identified that actually gives me some hope. It's easy to feel, when I'm depressed, that nothing happened before the cycle and I can't imagine a future after the cycle is played out. Knowing that a young man was already figuring these things out 20 years ago actually gives me some encouragement to stay in the fight.

As for my friend, I'm sure we made up after that incident. We did have a spectacular fall out in college, though I seem to be the only one that remembers it. And, having taken pains to make amends, am enjoying a renewed friendship with her.

I just wonder what her answer would be, now, to the question I wanted to pose 20 years ago.

As hard as I find it to make music with my guitar... well not hard but it ain't easy... writing songs are even harder. I don't have a real knack for lyrics or for melody. Still, I enjoy what I do write and I've posted some lyrics on this blog. I find myself always writing in 4 line stanzas with an AA BB rhyming scheme. I just don't know how to break that barrier. Well, actually, I do, but it involves practicing my writing skills as much or more than my playing skills. I'll continue to write as I'm inspired and bore the masses of blog readers that descend on my pages each and every day. :)

There are occasions when I write something that strikes a fancy. Sometimes it takes 15 years to find out that I've done so. Alkelda the Gleeful has just posted something I wrote while in college. It's not a song by any means, but... well... you just have to go there and read it yourself. She tells the story much better than I do. While there, look around. Among the gems of poems and narratives and personal musings, you will find songs and entries on guitars.

Over the holiday weekend I spent some time going through our church hymnal. I was trying to work out melodies and even some chords here and there. I got a itch at one point to play I Bind My Heart This Tide. I was feeling rather melancholy that afternoon and this hymn is written in D minor--perfect for my mood. The melody, harmonies and the lyrics are rather powerful and I just needed to play it.

I did a quick search via google and clicked on one of the first hits which happened to be a blog. There I found the chords and lyrics, albeit in A minor. No biggie and not a hassle to transpose using the Nashville system. Anyway, I got to reading the author's blog and realize it was a fellow English major and alumna from my days in college. I read through much of her writings and decided to drop her a note. I wasn't sure if she'd remember me since, though we had several classes together, we didn't really get to know each other. But she did, at least the name even if she couldn't put a face to it.

To cut a long story short, I'd like to introduce Alkelda the Gleeful at Saints and Spinners. She is a professional storyteller in Seattle and posts many creative stories that are a delight to read. She also posts occasionally about her personal life and what not. But the best part is that she also picked up the guitar in, shall we say, later young adulthood(?), and posts about her trials and achievements with her instrument. She also likes to write songs and transpose familiar songs which she posts with accompanying chords. So, while she doesn't write a guitar blog per se, it is certainly worth your time to check it out.

Next week, how a guy somewhere in Colorado encouraged me to start blogging again--even though he didn't realize it.