March 4, 2009

Well, I went to the studio last night.  Been at Jon’s place for a couple days, and today Jon said he’d drag me out by the hair if I didn’t go on my own.  Slimy bastard had Tico along for muscle.  TICO!  What the hell was he doing up here?  He never comes up when Jon just wants to fuck around in the studio and shit.  Guess Jon must know me pretty well – he knew he’d have a fight on his hands.  Still though, that was low.  Smart, but low.

Jon on his own, I could ignore easy.  Teek?  No way.  No fucking way.  Tried once or twice back in the day – didn’t work out too well for me.  That dude’s STRONG. 

Anyway, it was almost a disaster.  I mean, usually, Jon just says a word or two, or strums a basic riff, and BOOM! lightning strike, ya know?  Not today.  Today no matter what he was pitching, I just wasn’t interested.  Jon had his battered notebook and fistful of #2’s – idiot will not embrace the mechanical pencil – says the wood shavings and the smell of graphite helps get the creative shit going.

I was getting afraid that nothing would help mine.

The last time I sang, it was to Jen.  I couldn’t even sing at her funeral.  I hadn’t picked up a guitar in weeks – another of those stupid moments where the littlest thing reminds me of her.  Every last one of my guitars reminds me of her – especially the Taylor.  Damn, Jen loved them all but especially the Tay.  I can still see her reverently stroking every line.  Christ, I could almost feel her hands on me as she did that.  More than once we made love among them.

Jon just gave me a look when all I did was treat him to a blank stare.  I must have apologized a thousand times, because I KNEW I had it in me, but I couldn’t do it.  Even when Jon handed me his Tak, knowing I’d never played THAT one for Jen, I couldn’t do it.  So I sat there for a while, listening to Jon fiddle around and scratch in his notebook with his pencil while I just held his Tak.

After a while, something amazing happened.  I started to get itchy fingers.  Holding the Tak on my lap like I would a loaded diaper suddenly seemed disrespectful to the tool.  I held it across my body and my fingers naturally rested across the strings.  I flexed my fingers against the strings just a little, and music came out.  Jon was so surprised, he snapped his pencil.  He just looked at me and we cracked up laughing.  I swear, in the back of my head, I heard Jen laughing too. 

It was slow going, because one song we were working on was about being someone’s savior, and it just about killed me to try to write music while Jon sang another about learning to love the world you’re living in.  What if I don’t want to?  What if I want the old world back?  As I’m thinking this, I hear Jen in my head again telling me to knock it off.

I did, and the music came.  I put Jen to the side, not away, just to the side, and the music came.  The bands around my heart are gone, and I don’t know what to make of that.  I mean, I’ll never forget Jen.  Not ever – and I don’t want to.  In fact, I’m thinking about getting STRENGTH tattooed on my neck in remembrance.  I’m not over her, not yet, but I’m starting to live again.  I’m trying not to feel guilty about it, because I know in my soul it’s what she would have wanted.

It feels good.

Jen visited me last night.  She told me that she was happy to see me working again, and she was going to leave me alone for a while.   She said she loved me, and would always be with me, but was content to be a happy memory while I made music and lived my life.