When I was six years old, I gave up the guitar. Figured it wasn’t for me. I had played it for only a little over a year, most of which had been full of steady enjoyable progress and musical bliss. But, in the way of a mind working with a barely developed prefrontal cortex, one bad experience was enough to knock me off the proverbial horse. I won’t go into the details. Suffice it to say, I couldn’t handle the paternal pressure. Besides, i’ve never been good at sticking to one thing for an extended period of time and when I decide I’m done with something that decision is more or less set in stone. Or more accurately, deep within my synapses. 

So imagine my surprised when an black and white Stratocaster was forced into my hands by my Aunt Sarah and, at its touch, ten years of neurological connections were fried in an instant. She had had it since she was my age, sixteen, but somehow the guitar was pristine. Well not quite pristine, but at that point I wouldn’t have noticed the slight divots pressed into each nickel-silver fret. I plugged into one of the unused amps that were scattered around the house, took at least a minute to get my hands in the right position after a decade of inactivity, and strummed a single G chord. The sound tore through the hallways, reverberating of the walls and killing any remaining doubt about this sleek, six-stringed instrument.

I can’t say I’ve managed to keep the guitar in the same condition as my Aunt. The black laquer of its body is covered in fingerprints. The hand sized space between the bridge and the fretboard has an almost worrying accrual of dandriff. The plastic covering now grips the mother of pearl pickguard façade less like an infatuated lover and more like a mother trying to keep ahold of a wayward child. The strings, although I feel as if I changed them just yesterday are already staring to tense and fray. And most subtlety, but perhaps most demonstrative of my indulgent affection, is that those six divots in each fret on its long rosewood neck have deepened. 

You likely wouldn’t guess that the instrument is made almost entirely from wood, because the sheen of the black finish gives the material of the body the look and feel of some high quality poly-fiber plastic. Somehow its frame still maintains a certain softness to it that allows it to sit in my lap and be cradled by my hands for hours. Eventually, the guitar almost feels like a musical limb of my body as it fades into my hunched form. The neck is hard but smoothed and sanded so thoroughly that it also doesn’t feel much like wood.  

At the lower end of the fretboard, hiding under the strings are four rows of small metal nubs peaking out from the white pickguard form the guitars pickups. Some of those nubs are touched with dusty red rust. Further down the board we come to a bridge crowded with the saddles responsible for holding the strings at the correct high above the fretboard. They always look a bit desperate to me, shivering each time I strike a chord, as if they’ve taken on a job they can’t quite handle, but insist on preforming anyway.  

Moving up the board we can see that the strings eventually end. Tied up and threaded through the holes of little metal towers. The towers are arrayed in a diagonal line with the tower farthest from the guitar’s center holding the thinnest cord and the closest tower holding the thickest. A curious but necessary arrangement. Compared to the saddles opposite from them, the towers appear strong and stately. Calm and confident in their duties. 

Perhaps most important of all is the sound of the thing. When played by itself, the guitar seems meek, unsure. Good for playing sweet, though slightly flat, dewy morning tunes. But as soon as the amp cord slides into the output jack, the instrument gains the power to start a riot. Even with the settings at low on both guitar and amp the sound is more than enough to fill a room. And as the melodies rip through the air and flow from its body into mine, I can tell it’s chomping at the bit to fill something bigger, a building or even a stadium. A journey I fear I’m incapable of taking it on.