Gift

It’s nice to live in a community. I’m around a strange and wonderful collection of people ranging from a 66-year old Zambian to a 20-year old Fijian. On Saturday I sat under the starry Maharashtran sky by a fire with the men. It flowed with the soul-feeding spirit that arrives when sharing stories about families, fathers and the often hilarious stories that accompany one’s own coming-of-age.

I told one of my favorite stories. The time when I received a gift that changed my life.

The September of my senior year in high school, my parents and I rolled up the Delaware River on Route 29 for a reason I can’t recall, perhaps a Grandparent visit or something like that. The fall air still a couple weeks off, we strolled through the relaxed town of Lambertville on our way across the bridge to New Hope.

Along the way I spotted a music shop and pressed my father to come upstairs with me to check out the guitar selection. My interest in guitar had just reached its first peak. I’d recently played my first songs in front of audiences and even had won some money with my friend Jeff at a WWPHS showcase. An early love of James Taylor’s style had turned into a study of Ben Harper and Dave Matthews and I’d been prepping my chops along with attending as many concerts as possible. When we walked into the music store, my eyes leapt at the lines of finely crafted maple, rosewood and alder.

I carefully surveyed the racks, taking in each guitar before coming across a line of Takamine acoustics. I skipped past the simpler models until I gasped at a pure beauty. Like a Van Gogh hanging on the gallery wall, the guitar reflected the warmth of my eyes, radiating in the presence of something wonderful. I gripped it. The gorgeous cutaway, the deep brown neck, the pearl inlay, top-end pre-amp and smooth action. A pick and a few strums and I melted away in 17-year old dream of music.

In my own world, I can only assume that my father watched me with interest, more interested in my renewed passion for music than anything else in the store. After a few minutes, he broke my hypnosis.

“She’s a beauty.”
“Yeah,” I gushed. “This is my dream guitar.”
“How much is it?”
“A lot,” I replied with a sigh and hung the guitar back up, taking the time to look a the price tag. Way over budget. Alarmingly over budget. The kind of price you might attach to “dream guitar”. But I had known it already and I walked away from it knowing that I would have to be content with keeping it my dreams and strumming on my trustworthy Washburn.

We walked out of the store and cruised to Pennsylvania.

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Four months later I walked downstairs in early morning anticipation. Manheim Steamroller backing my steps. Turning the corner I collapsed, unable to draw the line between dream time and real time. I recovered to walk over and tough what I had seen. The guitar backed by pine and needles and basking in the gentle glow of Christmas tree lights.