The warm, low-angle light of the setting sun blasted through the windshield, blew through my sunglasses, and pummeled my squinting eyes. I glanced down for a reprieve from the glare and noticed the red needle on the gas gauge kissing E.
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My first rejection as a writer came from a Reader’s Digest editor. I was eleven years old, living in the Rocky Mountains west of Denver. My English teacher, Mr. Upzack, sent a note home asking my parents if he could submit my homework assignment to the publication. It didn’t go well. The following year we moved to a homestead in northwest Montana, and I learned to play guitar on my mother’s 12-string Epiphone.
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The memory of a live concert experience is especially poignant now, having just survived the worst year of everyone’s life. So many of us long to be in a crowd of people, hear live music, or go to a concert with our friends again. The pandemic decimated business-as-usual and collapsed live music. The moment we break free I will meet you at the amphitheater and we will lay our hearts down at the Altar of Mojo and dance our asses off.
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It’s late. After midnight. I should go to bed so I can function tomorrow. But the guitar case is staring me down from the corner of the room and a restless feeling is pinging around inside my ribcage. I surrender and strum a few chords. No particular idea in mind. No words. No real thoughts. I’ll just play a few minutes then turn in for the night.