Stage Lights

I love the guitar. There's something spiritual about the sound of the pick striking the chords. I would always watch the guitar players around bonfires or up on stage and something inside of me would ache. I wanted to be up there. To strum and sing. Which is odd for me, because i hate being the center of attention. Infact i avoid it when ever possible. But over the last few months I've started to really play. Slowly laboring through chords and pitches, till i could play a few songs.

Last Friday I played two songs at an open mic night, and i realized why i have always wanted to play. The audience was surprisingly quite during my set. They usually talk as people play in the background, but they all kind of just listened and gave a rather decent applause (though maybe they were just being nice since it was my first time playing in front of an audience). But it wasn't the clapping or the attention that i will remember. There was a moment. There was one second that I stumbled over the chords, and then, with all the pressure off of trying not to mess up, i was able to fully enter the song. I closed my eyes, felt the lyrics, the lights, the slight echo of my voice as it traveled through the speaker overhead.

I normally listen to music when i feel alone. Even if I'm not physically alone, there's places in me, experiences, thoughts, feelings, that i can't invite others into. I would listen to my favorite song, and they would be with me in that place and i wouldn't feel so alone anymore. But there on stage, i let go and invited an entire room of friends and strangers to join me there.

I'm not going to lie, there is a side of me that liked the applause, liked the attention, but i loved, loved, loved, the intimacy. I really want to play more.