8/16/2021

It’s Been a While

I don’t talk to nobody these days. That wasn’t always the case. Way back in high school, I was the runner-up for Class Flirt, according to someone who said they had knowledge of the results. I suppose it’s true, but how would I know otherwise? Not only did I have a lot to say, but it seemed I was always chatting up a female student to determine if there was any interest in me as a love connection. While there occasionally was, I most often chose the wrong one to be attracted to, and struck out completely. The point is that I talked to people; I liked it, talking to people. Girls, guys, parents, teachers, customers—you name it, and I found that I enjoyed talking to people. Communicating with others was what I was about, so much so that a former acquaintance from high school told me in the first year of college that he referred to me as “Ronny Ratchet-Jaw,” which doesn’t sound particularly complimentary, and in fact was not. I had friends, though, and constantly found myself congregating with others. We hung out together in the mall between classes, went out to the movies or for food in the evenings or on weekends, or got involved in long conversations before, during, and after rehearsals. (My chosen profession was all about speaking and listening to one another, after all.) I had a number of friends, and we interacted with each other a lot.

While I still find myself enjoying a good conversation, even craving an intellectual discussion of a political or social or artistic nature, these days I don’t do much of it. As an illustration, I first started to write this post in April of this year, 2021, but have been so reluctant to interact at all in the past few months, I never finished it, so I’m bringing it back to life in the middle of the second paragraph. The pandemic has been bad enough, but that’s not even the worst part of this particular issue. First of all, we live in a very northern part of the lower peninsula of Michigan, and it is rather sparsely populated. There are people here, of course, but the nearest neighbor is at least 500 yards away from us; I could hike through the forest to visit, I guess, but I just don’t. All of my family lives in the lower part of the state, and things have seemed strained there anyway, so I don’t tend to engage with anyone very much. On top of that, the political environment has been off-the-hook cray-cray for the past four years, and most people find it impossible to have a conversation about anything without shouting or making it political. It’s been so bad that I have been removing myself from most social media for the past year; if you look at my various pages, you’ll see that there is not a lot there anymore. (Many haven’t noticed, apparently, so perhaps I am being muted or unfollowed by quite a few. Perhaps it is even as Robert Foster once said, and “People don’t listen to you as much as you think they do.” One can tell from the level of engagement, however, that most are no longer interacting with me. Perhaps it’s my own fault, as I remove myself from these arenas; maybe they sense I’m withdrawing, and they stop engaging. Hard to say.) At any rate, those platforms used to be places I could engage others in conversation, whether serious or playful, and that’s no longer happening; not on the sites I’m on, that is.

Two Pandemics, One Focus

As I have continued to withdraw, a process somewhat exacerbated by this global pandemic—not COVID-19, the OTHER one…stupidity—I have begun to even cease writing this blog that is my sole lifeline to communicating with fellow human beings. I have found an outlet that has been completely absorbing for the past three months. I am learning to play the guitar, and I am obsessed with it. Completely. I mean, I took my first lesson in the middle of May, at which time I had a single guitar: an acoustic Fender I bought on Amazon two years ago. My teacher was surprised to see me show up with a new guitar the following week, and another the week after that; he finally got a look at my fourth guitar, a parlor-sized guitar that is perfect for playing on the couch, a couple of weeks ago. I’m out of control, I think, but I love them all. (I put a fifth one on layaway a week ago, so I guess that one of these is going to have to go.) The funny thing is that playing the guitar has provided the opportunity to interact with people in a new way, from my teacher to the guys at the guitar shop to my friends who play various stringed instruments themselves. I’m even trying to convince the little woman to play along with me occasionally, as she used to be a pretty good pianist and guitar player in her younger years.  I mean, I’m never going to be any good, but it brings me such joy to accompany myself on rudimentary tunes like “This Land Is Your Land” or “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” And you don’t know what fun is until you can pull out your six string and play the blues. It’s fantastic.

So, while we wait for these pandemics to blow over, I’m going to sit in my chair and get better at it. My hope is that bridges can be mended and relationships salvaged, but you never know in this crazy world; it may be me, my girl, my dogs, my cat, and my guitars until the ending of the world. If that’s how it ends up, at least I’ll go out singing. I can’t help but feel more hopeful as I strum or finger-pick a tune, though, and I will continue to try and find ways to get back to the guy who used to love talking to people. Maybe you haven’t spoken to me for a while, and maybe you miss me. Or maybe you are glad that we don’t converse that often anymore, and this will be the way you are reminded to de-friend me at last, and go along on your merry way; if so, I wish you well. I pray every day for God to help us manage these challenges we face and get us back on course. I pray for you. And every day, I pick up my new Taylor guitar…or the Washburn acoustic-electric with the Venetian cutout, so I can play up the neck…or the Fender, the big dreadnought…or even my little Luna parlor guitar…and I try to play myself back into happiness again, in the hopes that you and I can still be friends.