Inside the Spin-Mosaic Studio

A mother in her 80's who had been drinking coffee for a long time, contacted me about her 1950's Harmony arch-back guitar. Ann add had been put out in the newspaper asking for "broken guitars to paint!". We met in the back of a CVS parking lot in a neighboring small town.

She told me on the phone that I would recognize her because she would be, "the one standing by my car holding a guitar."

Helpful. True. I did not have to sort her out of the maddening crowds holding instruments by the small-town roadside. This was no Nashville, mind you, where starry-eyed musicians by the dozen with big dreams to match squat with open-mouthed tin cans on every dusty street corner.

The hour came. There she was. There only she was---her and the guitar slightly hunching and greatly leaning into her muddy navy compact-car door.

It was a hot, sticky, dog-days-of-summer kind of day. Yet, she wore a pastel crocheted hat and a denim jacket with a faux-fur lining that paled in comparison to her bright orange lipstick and crayon-drawn eyebrows.

First impressions? I loved her the minute I saw her. 

I got the feeling that she was "really something" in her day. I also got the feeling that this transaction, this handing over of her son's first guitar that had been warping in a closet for 60 years, was significant to her in ways I would never know. 

I believe with all of my heart that she actually dressed up to meet me in the back of a forgettable pharmacy parking lot racked with pebbly pot holes. I adored her for that honor. Me?

I got out of the car and approached her slowly as if greeting an unknown stray dog with bright eyes and a fancy orange collar. She looks pretty, but does she bite?

Before I could say hello, her shaky voice jumped to compliment the skeleton of a blonde guitar that lay in her hands. "Oh, this is a FINE one!"

Her frail but spunky frame nearly toppled to the ground from the slight shifting of balance necessary to spin it front to back and boast of the origin of each gaping crack, scratch, and warp. Yes, she knew it's hidden stories.

She graciously allowed me to help steady her elbow, but I was not to touch the guitar until she was good-and-ready!

I was still a stranger and she was still sniffing me out.

It was a very broken cherry with cracks so wide I could slip my fingers inside to inspect the integrity of the inner braces without even peering into the f-shaped sound holes. To her, it was a perfect prize---just like the memory of her 5-year-old the day he got it for his birthday 60 years ago.

She leaned forward and coarsely whispered, "I still care...that's why Iv'e kept it so long. I still remember how much he loved it when he was little. But, now he loves other things more and it's time I let go."

Her orange lips paused. Even her dark thick sunglasses could not hide the glint of water in her eyes.

Now I knew why she had said what she said on the phone earlier that week. Forthright and unapologetic, "This guitar is very special. I will meet with you, but I don't know...if...when I meet you, I will give it to you or not. I will have to decide when I meet you."

I did not ask at the time what that meant, but kindly agreed to the risk.

The truth now came to me in a swift download. She wanted to know by my eyes, not my voice, if I did or did not know that she was not talking about the guitar. "I still remember how much he loved it when he was little. But, now he loves other things more and it's time I let go..."

I did not blink or look away.

Her chin dropped a little as her shoulders straightened. 

"I have one request. And, if you agree to that request, I will give you this guitar." I felt a little like I was a dog and she was offering me a treat. She seemed to expected me to pant and wag my tail. I did my best.

The same weathered fingers that once brushed the hair out of her little boy's eyes and cleaned jelly off cherub cheeks slid down the fretboard as if playing a chord on the long-gone strings. Pointing to a tangled nest of scratches darkened by embedded dirt, she spoke aloud in fresh soft fury the name of her son, first and last.

"Whatever you do, please don't paint over his name."

On his long-ago birthday, he had pulled out his pocket knife and carved his name, first and last, into the left wooden shoulder of the new instrument. "I was so mad at him!", she laughed. "I got on his case more than I should have! It was just his happiness that carved his name, not his mischief."

I assured her that I am a mother, too, and I understand such things. She believed.

In the fullest moment of her belief, with a quick "now or never" jolt, the withered and cracked guitar bones were thrust in my direction.

Before she drove away, I offered to send her pictures when the surface artwork was finished. She kindly declined in favor of remembering it "how it was."

------

"He will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing." ---Zephaniah 3:17

*Look carefully at the one blonde leaf at the top left shoulder. The little boy's name remains. This one leaf was left as the original surface of the guitar while the entire design of the artwork was orchestrated to preserve his name and mimic the currents of the seafaring songs this little boy once played and sang...before his dream of becoming a Navy Seal became reality. Titled, "The Heart of the Sea".