Smashed

Yes, this happened. My beloved SRG (chuckspraylutherie.com). Smashed. It has been my constant companion, my inspiration, my toolbox since it was built for me in 1983.

Sometimes things get smashed. For absolutely no reason—except perhaps momentum, or inertia, or the interaction between the two. The damage is a gut punch so stunning that it has no place in the heart or the mind—only in some far-away protected place of the soul.

Grit and grace, chance and choice. Use the voice. There is always another tool—create, create, create.

Try singing this, or just tap your foot while you read it out loud. Better yet, make your own phrases and use them. TASTE the vowels, KICK the consonants:

Plants and water

rhythm and melody

sing you through.

Access to

Plants and water

time to

privilege pursue,

purview

No talk now of phoenix or dark grey ash. It is time for tracking—it is the Pitch Black Bushwhack. Grit, grace; chance choice, voice. I am forever looking for cairns, and I will let you know. Please let me know if you find any.

Always, always something else happens: The Snake River Guitar, smashed and splintered, is currently on the luthier’s table waiting for some kind of resurrection. She faces a new epoch. Once, long ago, the same guitar floated down the Pemigewasset river in the trunk of my car. A luthier with a canoe saved her. She went on to become one of the finest sounding guitars anywhere—somehow enhanced by her swim in the river. Grit and grace, choice and chance. Momentum? Inertia? The interplay between?