Forgotten Hobbies by Gage Smith (Rough Draft)
Memories hold a special spot in our hearts and minds. The junk we attach to those memories seems only to take up all our physical space. Without regular tidying, the mental space will become cluttered and disorganized. It is not long until what is easy to recall is as overlooked as the forgettable memories packed away.
When the time came for Tom to begin his cleaning and tidying of the garage, he grabbed trash bags and boxes and slowly yet intentionally began to organize everything into neat piles. These piles corresponded to donation, trash, and keepsakes. Golf clubs, boots, tools, tents and lawn chairs, all with their own attached memories held space in Tom’s garage, even when their corresponding memories have long left his heart and mind.
Laboring, Tom lifted and shifted each item into its appropriate pile. First, the gardening tools that had seen many hours in the weeds and dirt but now began to rust in disuse. These moved, almost of their own accord into the trash. The tents and chairs that once held warm bodies on seasonal camping trips now only hold dust. Without holes or tears, Tom slowly moved each tent and chair to the donation pile, to be carried out and delivered by his son to the local thrift shop.
The garage echoed the quiet that surrounded Tom’s heavy breathing. Once, long ago, these tasks would not have winded him. As he stood and surveyed the other junk throughout the room, taking mental notes of each item’s future pile, his eyes touched an old leather case. His eyes danced away and back to work at hand.
Next, the generations of work boots lining the upper shelving. Trash. His toolchest would go to his son’s home where it may remain unopened, but at least it was gone from his space and his memories. Old winter coats, with careful cleaning were donations. Some carefully picked Christmas decorations, yet only a few, he would carry inside to keep.
Between each designation of keepsakes, thrifts, and trash, his eyes darted back continuously to the case. He wouldn’t look yet worn leather and rusty latches drew his magnetic eyes. Beneath the case’s molded shape, he could sense the instrument’s head, neck, and body. A crafted piece that held, not only its tempting physical space, but his memories – painful memories. The memories would be better held within the worn, leather case than in his heart, or worse lost. The case would remain sealed and still, not trash or donation, but disregarded.
His eyes were not his only function drawn to the case, but his legs and arms. As he considered the beauty, he reached out only to touch it, to feel the dusty leather and the strength of its latches. It fought to open itself, held only by time and Tom’s persistent willpower. He couldn’t. He shouldn’t.
Resting on a nearby stool, the silence echoed under his recovering breath. Only now did he realize the captivity of the guitar case. Reaching, he pulled the case closer and gently rested it upon a bare section of floor. With the lid facing up, all that was left was to flip the latches and lift the case’s lid to reveal its mysteries.
His breath held as he leaned over to feel the abrasive, thin metal of the latch. The years were present not only upon the worn, dusty leather but in the rust and grime of each latch beneath his eyes and fingers. Silence became snaps that filled the whole quiet garage as each latch surrendered to his thick hand. Without lifting the lid, Tom sat straight catching his breath, looking guiltily around the garage. But of course, there was no one to gaze into the case with him.
Stooping again, the lid began to rise upon its hinges to stand as a tomb for his dead memories. He was first transfixed by the fur-lined inner walls and lid. This deep red held his attention in a place untouched by eyes, moisture, or hands in many long years.
Then with a precise movement of his eyes, he peered at the guitar lying docile and snug within the case he sought to avoid. Tears would not come now, only a clenched jaw and furrowed brow. The back of his rough hand brushed gingerly along the dark strings before nestling familiarly under the neck. With seasoned strength, the guitar emerged from its enclosure and held Tom’s steady gaze at the edge of arm’s length. Then, from enclosure to the guitar’s home, it rested neatly on Tom’s stool-supported knee.
“Well, hello,” Tom whispered gently, not wanting to frighten a memory back into hiding.
The wood and strings remained silent in reply, waiting in eager expectation as Tom stared down with earnest intent. His hands secured the instrument with care as a seasoned midwife with a newborn child.
He avoided the strings but nestled the neck and body upon him. The wood feeling his short, labored breaths of anticipation as he held tight and firm. Upon his knee, against his torso, the guitar huddled into deeper comfort.
With slow, deliberate motion, Tom found the strings beneath the fingers of both his hands. Grime and rust were the patchwork across the strings. The neck was aged naturally by oil of hands from long ago. The old guitar found comfort in Tom’s seasoned hands as he set his left hand in a familiar shape and his right poised confidently above the sound hole, ready to strike.
Tom did not strike but slowly plucked each string carefully with his thumb. No song rang out from his hands, but a raspy cough emerged from the tired strings. The aged nickel that once produced confident pitch now could only muffle a slight tone similar to Tom’s raspy voice, seasoned in the long years. But he did not sing or hum. He only listened as the first dull notes from his thumb fought each other in their dissonance.
Without thought, Tom reached to tune. Plucking each string gently, the strings could notfind perfect tune but as close as the aged instrument would allow. He tested his familiar chord by another careful strum of each note.
The major lift rises,
Filling the quiet air,
The silence recedes,
As the empty is now filled.
As the strummed notes failed, the empty silence returns, filled by shuddering breath. His hands shake in pain, from pressure and remembrance. He needs to leave, get back to work, but he’s transfixed and failing to move.
His hands return, muscles working without his mind as he strikes yet another chord, this time with practiced precision of a man who is talking with an old friend. The dull sound once again fills the air as he plays, blending rhythm and melody with harmony and bass.
Floating and sinking toward his ears,
The gentle piercing appears.
Triumph, stomps and rings,
The melody travels amidst the things.
The pain within his aged fingers sets his memories drifting. He remembers his father, the craft, and the song but he can’t stop playing. In a moment, it all returns, and he stands beneath the focused beams singing once again with his father. They know the song well and their voices blend. His father’s, a sturdy baritone and his own is a youthful tenor. They sing.
His ancient memories continue to return turning his world around. Not the strongest memories return yet, but the earliest. He is a boy, and his mother and father gather him around the den of their tiny house to sing. It is a sweet song, one that he is still learning, but it comes quickly.
Voices in song fill the room,
One a whisper, another a boom,
The third a mumble,
Not lost but stumbling through.
As his seasoned hands and aching fingers glide through a very old, almost forgotten song. He remembers and stumbles through the piece, but of course he would stumble, it has been many tiring years. Up and down the melody treads as he remembers sitting before a small, yet supportive room. His first recital. He rehearsed for weeks and like this day many years later, he stumbles through. Frustration lurks beneath the surface, only abated by the smile of his mother and father sitting front and center.
Grins are beaming,
Lights receding,
The spotlight shines,
From gentle smiles.
The first strong memory returns as the song, his song, speaks forth from the guitar. He caught a spark of it before, but now he sits beneath the lights with his father. Everyone sitting in the darkened room sings the gentle song along with he and his father. They know every word, just as father and son know each and every note intimately. They play and they sing, their voices now blending harmoniously above the voices around the hall. He spends this memory looking at his father intently. The grey in his hair a sheen under the incandescent bulbs. His short-croppedbeard an inspiration to his youthful face. They sing and he remembers.
On that same stage, he looks away from his father to the crowd following their song. In the crowd, he is struck by an illuminated face, a beautiful glow. Her eyes lightly dance from his guitar to his dexterous hands, and finally to Tom’s eyes. Those dexterous hands falter, and he must leave her gaze if he can save the rhythm. His mind and body drift back into the music alongside his father, but a self-directed frustration stirs deep within him at the thought of her seeing him fumble.
A perfect rhythm and melody,
Is not unheard but rare.
The powerful and the weak,
Blending thicker than the air.
The strongest memory of all to return to Tom in that musical garage is from his wedding. The girl in the cramped concert hall had seen him play countless times and now she finally is becoming his wife. Surrounded by friends and family, dressed in pure white and stark black, they dance. Tom’s father sits nearby, not cheering, but playing the song of his memory to accompany their steps and sways. The music rises with love into the air above them, holding them close.
Not long after this memory, the harmony thickens as three generations sing in the smallfamily den. Tom sits on stool near with wife with his weathered guitar between two generations of singers, his parents and his sons. The song of their family has never sounded so full and so intimate.
A room filled by voices finds the space,
Throughout and within its subtle grace,
To hold a mumble, a boom, and a whisper,
Each new familiar tone added in the glimmer.
Tom, seated in his garage, strikes a minor chord and the memories shift. The memories that rose above in excitement sink deep into grief. His father lay on his back with eyes shut in his best Sunday suit, his last suit. Tom should have sang for him. He should have offered the family one more grieving melody, but he could not. He was done and his guitar put neatly away, never to be approached again. A part of him was lost, not only his father, but their song. His calluses would fade, and his dexterous muscles would wane, but the pain would remain ever present.
Tom cannot release this diminished melody hovering above his minor chord. His memories spiral and spiral, deeper to deeper into painful places better kept stored away. The loss of family and collection of years. Debt and bills lurked around each corner. Sickness and frailty came and went, all without song. He is lost in an avalanche of recollection, trapped deep in the agonizing memories that were once clasped away in an old guitar case unable to–
Rest.
In an instant, he is back in the disorganized garage, surrounded by clutter and silence. No song, only his gentle sobs. The song has faded before closure and Tom cries quietly to fill the empty silence around him.
Rest.
As tears patter to darken the concrete floor, a single plucked note emerges from the guitar. Tom looks to his hands as they pick up the song with trepidation and caution. Slowly with pained care, more notes emerge muffled and strained.
There was a funeral today.
Without music, the house remains quiet. The clutter around his garage is shouting, fighting for his attention but never heard above the quiet notes of his song. In the house, her clothes in closet and pictures throughout the house will shout for him, but his head will stay lowered when he returns inside. He is lost in the pain of his fingertips and joints, and he sinks deeper into the grief brought by loss. A minor chord has never struck tragedy as this.
He did not play today at the service, but his son played the song all too familiar. Tom’s pained and weathered hands continue to pluck it now lightly, building momentum and volume as the song builds to its climax. His hands move and stumble, pushing firmly upon the aged strings.When a string snaps, the song is ruined, and snaps him back into present reality.
Upon his stool, he sits shocked and dazed, staring at the broken string loosely hanging in two tightly coiled segments. He should have known the old strings could not stand such stress. There was too much rust. An old frustration awakes in him, brought on by the broken string and painful ending to his song.
He shouts. Muscles tense and veins bulge. In a swift, angered movement, the old guitar is hurled through the air to the firm concrete wall of the garage. No melody or harmony escapes the guitar, only a singular rhythm of cracking and busting wood.
He must again look away, tears never ceasing from before. He stands to survey the splintering remains of his old friend. His approaching steps are labored, slow, and painful. Standing above it now, it looks like nothing but driftwood, perhaps ancient wreckage of a powerful ship drying slowly in sunlight or another long unfinished project scattered to the garage floor. Through his tears he notes that this shattered instrument will never hold a song deep within itself ever again.
And at the death of his final friend, he sinks to the floor to weep, leaving cluttered memories in the silence to cradle him.