Norwegian Wood

I fell in love on Sunday. Well, not love, but a deep infatuation, and I can’t stop thinking about it. Dale’s ok with it, even encouraging me to pursue it. In fact, he was the reason we met.

We took a drive, to a small guitar shop in a nearby town. A largely unimpressive collection, until I looked a little deeper on the wall. Ooh, that’s a 12-string. Ooh, that’s a Yamaha 12-string, like the one played by my guitar god. I picked it up. It was a mess. The strings were really loose, and it needed to be cleaned. I sat down with it and began to try to tune it. Surprisingly, it had a lovely mellow sound, and it felt comfortable in my hands as I worked the strings. I always thought a 12-string would be beyond my capabilities (which are still very limited at this point), but this was easy to play.

The more I held on to this guitar, the more it became MY guitar. At least I think it is. As I started tuning, I thought about what it would be like to take it home, care for it, show it some love and affection? My gut tells me, knowing the community this shop is located in, that someone sold this instrument for drugs, after it had languished in the corner for too long. I also realized, mid-tuning, it was missing one of the B strings. I sadly put it back on the wall, but in doing that, I caught the price tag. Short money for a 12-string. I would need to re-string it. I kept going back and looking at it. Dale, in his usual style, kept trying to give me reasons why I should buy it. I, in my typical style, kept thinking of reasons not to buy it. I have a lot of social expenses in the next few weeks, and I need to get back into graduate school. So we left, not without noting the layaway plan listed by the register.

But I keep thinking about this guitar.

Would I take this guitar home, work on it as it needed, then abandon it to sit next to its 6-stringed cousin currently in my living room? Or would this guitar be the instrument that would finally make me play more? I have always loved the sound of a 12-string, but newer ones I’ve found hard to fret. This one isn’t at all.

So, dear readers, what should I do?