Patty Mayeux Blog

I am thankful for the smiling faces that fill my screen for morning writing times and evening class times. Unlike most people, I am not so over zoom. Virtual meeting spaces are where I hang with like-minded folks. Last week, a handful of us listened, wrote and shared words in a generative writing class. Below is a sample of fresh writing in response to a prompt: objects have histories. Six minutes and a blank page stared me down until I saw my guitar. This is only an exercise, not a complete story. Perhaps it’s a germ placed in fertile soil. Isn’t that where all stories begin?

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There’s a scratch on my guitar. I didn’t put it there. I never play it. It hangs on a stand in the corner of my bedroom. At night it whispers, play me, play me. But I don’t know how. I was not the musical one, my nose always in a book so I could pretend to be someone I was not. I traded joy for stability, excitement for security, freedom for safety. 

The scratch is from my sister’s bangle bracelet. She liked the way it kissed the rosewood when she strummed or tapped echoes of percussion when she picked. My sister playing her guitar was the soundtrack to my childhood. Until it bumped and bruised like a record with a bad skip. The melody was off, the rhythm gone awry. Mere annoyances at first until there was only silence. The music stopped the day my sister died. Still, her guitar, now mine, whispers play me, play me. 

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