Strumming on my Guitar while it Smiles

I find that there is some thing ethereal about music. Sometimes, I see the singer telling it as it is, like a story. It takes me on a place, a journey to somewhere foreign but also familiar.

I'm trying to learn how to play some songs I intend to play at camp but I'm stuck on a chord. It doesn't sound just right.

Ok, I'll be honest. I'm trying to play Baby by Justin Bieber. But its cuz I just remember the first time i heard it. From the mouths of first graders who are in adoration of the teen idol. they'd keep seeing 'baby baby baby noo'

Then the teacher would say "No more justin bieber!"

But then at the talent show, some middle schoolers, both girls, one stood and sang while the other strummed a ukelele. And I heard the song unfold.

And it brought me to a place where I was a young boy, enamored with this one girl. And that crush, that broken heart feeling that it could never be real only alive and ok in my mind.

I remember her magenta pink head band and her crooked teeth. How her grandma would pick her up from school walking her to the car as her hand clutched that pink Hello Kitty metal lunch pail that no one has anymore.

I recall messing up a print out on a computer and she said 'it's ok' with such a gentleness that was more out of courtesy but for me it was so intimate. I was a first grader then, but my feelings persisted.

One time, i went to the old library, when it was still open. And I hid behind a concrete column and saw her reading a book. I was in fourth grade mind you but she still looked the same.

Well, I guess Baby lyrics bring me to that sad song feeling when I'm poised in front of a mic, singing depressing pop songs like ' I'm With You' by Avril Lavrigne, "I Want It That Way' by the Backstreet Boys and ' On Bended Knee' by Boyz II Men on karaoke. The crowd cheers but in my heart, there's a place that reminds me that memory.

sigh.

I'll go strum up the guitar and lay down some riffs.

see ya in front of the mic.