Two minutes

My heart quickens as the organizer tells me it’s my turn. I am in a music bar right now, and I’m next to play. I take my guitar out of its case and make my way to the stage. I start to doubt if I really want to do this as I start climbing the three small steps up to the platform.

It is my first time playing in front of other people in a long time. The last couple of years I had deprioritized playing guitar; life had gotten in the way, but being honest, I had not found time for it. I did have time, but I had not found it.

The stage envelopes me as I walk to its center, slowly observing the black walls, judging me with its echoes. I think about when I was fourteen years old learning English in Ireland for a month when I decided I wanted to play guitar. The atmosphere in Galway, the live music, the record stores and the street musicians had made life easy to walk in. On the final day of the program, there was a small concert where a local guy played some covers of famous rock songs. A friend of mine, who was a great guitar player at a young age, better then than I am now, went up on stage and played a Green Day song. After the concert and everyone was leaving, I got on stage with him and he let me put his electric guitar on and showed me how to grab it correctly.

Back then, it had felt heavy on my shoulders. As I position myself in a small stool and plug my now acoustic guitar in an amp, I consider how the guitar feels light now, or perhaps not light, just perfectly balanced.

I adjust the mic close to me, looking at the audience that, although it is not full, is more crowded than I expected when I decided to sign up for this event. My hands tremble slightly, so I direct them to the headstock to retune the strings, even though I know they are perfectly tuned. I look at my guitar: ample, gorgeous, clad in a beautiful brown gradient, with an almost-black in the edges to an almost-yellow in the sound hole, creating even there another scale.

I remember it was the last guitar I bought, but it also was the first one I bought with my own money, as I had used a big part of my first ever salary after university to buy it in a trying time. This guitar, my loyal partner, has been with me through good times and bad experiences, thousands of kilometers and even more mistakes, always making sure everything is alright.

My fingertips feel what once would have been rough but now it is familiar as I caress its neck and lightly strum a chord. The bronze-like smell that the strings leave impregnated on my fingers fills me with a sense of familiarity I never thought possible at this moment.

I gently adjust the mic to bring it closer to me, loosely wondering if I should just start humming badly, as I did when I was two years old and first discovered music, as my parents repeatedly but loveably remind me. As a non-native English speaker I could not have said a single word correctly, but the happiness this perhaps made-up memory brings me is unmatched by the nervousness I felt less than two minutes ago.

I am quite proud of the new song I am about to play. Unlike the first time I ever tried to write a song, and all the following ones when I clumsily wrote some lyrics on my phone, I thoroughly enjoy this song. I have written many bad songs, some okay ones and some terrible ones. Some we composed together with the short-lived band I tried to form years ago. All of these have come in different moments of my life, and have helped me express myself and communicate with others better than I ever could have on my own.

I smile briefly as I think that all these songs, even if I did not like them, or I did not share them, are a part of me, and have helped me become who I am now. I look up and picture my old Irish friend smiling supportively, sitting next to my parents who are holding a young version of me, looking all around the bar in unmatched happiness.

I hear the organizer introducing my name. I position my steady hands on top of the strings, I take a deep breath and start to play.