I started playing guitar when I was nine years old and became totally infatuated. Something about the feeling of the steel strings underneath my fingers, each note resonating through the hollow wood body and into my ears. When I’m playing guitar, I feel a type of inner and outer harmony. Every sensory worry and distress melts away as it’s replaced with the music I’m playing. The sound, the feel, the smell of the wood, the sight of looking down and feeling in control of expressing myself. I have trouble filtering out the sensory stimuli of the world, but not as much when I’m playing my guitar.
My parents could never seem to understand why I was able to handle the noise of playing an instrument, but struggled to listen to the radio or TV above a certain volume. I thought about it for a while and realized it was a sensation of not being in control of overwhelming stimuli, which made it even more overwhelming. But I am the one creating the sound with the guitar; every note, every chord, it’s all played by me. Instead of the sensory stimuli of my environment feeling like an uncontrollable wave crashing towards me, I feel like I am surfing the wave. You can’t control the tides of the ocean, but you can change how you interact with the waves.
~Anonymous Writer
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