Guitar Repair Woman

My mother told me, If you ever become a rock star, don’t smash the guitar. There are too many other poor kids out there who have nothing, Buddy, and they see that shit, when all they wanna do is play that thing. Boy, you better let them play.

Okay, if she ever starts in on one of these lectures your best bet is to pull up a chair, chief, 'cause Mama don’t deal in the abridged version.

She worries about me so much some days it's like watching windshield wipers on high speed during a very light sprinkle, and I gotta tell her, Mom, you are making me nervous. She was born to be laid back, y'all, I swear. But some of us—

Some of us were brought up in households where carefree is just a stick of gum, or a panty liner, and the only option for getting out is to walk faster. The woman can run. In high heels. Backwards. While double checking my homework, rolling enough pennies to make sure I have lunch money, making a room full of quarreling kids literally hold their tongues, and preparing for a meeting at my school on her only day off so she can tell Mrs. Goss, the music teacher, If you ever touch my boy again, big lady, I’ll bounce a hammer off your fingers.

I remember her doing these things swiftly and with a smile, in discounted thrift store business suits that she wore just bright and distinguished enough to cover up thirty years of highway scars trucking through her spine. There is a reason the lines leave spaces. It's best to let her pass. Some accidents you don’t need to see, rubbernecker. Keep moving. Because she made it. She’s alive and she’s famous. Just ask the little league. My birthday. The church. In concert: Her Royal Bubble-Burster with the visionary affirmation maker and multitasker toggle switch. Long-winded answer factory? You've come to the right porch. Let her finish.

We can stretch Van Gogh paintings on billboards from Kilgore, Texas, up to Binghamton, New York, over to Seattle, Washington, and back. And you still won’t find the brilliant brush strokes it takes to be a single mother sacrificing the best part of her dreams to raise a baby boy who, on most days, she probably wants to strangle.

We disagree. A lot. For instance, Mom still thinks it’s okay to carry on a conversation, full-throttle, at seven in the morning like we were packing for a hurricane. Whereas I think… Oh wait, I'm sorry! I don’t think at seven in the morning!

But we both agree that love, y'all... Love makes no mistakes. So, at night time, when she’s winding down, and I’m still writing books about how to get comfortable in this skin she gave me, sweaty as it may be, I see rock stars on stages smashing guitars. And it is then when I wanna find them a comfortable chair, get them a snack, and introduce them to daylight—

Y'all, this is my mother: Tresa B. Olsen. Runner of the Tight Shift. Taker of the Temperature. Leaver of the Light On. Lover of the Underdog. Mover of the Mountain. Winner of the Good Life. Keeper of the Hope Chest. Guitar Repair Woman.

And I am her son, Buddy Wakefield. I play a tricked-out electric pen, thanks to the makers of music and metaphor, but I do my best to keep the words in check, and I use a padded microphone so I don’t hurt you, because, sometimes, I smash things. And I don’t ever wanna let her down.