15 (meant for storytelling event)

(Make that sha sha sha backward guitar intro, then point)

When I hear the beginning of Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced, I am transported back to 15. That’s not a place I like to visit often, but since Jimi’s taking me there, I go.

When I was 15 I had a crush on a guitar-playin’ boy from Westfield. He loved Hendrix. I bought Are You Experienced to learn something about the boy. And partly so we’d have something to talk about and partly to be cool, but mostly to see if we liked the same things. The boy is inconsequential now, but, he’s still the boy who gave me Hendrix.

15 was the worst year of my life. I didn’t really think I was going to make it. I felt completely alone. Everything I wanted, I was told was wrong. And everything people wanted from me felt like a lie. I listened to Jimi. How did he do that? How did that young black man write a song for a future sad white girl? How do you be a virtuoso ground-breaking guitar-playing singing song-writing 20 something year old playing the National Anthem at Woodstock? And how can he also seduce 15 year old me from the grave? And why did he have to die young? And Lord, how do you be a person that people will discover and keep discovering as long as there are people, and maybe change people’s lives, maybe even save some, when you was just a guitar obsessed kid? A kid.

So when Jimi asked the question, then offered his hand to watch the sun rise from the bottom of the sea – I wanted to go. I knew I might drown. 15 sure felt like drowning. I was prepared to risk it for the chance I could be saved.

Maybe songs can save people. Maybe all the moments of beauty and connection save us all. You just gotta not drown.

Inconsequential boy also gave me little bit a Thin Lizzy. And honestly, “If that chick don’t wanna know, forget her”.