Sami-Di

When I was seven, my mother gave me a diary for my birthday. It was one of those little fabric bound, floral print books with a little bronze lock and key, the words “My Diary” embossed on the front in gold script. From the first day I opened it, I felt I’d found a new friend. When it was filled, I got another, then another and always another until this day. I write in it what seems like all the time... stream of consciousness, stories, poems and of course songs... whatever my thoughts and feelings create.

I don’t write every day, or even every other day, or every week. There isn’t any pattern to my entries. Sometimes I write every day for a month, sometimes not at all for three months. The only common thread is that every time I write, something compels me. Something is inside that needs to get out. I suppose that I could speak to a friend, but I’ve never felt that anyone would understand as well as I understand myself. Besides, before I take things to another person, I always like to sort it out the best I can with that friend I always find somewhere between the pen and the page. So, I write. I write, so that I don’t get sick with the things that build up inside me. There have even been times when I’ve woken up in the middle of the night because some idea won’t let me sleep. I’ve written songs on business cards, napkins, even my hand so that the ideas won’t drift away. One day I even pulled over on the freeway and wrote a song on the back of a check stub and hummed the melody into the voice recorder on my cell phone.

When I was sixteen, I met a woman who played the guitar. I was fascinated by what she was able to do with that instrument. I’d played many instruments in my life but they were always the ones that my parents and teachers suggested for me. This was the first time that I really wanted to play something. I’d talk to her about it, ask her to show me things. Then, one day she came to me with a guitar case. She opened it and inside was an old classical acoustic guitar. She told me that she was given the guitar when she was sixteen and that it could be mine with the promise that I would play it... not “let it collect dust.”

I’d finally found a way in which the true heart of my stories could be conveyed and I had a medium through which I could share them with whomever cared to listen.

~CIAO
Sami-Di