Wishing Well by Jason Kutchma

NEWPORT, OREGON

My wife works in global health. Her job requires month-long trips to Africa. In July '22, she was making one of those trips.

Though I miss her when she travels, it’s usually a good opportunity for me to work on projects that may bring her annoyance when she’s around: banging a hammer while remodeling a house, screaming into a microphone recording an album. It was time for the latter.

I had a slew of songs in the head but no recent time or energy to get them out because, for the previous six months, my focus was not on music but house and home work. After a five year stay in Idaho, we were moving farther west. I finished projects on our house, packed our beloved possessions in storage and sold the less loved remains. In June of that year, we left Idaho for an apartment in a small town on coast of Oregon.

Two weeks before her travel abroad, I experienced great discomfort in my left hand, my fretting hand, the one used to make chords on my guitar. I couldn’t press my thumb against the back of the neck without severe pain. I tried touching my thumb to my pinky and could advance no closer than four inches.

Other than absolute emergencies, I tend to troubleshoot and self-diagnose until either I get better or have my annual physical. In this case, I took some anti-inflammatory meds then bought a used cylindrical cooler, filled it with ice, and soaked my hand every few hours. I wore a brace in the intervening time.

I couldn’t recall any trauma or instance where I damaged the hand. Maybe it was due to overworking with the repairs on our house. Or maybe during the packing of our life into a box. Maybe it was from overplaying chords for the past few decades.

There was a whisper of depression in my mind, an admittance that perhaps music making days are over. I would fend the notion with positivity, that this instance of my hand is temporary. But then a wave of reality would wash over that notion, that the state of the human body is temporary, a peak of growth then a time long of degradation.

For a week, this is how my mind conversed with itself, vacillating between two opposing drastic possibilities. I had hope that my hand would get better but also entertained possible resignation. However, though the human body degrades, modern medicine advances. There was sadness thinking that my days of making music might be behind me but also pride in a past catalog. Back and forth. Back and forth. I wasn’t going to rush to any conclusion but it was tough not considering all future possibilities.

We were in a new town, our belongings were in storage. These songs were nagging.

I thought maybe I could rest my left hand and flesh the songs out using only my right hand on a keyboard. If the left hand does heal, at least I’ll have some demos and the songs will stop tapping and banging on that frontal lobe.

I went to thrift stores, looking for a keyboard. I found one, a gem from the late 80’s. Cheap too.

My wife went to Africa. I stayed in the apartment for a few weeks and had a blast, making music in a direction I've never tried.

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