This is kind of a weird story, as inspiration to play has always been extremely easy for me to find.
My Guilds inspired me to play again. Something I never thought would happen.
I have a bad ulnar nerve in my left arm that has caused the heel of my left hand and the little finger to go numb, and the ring finger to go half-numb. The numbness came on very gradually, but it first began around 10 years ago.
Eventually, I couldn't feel the string at all in my little finger, and so the finger couldn't feel the string pressing on a fret. If I pushed it down hard enough to feel the string, it shot some sharp pain into the fingertip. The ring finger isn't as bad, but it's similar.
After playing for 60 years, my little finger still tries to go where it's supposed to out of sheer muscle memory.
When the finger can't feel the string and fret, it tends to go spastic and then cramps up.
It was very vexing, and very frustrating, and for about 4 years, I thought the numbness was a circulation problem.
I caught Covid twice, and I'm a long-hauler now. When I went to a doctor last year he checked my heart and said it's ok; when I asked him about my hand, he said it was the nerve, so he sent me to a specialist.
The upshot is complicated, but my lungs have to be in better shape before I can undergo the nerve operation that will cure the numbness. I've been in serious pulmonary therapy for 10 months now that's working, but it's very slow. The doc said to expect a full year of rehab or more.
Oddly, that lung therapy has helped my left hand's numbness a bit. I could only play for a couple of minutes last summer, but lately, I can play my Guilds for over an hour or more.
I am mostly playing the D-60 I bought after my fingers went numb. It was really a speculative purchase for me; I really wanted it as a guitar that would inspire me to get well enough to play it, but if that didn't happen, I thought it would be a good guitar for a future sale that would be profitable as a collector's guitar.
I had some setup work done on it as soon as it arrived, with a set of light-gauge strings, and now I'm playing slow and very rusty, but it sure is satisfying. Especially since all I could do was hold it and look at it after I bought it.
My little finger has just enough sensation that it isn't spastic, but it's still rather painful to use. So I'm trying to imitate Django Reinhart's way of fingering until my fingers are better.
It's very gratifying for me to hear my D-60 at last, doing what it was made to do. I've always bought guitars to play, never just to look at.
I never thought much about my playing ability, but once it was gone, the loss was really frustrating and added to my depression.
All is well in my world if I can make a little music once in a while on a magnificent guitar that I haven't experienced before.
