The Ukulele Saves Mori

Mori had played instruments before. There was her dedication to the clarinet all throughout middle school and high school. Where she played for competitions and learned to play classical and swing music. Then there were a brief few months in the winter of 2012, where she joined the winter percussion program at her school. Mori didn’t try too hard at tryouts and ended up playing the bells and chimes for the program. To her, it didn’t matter if she was the star of the show on the marimba, she just loved to play music and have fun. 

When she graduated from high school and moved on to college she took her clarinet with her. Unable to really play because she didn’t want to disturb her two roommates in the crowded dorm. Let alone annoy the other freshmen next door. For any time she played, someone would crack the joke, ‘can you play a little bit... better Squidward.’ Although this reference to Spongebob was one of her favorites, it could get on her nerves. Soon the desire to play faded out and was replaced with the responsibilities of a hard degree in Biomedical Science. Along with her commitment to community service at the club, she joined on campus. Therefore, the clarinet sat in her case unplayed and almost forgotten.

During Mori’s junior year of college, she was in a funk. Which would later be described by her diagnosis of bipolar disorder and anxiety. During this year, hard classes were stacking up and she pulled through but was racked by depression and drinking too much to ease the pain. She took Organic Chemistry both semesters that year and it was rough. It was as if the contents of the courses were like a second language and she could not crack the code. No matter how many hours of studying she put in. 

One day she had been working on her wall of paper flowers and the mood struck her to play some music. Mori walked over to the closet and picked the clarinet case off of the shelf. The clarinet was not in the best condition, it needed to be cleaned and cared for. Something she had let fall by the wayside when she came to the university. Yet she put it together and wetted the reed to put on the mouthpiece in order to play. Now, she had not played for quite some time and the sound that came out of the bell was a strained C note. Her lungs stung as she tried to play the instrument she had loved all those years. She came to the conclusion that her asthma was preventing her from being able to play like she used to. Another issue was that the elevation was nearly 7,000 feet at her mountainous university. 

Years went by after that until her last year at college, for she had added a second degree and was there for a total of six years. Mori was in desperate need of money, the tutoring job and her financial aid were just not enough to pay all the bills. With a labored sigh, she handed her beloved instrument over to the man at the counter at the Bookmans Bookstore. Where they bought and resold all kinds of entertainment equipment. It was an unfortunate reality that she had to face, that at that time no matter how much effort she put in, it was not enough to keep some of her favorite possessions. 

At the same bookstore, her abusive ex-fiancee bought her a ukulele. She was always doing that kind of thing. Saying we didn’t have money then all of the sudden splurge, it drove Mori nuts at times. The ukulele sat on its stand unplayed due to the distractions of life. Mori had a seizure about a month after the instrument was bought. She was also too busy with school, work, and contending with a psychological abuser every day of her life. One morning Mori headed down the stairs of the townhouse apartment she was living in to go and feed the dog. She looked upon the ukulele and noticed that it was broken. Nothing had been done to it, it had just been waiting on the counter for someone to pick it up and play it. The return policy was of course out of date by just a few days. Money spent down the drain again. 

A little over a year after the ukulele was found broken, Mori went to a music shop and found herself a beautiful purple ukulele. At this point in time, she had been through two suicide attempts following her marriage to the abuser not happening. When she went into that shop with her newfound friend, she played the ukulele for the first time and decided she was going to get it for herself. After that, she spent time learning the chords and trying to learn some popular ukulele songs. For music was healing for her and playing kept her mind off the pain she had endured. 

Come the time of the COVID-19 quarantine, Mori found herself unemployed again and going down the dark paths of both mania and depression. Then, when she picked up her ukulele during these dark times, all the heavy pain dripped away through her fingers as she strummed out the notes to the song “House of the Rising Sun,” by The Animals. The first song where she was able to put both the music and the lyrics together. She made a video of this and sent it to a select few and serenaded a beautiful woman she had been out with a few times before the pandemic. 

Mori continues today to learn the intricate chords, and complicated strumming patterns of the ukulele. Using the beautiful island sound of the strings to wash away her struggles. Someday she hopes to learn enough songs and maybe make up her own and perform them for the enjoyment of her friends and family she was once cut off from by her abusive ex-fiancee. A way to help heal all of those who have been impacted by the virus as she has.