Mule Resophonic Guitars

I got this email from Teresa Dopyera, the grand daughter of one of the inventors of the resonator guitar, three years ago on Christmas Eve. I saw the last name on the contact form and I honestly gasped. The timing was cosmically perfect- I was sitting in my parked car listening to my Classic Christmas playlist trying to shake off a string of challenges and I wasn’t doing a great job of it. I was pulling on my muddy boot straps but when I pulled one foot out the other one sank in. Then Teresa, this woman I didn’t know existed, got on my website, found the contact form, and pulled me out one handed.

“Joy and kindness.” Giving. I asked a relative of mine - one of the most awesome people on the planet and someone who’s endured more suffering than anyone I know-what helped her the most. She said, “thinking about other people.” When she was having difficulty helping herself she helped others and got both.

We don’t hear a lot about that these days do we? This hyper independence and virtuous sounding selfishness we’ve created whole vocabularies for is pretty strange considering the efficacy of a really stellar hug, or how reaching a compromise can make a situation better than it was because I don’t actually know everything, or how trusting our own thoughts and feelings less opens our eyes to give grace to ourselves and the people around us.

Teresa did that and it’s the first message on a print out of 55 pages of heartfelt responses from customers-turned-friends that I read through when things are challenging and I need to be reminded that I’m not the only one who needs help out of the mud.

-Matt