Singing

Here's next month's entry for the Sun's Readers Write.

I was eight or nine, with a friend in her room, playing Monopoly, a Belinda Carlise tape playing in the background, when I discovered I sang terribly. It was the 80s and before I could distinguish great music from popular music and I loved Belinda Carlisle, and even more I loved her song “Heaven is a Place on Earth.” When that track came on, I belted out the lyrics and imitated Belinda Carlisle from her ultra-dramatic video performance.

My friend got antsy all of sudden, shifting and looking up at me several times in irritated glances. After a minute or so, she looked straight at me, her round, clear blue eyes boring into me, and said, “Mandie, could you stop singing? I’m trying to enjoy the song and you have a terrible voice.”

It felt like she’d hurled a brick into my chest and my eyes prickled with tears. Ever the pleaser, I swallowed hard, and apologized. And I never forgot that I couldn’t sing.

Yet, when it came time to pick electives for junior high, I saw “choir” and checked the box. I remember thinking, I’ll sing really low so no one discovers my terrible voice and if the song is really hard, I’ll just mouth the words. I stayed in school choirs for the next four years. I loved the music, the way each part had a role to play, how the altos had to set the harmony, the sopranos kept the melody going, while the tenors and basses added depth and richness. I was thrilled when we’d come together and sound like one voice. Singing, just being around singers, soothed me, made me feel at home in my body and comfortable with my peers, such a precious thing in adolescence.

In high school, my choir teacher realized I was faking it, and talked with me about it. I was so embarrassed I’d been found out, that I didn’t sign up for choir the next semester, even though every time I passed by the choir room, my heart swelled with longing.

But some things have a way of choosing you and you can't ever escape.

A few weeks ago, I held a live mic in my hand, opened my mouth, sang, and it was good. For a few minutes, music lifted me from nervous self-absorption into its ancient arms, and poured through me like a sieve. There was this moment, just after I’d closed the song and just before anxiety about my performance fell back into it’s familiar groove, that the enormity of what I’d just accomplished was suspended on my voice teacher’s face and I knew, without any trace of ego to take it away, that I’d sounded, actually, quite beautiful. To the wounded nine-year old who wrapped herself around my vocal cords the day she demanded I stop my offensive singing, I say, “Oh honey, what a load of shit that was. Stop letting her hold you back from sharing that fabulous voice of yours.”