I took a break from blogging yesterday. I'm still trying to adjust to this routine, and I haven't kept a journal or diary in many years. And when I did, the entries put ME to sleep, so I obviously am no great diarist. Yesterday I spent my valuable time walking, as it was unseasonably warm and sunny and reading a thriller about a huge saber toothed tiger that is unfrozen in the arctic and starts to eat the scientists. It's very intellectual. Then I watched a bit of Antique Road Show and also part of Big Brown Eyes with Cary Grant and Joan Bennett. I had a long phone conversation with a friend, and went to bed. I lead a very exciting life. But every night, listening to the frogs in the creek makes me so delighted to be alive, that I suspend judgment on myself. I don't think judgment gets anyone very far, and I've given myself permission to deactivate the practice. Thus I no longer do an overview of the day in my head, because the day had billions of tiny moments that cannot be summed up, and labeling is unhealthy. Instead, I marvel at another day on earth. I'm still here.
Today I'm going to my voice lesson. When I was a kid I loved to sing, and was in school choruses and church choirs until I graduated from high school. I went to music camp in the summers. When I was a senior, I auditioned for a part in Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial By Jury (our high school was 5,000 students), and to the shock of my chorus director, I won the lead. He had brought in an outside conductor to make the casting choices, but he favored his star sopranos, who all had private voice lessons and encouragement from him. I was an alto, so Angelina wasn't even supposed to be in my singing range. Also, I think he was annoyed that I was dating one of his twin sons. He was also the director of our church choir, but he'd ignored me right along. I was pretty stunned myself to win the lead, and my parents didn't know what to do, and how to help me prepare, so at the first rehearsal the director blasted me in front of everyone because I didn't have the songs perfectly, and said one his favorites was my understudy and she was going to get the lead one night and me the other. I didn't understand I needed a temporary voice coach. I carried that wound with me and never sang in public again. Until four years ago, when I sang in a chorus for over 50's, and loved it. Now I have just begun private lessons with that director, after doing group lessons for three years. I'm loving it. Right now I'm singing When I Fall in Love, Why Can't You Behave, Brush Up Your Shakespeare, I Hope I don't Fall in Love With You and The Book of Love. It feels great.
When we're young we let people tell us who we are and evaluate us. Now I look back and could kick myself for letting an incident like that take me away from something I loved. My inner core wasn't strong enough, I guess, but ain't life grand? It's never too late to fix most things. Oh, okay, I may not rival Celine Dion, but I never wanted to be a singer, singer, I just wanted to keep getting better. I still sang every day, and to all four kids and now to my granddaughters. And belting out "She'll Be Comin Round The Mountain" feels liberating. Hi, Babe, Whoa Back, Scratch, Scratch, Yum, Yum, Toot Toot!
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