MOOP!

I have stopped being afraid of singing.

I grew up in a house with singing. Singing is a big deal to my mom, who was in a band in college, and knows all the folk songs and musicals, and is now in a lovely choir full of wonderful people. When we drove places in the car, it was with music on --her music, not the radio-- and often there was singing along. Alys inherited this love of song, and the two of them would sing to and with each other, in proper key and harmony.

I...did not sing though, not particularly. I did not chase down chorus and musical theatre in high school, I did not hum snippets of old songs with mom as we went about our days, I did not SING. Because, you know, I could sing along with stuff and only mangle the melody a little bit, but that was about it. As I've put it for years, I can carry a tune in a bucket, but I can't do anything with it once its there. So I pretty much don't sing, or if I do, certainly not in front of other people and not anything other than girl scout songs (where volume counts more than talent).

And lately that's been changing. Because I realized sometime very recently --probably at NEFFA, when Tracy dragged me to the shapenote singing-- that I enjoy singing. No, I'm not exceptionally good at it, but why do I have to be? None of my other hobbies have "being good" as a pre-requisite for doing the things I love, so why must singing? And like so many other things I do, if I do it often, and observe the people who are better, and practice, and practice, and always practice...then I will get better.

It was like flipping a switch in my mind. Like us all, I am strange and fractured and neurotic, and being bad at something meant I shouldn't ever let others observe that fact --or if I did, it must be among apologies, and flippant disregard for the thing at which I am poor. Which is bullshit at best, and downright offensive at worse. But there I was, in the middle of a square of people, just letting my voice join theirs to make something beautiful. And I was happy, in the sort of wholesome honest way that tells oneself that this is a thing to be nurtured.

Since then, I've had much less consternation about sharing my voice. I sing when I am bicycling, snippets of popular songs or unpopular songs, or random things made up to match the moment. I croon my lullabies to babies (as I have always done, quiet and secretly) but now I do not hesitate so much should the parents catch me at it. I sing along with my music even when there are people I like sitting right there. I only don't do it more because I want to have conversations --not because I'm ashamed or unsure of my weak voice.

It is a good thing. All of it is good. It is good to do something I love, and it is good to do something that makes me happy, and it is good to do something I grew up with.

And especially, it is good for me to do things that I am not good at. It is good for me to learn how to practice, because that's not a talent I hold naturally. Maybe even I will take lessons someday, but if I never do, I will be happy with the fact that I don't hide things that I like about myself.

I am finding myself to be a very agreeable person as I age.

~Sor
MOOP!