I noticed it first onstage when there were all these beings that I wanted to reach, and I had to draw myself out of a deeper place so that they could truly hear me – I notice it now in hospital rooms looking into people’s eyes, and alone in my apartment not caring if the neighbors hear – my voice is deepening, inhabiting and engaging more of my physical body. It feels like (in blatant resemblance to a musical artist I am in love with) a sea of bees that I am learning to project like liquid sun. I am starting to feel less afraid of the space within and outside of me that it takes. I am starting to be here with it.
It has been a nostalgic few days. Yesterday, I visited the room of a teenage girl who had a lot of visitors. I am still getting used to interacting with teenagers (something about seeing high school students makes me flashback to that time where all of them are SO much cooler than me) and all of a sudden there were, like, 5 of them staring at me, and also some parents and a 10 year old brother. She answered, “sure,” (to my surprise) when I asked if she would like some music, and said she liked showtunes. BAM all the high school Phantom-Rent-Pippin-PajamaGame-LesMiserables-Wicked circuits activated in my brain – I probably looked inappropriately excited but there was a lot happening (especially after a morning of Twinkle Twinkle and the ABC’s). I got my guitar and fumbled through a few bars of “Popular” before I remembered that songs from Wicked have too many damn chords to fake. I sheepishly said that most of what I know on guitar is from Rent, and she asked if I could play Seasons of Love. I wanted to hug her. Instead I passed out some eggshakers to the people who looked easily persuaded and started finding my way through the song. The room started singing and shaking and there were sparks in my heart.
Sometimes people tell us they are amazed by how much we give, and I just can’t help but think how many gifts I am left with at the end of the day. Being taken back to that beautiful, painfully awkward, vulnerable time in my life through a song, going there with people who were living it, was simply beyond words. Later on I got to hear a 17-year-old girl belt out some Adele in a way that I could only dream of when I was that age. It wasn’t perfect, but it was brave, and that is the only way to sing when it comes down to it. We are all just reminding each other of that when we sing together. There was a teenage boy last week who sang Radiohead while we played with him – these songs are not easy, but it is so much easier with others than to attempt it alone.
I was lying in bed tonight listening to a playlist called “Heal” and this song came up from my past – it efficiently swept out the urge to sleep and chased me into the living room where I played it through a couple times and made a video (uploading now). It will always make me think of my first love, of being 14 and discovering there were even MORE feelings, indeed ENDLESS AMOUNTS of feelings, and I always come away from it feeling that grace – that growing enough to appreciate the younger self. Feeling not by any means all put together, but certainly braver than I ever thought I would feel 9 years ago.