Little Voice

Never ceases to amaze me, the way someone can take an already outstanding song--like Stevie Wonder's "Golden Lady"--and perform it in a totally different way that's just as enjoyable as the original. Jose Feliciano's version sounds effortless, organic, and fresh. The only thing I'd have done differently is remove the strings; less would've been more.

I unconsciously mimic the vocalist of whatever song I'm singing. "Summer Highland Falls": Billy Joel's flattened vowels. "Don't Fence Me In": Ella's bright, forward tone. "Superstar": Karen Carpenter's warmth and depth. The inflections, the pronunciations--those qualities feel like part of the song. Changing them is like changing the words, to my ears. How can you sing Ethel Merman and not imitate her brassy, trumpeting sound? But people do it, all the time. Listen to Jose. Listen to Angelique Kidjo's take on "Voodoo Child". Jimi Hendrix is not rolling over in his grave; the cover is vastly different. And great.

Question: Why am I so attached to singing like other people?

Theory: I'm recreating the joy I have felt as a listener. And that has nothing to do with a desire to put my own spin on anything.

Nonetheless, Liz, my singing teacher, is nudging me to find my own voice. Whatever the heck that is. She made a suggestion to that end: learn something entirely new. Then there's nobody to copy. Do you know Some Enchanted Evening? she asked. Only from the few bars that Don Ameche sang on bended knee to Gwen Verdon in "Cocoon". Not enough for it to be imprinted on the inside of my skull. She gave me the sheet music with a request that I please-please-please refrain from looking it up on YouTube. The translation part was kind of fun. I've never done any sight-reading. Matching the dots and squiggles on paper to actual sound was like solving a puzzle. I color-coded the notes to get a better visual grasp of the melody. Then I sang it at our next lesson.

Same Question: Why am I so attached to singing like other people?

Another theory: I'm afraid that my real voice sounds like crap. Or mediocre at best.

And that's kind of how I felt. It was OK. Not great. I tried to console myself by thinking of other singers who are not stellar in the traditional sense.

Bob Dylan! He's not exactly a crooner. But he is a songwriting pioneer. Jimi Hendrix! Guitar innovator. Donald Fagan! Engineering genius. And that concludes our little foray into existential agony.

What then? I love singing with other people. I don't want to be the weak link. That would be so...

Embarrassing? Oh. Yes.

The memories start flashing past. Suggesting to a vocalist friend of mine that we put something together to sing at an open-mic, and her refusing. Singing backup during a laid-back jam session with my boyfriend's band, and the boyfriend's bandmate scowling at me. Singing a harmony (under my breath, or so I thought) to the song a classmate was singing as part of an oral report, and the teacher saying, "I guess someone else knows that song."

A core truth has come out of this searching. Singing has been the deepest desire of my heart for decades. It's also the thing I've most consistently put on the back burner. I see the pattern now. (1) Dream of singing. (2) Afraid of sucking. (3) Keep dream bottled up. (4) Pressure builds. (5) Act on dream at inappropriate time. (6) Use shame to bottle up dream. (7) Repeat. Now I'm letting the genie out of the bottle. Maybe it will help me move forward.

On a different yet related subject, Liz loaned me a great movie called "Little Voice", which features Jane Horrocks. You may recognize her as the voice of Babs, the slightly obtuse character from "Chicken Run", the movie: "I don't want to be a pie! I don't like gravy..." Horrocks--who does her own singing, by the way--plays a pathologically shy young woman who can imitate Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Shirley Bassey and others perfectly. I think Liz was trying to tell me that, in it's own way, what I do isn't wrong. It's a gift.

P.S.~ I'm toying with the idea of tracking down my ex-husband and leaving him this brief message:

Contrary to what you told me in 1993, Liz thinks I might have perfect pitch. HA!

"That wouldn't make me a...shallow person...would it?"

More than a thousand words, perhaps

I do love me some religious statues.


Here I am hanging out with Madonna, circa late 90's.

I asked one of my best friends who's also a photographer to take some pictures of me as a present to my then-boyfriend. The Blessed Mother was living in her backyard--not on the half-shell like so many in that neighborhood, but under her own trellis--and we just hit it off.

This me today, spending quality time with the Buddha, who lives in Charlie's backyard.

I've been immersed in the world of pictures over the last three days, inspired by a high school friend who posted a photo of a group of us on our way to a punk-themed party.

That snapshot was a delight on all sorts of levels. The clothes. The poses. The memories, especially. I remember laboring over the jeans I was wearing: bleaching them to remove some black, dyeing them to add some red, cutting them off below the knees. (Why did I think that was particularly punk? Not sure.) I remember dancing around and singing while we walked down the street, loving that it was night and it was fall and I was in the company of my tribe. And, coming back to the here-and-now, it was nice to know that someone I hadn't seen in 19 years remembered my name.

It was such a great trip that I wanted to share some of my old print photos. Give someone else the chance to go back in time. I scanned a staggering number of pics, and created my first two albums on Facebook: one for high school, one for college.

Problem #1: I've become an amnesiac. There are so many people whose names I can't recall, particularly in the college photos. All that remains are general details. This girl was the roommate of a girl who lived in my boyfriend's dorm. This guy was in my Greek civ class. They were people I saw nearly every day. It never occurred to me that in the not-so-distant future I'd be puzzling over images saying, "Now, didn't she date the guy with the mullet? Was his name Mike?" Note to self: from now on, label every picture.

Problem #2: One of the subjects requested that I remove his pictures. He was concerned that his image would be tarnished in the eyes of his clients, should they happen to see the photos. I immediately did as he asked. I said that I just didn't think.

Not entirely true. I had actually considered leaving out his pictures. He has lost quite a bit of weight since college and he has maintained a healthy weight for several years now, but it was hard-won and I think he's understandibly sensitive. Perhaps, I thought, he wouldn't want to be reminded of a time when he didn't feel very good about himself.

On the other hand, what message would I be sending if I omitted those pictures? "You don't belong in my memories because you weren't perfectly svelte"? I didn't give a good goddamn what he looked like. I loved him then, and I love him now. That's why I landed on the side of posting the pictures.

Now the can of worms is open.

Should I try to contact all the subjects and ask how they'd feel about having their pictures included in my album? If I ask, does it imply that I think there's something wrong with their appearance?

God only knows that I struggle with my body image. Trying to take a decent self-portrait was a formidable exercise in patience. Fifty duds before getting two that were...acceptable. And one of them is just plain funny. In an effort to disguise what I perceive as the early onset of a wattle, I leaned forward, elbows on knees, and glanced up at the camera under my brows. Great! Now I need to print a disclaimer explaining that the look I was trying for was not "uber-vamp" but "less chin."

In the spirit of acceptance, I've decided to post two pictures taken today. No special camera angles. No sucking in of the gut. Just 100% me. Here's to learning to love the skin you're in, allowing the image to exist as long as the internet lasts.

First Post Amendment

A wonderful friend of mine read my first post and wanted to know if I really, truly thought my life is a mess. Then she suggested that I do "The Work" (byron katie) around the statement, "My life is a mess."

Good catch, S.A.C. I myself asked the same question shortly after publishing and rereading those words. A condensed version of my check-in:

• Husband and 2.5 kids? No, but I have Charlie, the love of my life and husband-to-be. I have Hannah and Shae, Charlie's kids, who surprise, amaze and challenge me all the time.
• House? No, but I own my own condo, which is more than I ever thought I'd have.
• Fabulous career? Well, I work with Charlie, keeping the financial wheels turning. Now I believe that I can be both artistic/creative and detailed/analytical. That's worth a lot, challenging those self-perceptions. (Although I spoke with someone a few days ago who, when I told her what I do for a living, exclaimed, "Oh, you're one of those people." But the rest of our conversation will have to wait for another post.)
• Multiple acronyms? OK, I still feel a little insecure about not having a degree; it's a work in progress.

When I started this blog, I wasn't doing a lot to nurture my wild, creative, solitary soul. When I alluded to my life being a mess, what I really meant was, "I haven't been doing much for the care and feeding of my spirit, and I feel kinda crappy as a result." When that happens, everything else tends to look a little bleaker. Things are shifting now, starting with singing lessons. What next?

Some ideas:

*guitar/piano lessons
*solo road trip
*collage night
*dancing
*hiking

Thank you, my friend, for reading my blog in the first place. Thank you for indirectly encouraging me to amend the original post. And thank you for your comments. They mean a lot.

What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been

That's how I described high school, upon graduation. (I rather wish I had chosen it as a yearbook quote, but I wrote something instead which is too embarrassing to repeat here.) And so it is when one makes the return trip as well.

My Old School
I joined Classmates.com out of sheer curiosity...and a bit of frustration, as they kept pestering me via e-mail. You're able to view names from your high school, and even narrow it down to your graduating class. The experience was surreal for me. Scrolling through a list of names I hadn't even thought of in at least 20 years, it was like reading a foreign language I had forgot I had ever known.

Before you can see anything, the site requires that you create a profile, which I did. After looking at other profiles, I started to worry: did I say too much? Should I not have included pictures? Does it seem too eager? How quickly the old insecurities surfaced to mingle with the delight of seeing familiar faces that have grown and changed.

Then there are the friend requests, in which you can invite connections. I had to laugh; we've reverted to grammar school tactics, via e-notes instead of folded pieces of paper passed from desk to desk. "Do you like me? Check yes or no."

What really hit me is this: I can only now look back and realize how much time and energy I spent constructing various personae, especially in high school. Having been largely known as the tall, dark-haired quiet girl at Gates Lane (small K-8 school), I was ready for a major change when I went to South High. How exciting! A bigger pond!

My Name's Gypsy...what's YOURS?
I was determined to be the friendliest, bubbliest person ever. Sitting next to M.L. in 9th grade biology, I went around the room, taking down everyone's name and birthday. Seemed like a good idea at the time; doesn't everybody like to be remembered on their birthday? Alas, this attempt at reinventing myself didn't work out as planned.

(a few months later)

M.L.: You know, everyone thought you were on drugs when they first met you.

M.W.: But I don't drink or smoke or do drugs or anything. I'm as clean as they get!

M.L.: Yeah, but you were so...friendly. Nobody knew what to think.

Square Pegs
I knew from prior experience that popularity was not an attainable goal. No matter how hard I tried to observe the cool kids and develop the formula that would transform me into the darling of junior high, I got nowhere. Whatever gene you needed to run with the elite clique, I had the opposite. Case in point:

Having become totally enthralled with mythology in the 5th-6th grade, during a schoolyard discussion of "wouldn't-it-be-great-if" scenarios, the following words gushed out of me in an unguarded moment: "Wouldn't it be great to be able to spend one day with the Greek gods?" (Oh, yes, the response is exactly as you'd imagine from a bunch of 11 year olds.)

I decided instead to be the quirky quasi-loner in a "she's so unusual" kind of way, minus the multi-colored hair. By then I had a group of friends but never felt like I was really important to them. A loner can get along by herself if necessary.

Now and Zen
Would it be overly-obvious and redundant to say that this particular adventure has stirred the waters for me? Probably. I think, though, there's a bless in the mess. I have a better sense of self. I've experienced the security of deep connections, wonderful friendships. What if I approached these long-lost friends as myself, not as this cardboard cutout pasted together to protect my fragile ego? Could be interesting. I'll let you know what happens.