An Essay She Wrote (2015)

People always ask when I began to sing, but to be honest, I don’t really know. I couldn’t say for certain when it became a part of my life, but on the other hand, I couldn’t tell you of a time when it has not been a part of my life. I think once music has become a piece of you, there remains no part of being it doesn’t seep into, no corner of the soul it doesn’t curl up inside of. In the words of Ray Charles, “I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me—like food or water.” The key thing that draws people to music is its emotional appeal. Sound has the ability to provoke anger, sadness, ecstasy, serenity, embarrassment—whatever emotion the listener felt at the time. As someone who has a need to experience things very deeply, music enhanced and validated this sensitivity. The memory of what played at what moment let me fold away memories of sensation or emotional stimulation noninvasively, a memory only to be aroused when the same song played, or when that same emotion returned to remind me of that past moment. I know I am not possibly the only one who feels music so deeply, there are just some people who are just born with music inside of them. It’s not something that can really be helped, but then again I’ve never met anyone musical who didn’t enjoy it. 

​My memories play like the soundtrack of an otherwise silent movie. Long after I have forgotten the voices of the spectres of my childhood, and long after the details of the events fade, I am left with the memory of a sound that is inextricably tied to the sensibility of an emotion and the memory of some experience. My earliest memory involving music occurred at the pool, a place where I spent a large majority of my summers as a child. While I have thousands of other memories—of the light hitting a water drop a certain way, the way my long hair looked under the water, all gold and bronze, my friend Matthew and I diving for toy torpedoes and coming up arguing over who touched it first, the consummate perfume of sweat, sunscreen, chlorine and spilt Sprite permeating my skin, it is not a memory with my friends that branded its mark into my soul. At certain points in our lives, we feel an utter contentment, joy, and sense of awe at our own existence. Some call it peace, but I’m not sure that’s correct, because for me, it never came from any perfect accumulation of events. For me, this feeling of serenity always paired itself with an awareness of the fragility of my life, as well as a sense of awe that something so small could exist so perfectly. And of course, it was always inextricably linked to music.

​It happened right after sunset, while the spent day’s heat radiated from the concrete, interspersed with the cool of evening, creating a strange temperature that balanced between hot and cold. My entire family swam around happily, a rare happening in my family, where both parents hate the water. I had climbed out of the pool, probably to get some child’s toy, but as I stood next to it, watching my happy family, feeling the warm concrete under my feet (spattered with sand from the little ones’ sandbox, the sand that never stayed in the play area, but made its way into all nooks and crannies and ended up in the most unlikely places), I became, for a moment, self-aware, conscious of my own being for the first time, and allowed myself to bask in the calm joy of a happy and carefree life. “Give me the beat, boys, and free my soul, I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away…” crooned the lifeguard’s radio, Uncle Kracker’s lyrics somehow perfectly mirroring what was happening inside my little heart. I can never be sure if these memories arise from the music itself, or from events that the mind links with music, but somehow, they seem to take me out of body, making me bigger than what I am, aware of my tiny stance compared to the whole of the world, yet big enough to be, for that one moment, a representative of humanity, and a participant in everything that is inherently good and beautiful. 

​Although I always had an appreciation for music, the idea that I could make it for myself, make it and give it as a gift to the world had never occurred to me. From infancy my mother gave me her own gift in lovely sounds; by the time I turned four, we sang together, and at six, we invented complex harmonies to grace the soapsuds as we scrubbed dishes and swept floors after meals. There existed no pressure for perfection or anything but enjoyment, which I found by singing in the church’s “Cherub” choir, and belting out the Beatles’ “Oh Darlin’!” and “All You Need is Love” on the swingset in my backyard. (I didn’t exactly know the words…so the neighbors got a strange mixture of yodel-like vowels, mixed with the loud recitation of the words I did know). 

​However, the true moment in which I realized music defined me, came around age nine, while singing in the Atlanta Young Singers of Callanwolde. I had sung casually for several months, not caring whether the sounds coming out of my throat resembled those of a feral animal or not, instead trusting that the 100 kid choir would cover any mishaps I might have. Indeed, it was only my fourth or fifth concert when I decided that I would have a solo, if you please. Being an obstinate child (though my instructors were careful to call it “free-spirited” and “enjoyable”), as well as a relatively good-natured kid, I cunningly inveigled and charmed Director Paige into giving me a solo, even though she had her doubts about my age—and ability. Of course, I asked for the solo the night before the performance, and didn’t have it completely memorized, but I insisted I could do it. Paige and my mother reluctantly agreed, and I set myself to learning the piece, yet even by the end of the night, I couldn’t sing it perfectly. My mother told me afterwards that she got no sleep that night, because she worried that if I embarrassed myself now, I might never want to sing again. But I suffered none of these fears. Though I was nervous, I had confidence in myself, and confidence in my parents’ and director’s faith in me. The next day, of course, was the concert—a performance for a business conference numbering around a thousand people. Suffering an extreme attack of stage fright when the time came to sing my solo, I soon regretted my impulsiveness in signing up for the whole thing, but seeing no other option but to sing or run off the gigantic stage, I stepped up to the microphone. My main memory from this event was seeing all the people that my nine year old self couldn’t even dream existed, much less have imagined would all be gathered there. But right there on the side, I saw my beloved mother. Maybe it is just my mind's eye supplying the romantic details, but I would have sworn that she smiled and gave me a thumbs up. I began shakily, “Some people have money, some people have none, What's the use of money if your heart's gone numb?” By this time, the music flowed through me like wine, the emotional ecstasy again invigorating my deepest senses. I threw back my head and belted out the rest of the verse of that Southern spiritual, “This big old world is in a great big mess, let's open the window, find peace and rest. Open the window, children, open the window let the dove fly in.” At that moment, I truly lived for the first time. It was the first time I learned the source of that joy that pervaded my life at times. The root was the interwoven connection between music and emotion, the first time I understood my own soul and its language. The last soloist who ended the song, I received the joy of the audience, who were giving back to me the gift that I had unknowingly given them. For the first time, I opened the window of my heart, and music flew in to take permanent residence. 

​How can I describe something so ineffable? This is the beauty of music, it needs no words to be understood. One of the most uplifting songs I know I can’t understand a word of, yet I know it is beautiful, because the words, however unintelligible to my mind, are somehow understood by my soul. From an early age, my father and mother had taught me to love song, each in their own special way, but to me, music became something new. It reflects all emotion, from celestial and soul-gratifying emotion to the ugliest and most human feelings, yet it is most perfect when it elevates our human capabilities and senses to something superhuman. Music became a way for me to discover the very essence of myself, to finally understand what makes us human, such a small part of this earth, but still so great in our very humanity.

​From then on, I was unstoppable. I couldn’t stop singing. Every action became tinged with a new perspective. For the first time, I grew aware of the rhythm of my heartbeat, the harmony of the wind, the melody of the human speaking voice. That feeling of invincibility, of awareness that I could give something beautiful to a world that I had hitherto ignored became my religion, and became the very essence of who I was. I came to believe that music could not ever be separated from God, but that music was more potent than words in describing the link between our physical bodies and immortal minds. From then, I gave my music to God, for what could be more perfect than giving myself back to the universe and its Creator?

​There were certain times when I was more aware of the God of song than other times, once when singing “Ave Maria” at the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the other at Carnegie Hall. For once I encountered lyrics that reflected exactly what I felt about music. When auditioning for the solo, I felt that if I could get this, I would finally be musically complete. I learned the morning of the concert that I would be singing the solo, and from that second, couldn’t get the music out of my head. Don’t misunderstand; music is never absent from my life. I am always either singing it, listening to it, or playing the song of my own life in my own head, but this was special. The purity of the song reflected my very essence and captured most perfectly the beauty of music as the language of the soul. That Sunday morning, the music filled me with joy, and brought me closer to God than any sermon ever could, and for once I finally understood my purpose. It overflowed inside of me. I could hear the notes in the creak of the pews, in the sound of taxis and blowing papers of New York City, in the rhythm of my mother’s footsteps, and the cadence of the rise and fall of her voice. When I finally stood on that stage, stage fright attacked me again, yet somehow, I was now sure, that this was where I belonged and this was what I was meant to do. And when I opened my mouth, the lyrics wrapped around me, and brought me to my own place, where I was truly myself, no masks, or lies, or protection. Music sustained me through years struggling with anxiety and the depression of middle school. It had upheld me through panic and secret obsession with perfection detrimental to my body’s health. It had cradled me through good times and bad, and this song defined exactly what it meant to me, and what exactly I had become. When I stood on that stage, quaking with fear, yet looking forward, it was my bare soul singing to that audience that “you that are the music, not your song. The song—is but a door, which opening wide, lets forth the pent up melody inside, your spirit’s harmony, clear and strong, sings but of you.” 

​When did I begin to sing? I don’t know and the physical details do not matter. The real question is, with everything life now brings me, if, “My life flows on in endless song; above earth's lamentation—how can I keep from singing?” (Robert Lowry Wadsworth).

All of the concert halls run together in the end. Some are small, with claustrophobic stages opening out into a gulf of seats, the faces blurring together in the dark. Some are so vast that all five feet eight inches of me feels miniature.  The memories stay with me in snippets, but the feeling of confidence and strength, an uncontainable fountain welling up, is common to all. When I stand on stage, quaking with fear but looking forward, I stand there to remind myself and the audience that “you that are the music, not your song” (Dan Forrest). So when the stage lights beat down on me, and an audience waits expectantly, I am filled with music to the depths of my being—and finally, I’m home.