I Can't Sing

I  CAN’T SING

I can’t sing. I know I can’t. My grade six teacher told me so. She must know because she was the coral and music teacher. Because of her teaching, our class was so good that we were to compete in some kind of finals. Another student and I were asked to only mouth the words when we went to perform. My initial reaction––Why should I even bother coming to the finals? Had to. Attendance was taken. 

My lasting reaction––don’t ever sing, not even in a karaoke bar after any number of drinks. That’s easier said than done. In a congregation or other large group, no problem. No one will hear me. In a smaller gathering, I can sing so low that no one will be thrown off by my voice.

 Once that strategy failed. I was part of a small group that was asked to sing on stage for the pleasure of those in attendance. The eight of us were given microphones, thankfully only six. When we were on stage, one of those microphones was thrust into my hands. Unlike the other person who had to share the mike, I slid the terrifying instrument close to my partner. She sang beautifully. The audience really deserved to hear her. 

Just before our fourth song, the sound guy ran on to the stage with a portable mike. He gave the mike I was holding to my partner and the portable to me. Before he left, he tapped it twice to confirm that it was working. Oh, it was working, really working. The audience heard it. They clapped. I felt like I turned bright red. The music for our next song began. As our group started singing my mike sank farther and farther from my mouth until my wonderful partner correct my hand position. Thankfully, I still remembered what my sixth-grade teacher taught me about looking like I was really singing. 

That experience formed the confident foundation to believe that sometimes what a young person is told sticks to them for a life time, or in my case for the next fifty some years. In the case of Jill, the protagonist, in my novel, Baggage burdens. she remembers what her father said to her––you’re undeserving of love. She is convinced she can’t be a loving person so she didn’t deserve to be loved.

The context of the damning phrase is when Jill was seen to be a disobedient child, not a loving child. Therefore, she thought she did not deserve to be loved. Friends later, even her husband, all who did favors for her, did it not because they loved her––she didn’t deserve to be loved–– but because they wanted to put her in debt, put her in a position where she would have  to do something for them. Favors or gifts were a means of manipulation. 

The harshness of the last words angers Jill, reminds her of her father’s angry words when he came home after a night of drinking. 

You’re not fair! Who in hell do you think you are to say such ugly things?

Her unanswered thought failed to erase the label, “undeserving of love.”

Jill’s tears try to wash away the searing condemnation.

Haiku capsule:

You know, you can’t sing

So, don’t. Only mouth the words.

Life-long branding words

Next Blog: Foundations for a Happy New Year