One of the new things I’m doing is learning how to use my voice in an old way.
I, at one time, dear Reader, was a singer.
Please don’t act surprised! We all have a past.
Growing up, before I knew I wanted to be a writer, I wanted to be a singer. I sang for most of my life. From elementary to college, I sang and used my voice to sing anything from what was on the radio to German or Italian Renaissance pieces. I had gotten pretty good, too, with medals for solo and ensemble pieces.
But when I reached college, I focused more on my major, journalism.
Now, in my heartbreak aftermath, I wanted to do one thing first — go back and take voice lessons. I wanted that feeling of owning my voice again, that command that I could do anything with my voice. I needed, wanted, and desired some power back.
So this week’s missive is about the power of the voice and what that means.
Sing Louder so God Can Hear You
My voice teacher explained my voice like this:
“We’re big-voiced girls. We do nothing dainty.”
Yes, there is nothing dainty about me. There is nothing small or demur or delicate. I am a big girl. I always was, even when I was younger. While the rest of my fellow high school girls were petite, I was a couple of sizes bigger and shopping in the women’s section of clothing stores. And how I wished back then I could shrink to a smaller size.
Even my voice was big. Loud. My voice couldn’t reach the delicate high notes unless I warmed up for a while.
But now, a full-grown woman living an entire grown woman life, I didn’t want to shrink to fit a size. I was tired of trying to fit into a mold, doing precisely what was expected of me. I wanted to soar. I tried to remember what it was to soar. To sing.
I recently thought about this power of voice at a party at my Padrino’s house. Padrino, in Spanish, means godfather. But this type of godfather is less the Don Corleone type and more the spiritual leader type. For me, as an Afro-Latina, a Padrino is a member of one of the leaders of the African religions that survived and thrived on the island of Cuba.
It was a dedication to the deity Shango (or Chango, whichever you prefer) at that particular party. That particular deity was canonized to the Catholic saint Saint Barbara. I had grown up with this saint in my house. A large figurine lives in the spare room. Growing up, we spent many early Decembers preparing to celebrate their deity.
At the party, the people socialized in small groups with people they knew or had brought with them. Men and women dressed in white and colorful bead necklaces gathered around the band. Band, in this case, meant drummers and singers. Each band member had a drum, and each drum talked differently — heavy basses with lighter timbre. The boom from the collective filled the night sky. We heard it from the parking lot as we walked to my Padrino’s backyard, where the part was held.
But the voices, not the drums, cut through the night sky like a prayer through challenging times.
The voices of these men were louder than the drums, both heavier and brighter, hope and supplication, cry and celebration. You heard those voices in undeniable voluminous waves, without a microphone, sing.
And this is what it means to sing with your heart, to sing loud enough to be heard.
This practice, the drumming, the singing, and the dancing, go back to the times of chattel slavery where African slaves were brought to Spanish owned colonies.
Caribbean slaves kept their ties to their African homelands, but it wasn’t as easy as gathering on a Sunday or Saturday night. Their religion, Yoruba, was hidden. Celebrated in secret. As Spanish Catholics baptized slaves into their faith, they still kept their own religion in secret by syncretizing their dieties to Catholic saints.
If that isn’t a survival story, I have no idea what one is.
So when they lifted their voices, when they beat their drums, it was a chance to leave their bodies and lives and commune among their ancestors. It was a chance to be heard, a direct line to the Gods. And when you sing to the Gods, the voice detaches from the body.
Hope sounds like a song that God can hear.
Back at my voice lesson, my voice started so thin and weak. It had to remember what filling a room with sound was like. In the weeks since January, my voice had filled me instead with dread, fear, sadness, the most sadness I had ever felt in my life. Each week, my poor voice teacher worked to pull my voice out of my chest, to create a safe space to sound “bad” or try things, even if it won’t work, because sometimes it does. That’s hope. Isn’t it? Trying things even if it doesn’t work because sometimes it’s a jackpot.
“Make the ugly sounds. Don’t be afraid of it,” she said as she sat at the piano.
And then from my soul was a sound so ugly, so gutteral, so horrendous that it bounced from the beige walls and hit my ear. It scared me that that noise came from me. My voice teacher was jovial, proud even.
It’s not that was pretty. It was loud. It came from the place where the soul meets the body. And it was true. It was my truth. In the voice was the history of me, of pain and of joy of things I wanted that never came true and things I wanted that came to be. It was the truest thing that had come from my mouth in a long time.
From there, that sound, I could build anything, an entire world if I wanted. Because only from truth can one hope to heal. Only from truth can hope be planted and have a chance of survival.
And Hope is a song that God can hear.
What Am I Listening To?
You know what is so great about streaming music? Sometimes the algorithm gets it right.
I’ve been listening to the Dream Girls soundtrack (movie, not musical). One song in particular, “I Am Changing,” is hitting me in all the feels. The lyrics are so accurate to my experience. For example, check out the first verse.
“I am changing
Trying every way I can
I am changing
I'll be better than I am.
I'm trying
To find a way
To understand.
But I need
I need
I need your help.
I am changing
Seeing everything so clear.
I am changing.
I'm gonna start right now right here.
I'm hoping to work it out.
And I know that I can
But I need you
I need a hand.”
And I am changing. I am trying to understand this new phase in my life and who I am after falling in love so deeply and completely. I am learning what it is like to shatter in a new way, to crawl out of it, to stumble, fall, and get back up again. I’m learning what it is like to ask for help and what help can look like. I understand a new phase in vulnerability that I have never experienced before.
It’s scary in my life right now, not for danger but of vulnerability. I am afraid some days more than I have been in the past. And I am braver each day than the last. I’m learning and growing and stumbling.
It feels good to be seen.
Also, Jennifer Hudson’s voice on this song is chef’s kiss.
What Am I Reading?
I am speed-reading through “Live Lagom” since it’s due at the library in a few hours. Something tells me I’ll be putting this book back on the waitlist.
This book is about the Swedish concept of lagom, the ability or practice of living a more intentional and healthy lifestyle. And who doesn’t want that. I’ll let you know what I learn from this book.