More moons ago than I can count, I wrote down this quote a friend had posted as her Facebook status update. I wrote it down with the desperation of flailing for a life preserver, not believing it ever to be or come true for me, but with the understanding that someone, somewhere in the world found this preserver and found it to be stable and life-giving:
“That feeling when things fall perfectly into place, and any anxiety you had suddenly vanishes.”
What horseshit. What hope.
So, I wrote it down on a post-it and affixed it to the inside of my medicine cabinet. It’s been likely 8 years since it was written, and I read it still with that desperation and that hope that anything like that could ever feel true within me.
Spoiler: It’s kind of how I’m feeling today.
Bananas as it may seem to me, I’m having a feeling of serendipitous coalescing. Yesterday, I attended a school event that was entirely optional but I wanted to go. I wanted to see my people, my friends, my coworkers. I wanted to walk out onto the ballfield/gathering place and hug the tech director. I wanted to sit with my boss/fellow English teacher and—even though I tried not to(!)—immediately fall into the loveliest, liveliest shop-talk, about a new book I’m excited teach, Sherman Alexie’s troublesome revelations, and executive functioning training! I wanted to hug my head of school and admissions director and facilities manager. I wanted to be there. (“There’s no place like home.”)
And I wanted to leave. To head into the city to meet up with likeminded folks for an evening of play and discovery and excitement. And wouldn’t you know, today’s Oprah/Deepak meditation is about Divine Playfulness.
Yes. Yes, and more yes.
I received an excited phone call yesterday morning from my girlfriend who came by on Friday to “look at” my art studio with me and consider the possibilities. On the phone (just the next day) she breathes, “It’s set. It’s done.” The art show that had its conception seeds planted as we tacked up 12 years of my collages is now happening.
When? “Sunday, October 7.” Oh, you mean my 37th birthday? Well, I’ll be damned.
We’re having a salon, all types of artists. The space is set, would you believe, in the home of a friend whose birthday also happens to be October 7th. What the hell?! … or Heaven.
They’d constructed a theme—Birth—and I wasn’t feeling entirely stoked on the idea. My visual work wasn’t really heading in that direction (unless you want a show the first, ahem, seeds of birth!), so I questioned perhaps some poetry, spoken word, or painted broadsides, but my oral/written work isn’t really doing that either right now.
And in meditation this morning it came: I will sing.
(I’m embarrassed to write that here you know, staking my claim… owning my voice, as it were!)
But, one of my visions for quite some time has been to “be a lounge singer.” To be that woman in a sleek, sequined dress behind a stand-microphone who allows her voice and words to float over others as they half-pay attention and half-not. I don’t need or want a concert, I want to be a part of the ambiance. I want to be the art.
A pianist friend/former band-mate and I had a brief-lived duet a bit ago. So, today, I’ll reach out to him and see if it’s in for it. And if he’s not, there are more options.
But the idea of being an artist, in a salon, doing something I’ve only dreamt of, with friends, on my birthday?
Well, I suppose that is the feeling of everything falling perfectly into place and any anxiety I had…suddenly vanishing.
Owning Voice 