I had a little epiphany at Rotary today. I realized these meetings are filling a very specific gap in my life. We were all standing up, singing America the Beautiful like we do every week, and I was struck with the feeling of how much fun it is to sing in large groups. It doesn't matter if it's a song we've sung so many times that we really don't pay attention to the lyrics anymore, and can sing and write notes at the same time (as I did for part of it, because I am the one who does the newsletter). There's just something compellingly communal about seventy or eighty people all vocalizing the same melody that feels calming and satisfying somehow. Not everyone sings well. Some weeks I do better than others. It really doesn't matter. What matters is for those couple minutes, singing is as soothing as everyone doing deep, cleansing yoga breathing, but with more to listen to than just whooshing air.
We sat down after America the Beautiful and one of our members lead us in a "rotarized" version of a common song, which sometimes really works and sometimes gets a little squirrelly. Today it was Take Me Out to the Ball Game, and the second verse with Rotary-themed lyrics worked just fine. Last week we attempted to make Beauty and the Beast fit with the concepts of service above self and the four-way test, and it was awkward, but my table-mates and I (I sat with the best singer in our club, as I often do) gave it our best shot. Ever since, the exchange student and I have been spontaneously giggling and breaking out singing, "Beauty and the beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaast!!" (It's even cuter with a Croatian accent, for the record.)
I miss having regular and extended opportunities to sing in groups. If I am honest with myself, that was always the part I liked best about the periods of my life when I attended church regularly, and I was never happier than when I saw For the Beauty of the Earth or Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing printed in the bulletin. It was always special at the end of every home football game when I was at CU, when we were all in the band room, exhausted, sweaty, wearing the stinky shorts or sweatpants we had worn under our uniforms (which were by then shed), and singing the Alma Mater as our last group activity before breaking up and going home. Singing used to be a big part of my life. I used to do it all the time, whether driving, doing dishes, showering, whatever. I sang almost all of my waking hours. I stopped doing that a few years ago, and I don't know why. Over the weekend, I tried to sing in the shower for the first time since I moved in this house, and it felt so weird. Why did I stop? I know the illnesses took a toll on my lungs, but I don't think that was it. I think it had more to do with how I was surpressing joy in my life, and I wasn't in tune with the things that made me who I am. (Sorry, pun intended.) I'm going to start singing again. My voice is rusty and my pitch is pretty bad these days. But I'm going to practice and maybe it will be good enough to make me happy again, and that's really all I care about.
Hussy cat.
ReplyDelete