A Love Affair Rekindled, 16 September 2013

Today I have time to write about a new romantic relationship I'm forming with one of my exes.  We actually never totally stopped seeing each other, but the relationship was strained for a long time, and other things always seemed to take precedence over spending time together.

But today I can tell you for sure: I'm falling in love with Music again.

Chapter 1

Music and I go way back; in fact, our relationship is older than I am.  As a pre-born child, my little forming ears heard my mom playing organ, piano, and viola, and my tiny insides vibrated whenever she'd pull out all the stops and let loose on a Bach toccata.  Once born, I heard vinyl and cassette recordings of sacred music, orchestral music, and children's songs; and on Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, and Wednesday nights, I heard hymns and other spiritual songs sung at church.  The songs must have had the most influence on me, because I can remember wandering around the house as a toddler, making up my own tunes and lyrics (mostly about how wonderful Jesus was).  One might say that Music was practically a member of my family.

My relationship with Music went from casual to serious around the time I started taking regular piano lessons in mid-elementary school.  Occasionally I'd stand Music up at practice time dates, but I normally showed up and diligently spent the 30 minutes or an hour tickling the keyboard.  My piano teacher drove out to our house in the country once a week and spent a few hours giving back-to-back lessons to my siblings and me, bless her heart.  She would self-deprecatingly say she didn't know much about music theory, but somehow she managed to give me a solid foundation of Music's framework and technicalities.

In 7th grade, I had a brief fling with the violin.  It's hard to say who suffered more--me or Music, but after nine months my tortured teacher and I convinced my mother that I was not suited to stringed instruments.  (Word to the wise: If a child is struggling with self-esteem anyway, don't let them try learning a stringed instrument of any kind.  Shudder.)

I never actually got violent in the relationship, but I was tempted.

One day, on the long, quiet drive home from one of those nerve-fraught violin lessons, I said tentatively  "You know what kind of lessons I'd really like to take, Mom?  Voice lessons."  Her response was noncommittal, and although I put the violin down (RIP), I still continued with piano.

Chapter 2

With my first year of high school came the true ignition of my love affair with Music!  I joined a community children's treble choir, and was overcome by luscious harmonies, seductive rhythms, and breathtaking melodies.  For four years I poured myself into the choir, attending rehearsals twice a week and practicing my own notes at the piano in between.  My dates with Music were mostly group dates now, and every rehearsal was something between a sweaty workout and a steamy massage.  (It's a wonder I don't have permanent bruising where I'd beat my knee with a pencil to keep track of downbeats in tricky passages.)

Hello, Nineties.

At the start of my senior year, there was no question: Music and I were going steady.  In addition to just-for-fun harpsichord lessons, I started private voice lessons with a prestigious performer in our city.  A whole new world of trilled-'r' vocalizes and operatic arias was opened up to me.  I wasn't "blending" my voice in a choir during these lessons: I was developing a solo voice of my very own.

One thing led to another, and when I realized that I couldn't imagine my life without Music, we decided to take the relationship to the next level, and I began preparing voice auditions for college music schools.

Chapter 3

I was accepted with merit scholarships to a performance program at a conservatory of music.  My life felt right, my relationship with Music felt right, and I was excited to become a great singer--a remarkable singer.  A famous singer!  The world of opera opened the curtains and beckoned me in.

My first year of study was exhilarating   Core classes came more easily to me than to some (I thanked my early piano teacher for giving me such a good grasp of music theory); I adored acting classes; and I practiced hard to be ready for competitions and auditions.

But as happens in some relationships, in my second year at the conservatory, Music and I began to fight a little.  I wanted it to carry me into the international opera world.  My voice professor suggested I might be more suited to some kind of career in sacred music.  But that was not my plan, and I fought with doubt and discouragement.

In the first half of my third year, practice room dates with Music usually ended in tears, if they didn't start that way.  For four months I lived abroad, studying and practicing in one of the world's most musical cities, but my dreams of a career with Music began to crumble.  When I imagined a life of endless auditions and constant travel, I felt desperately lonely and anxious.  Standing in the cheap "seats" night after night at the city opera, the stage looked further and further away.  For me, the curtains of a performance career were closing.

Chapter 4

At the end of those four months abroad, Music and I decided to take a big step back in our relationship.  We didn't break up--I continued my studies at the conservatory--but we agreed to see other people to expand our horizons.  Lo and behold, the following semester I fell in love with someone else.  Namely, with Jay.  During the first months of my senior year, I married him.

I stayed friends with Music, but on a more reserved, professional level.  I completed my Bachelor's of Music degree in Voice Performance.  I sang in church sometimes.  I directed our church choir and led Sunday music a couple times a month.  I taught a handful of voice lessons.  I coached Jay's men's quartet  But most of my energies went into earning money at office jobs (Jay went into graduate school during our first couple years of marriage) and managing a household for two.

When my first baby arrived on the scene, my main response to Music was fatigue.  It just took too much of my limited energy.  When a second baby arrived less than 2 years after the first, my relationship with Music got buried to the point of being something like a dirty secret.  But it was a secret that festered.

Chapter 5

I've been jealous.  Jealous of the love affairs others were having with Music.  Jealous of performers who were "successful" in their music careers.  I've been angry.  Memories of reverse-favoritism by professors, lack of opportunities, what-ifs, and if-onlys have fed a growing sense of bitterness.  My alma mater became an icon of betrayal.  Over a decade of living in the same city after graduation, I have attended not one single student performance there.  I cringe every time I walk through the campus, hoping I won't be spotted by a former professor--one who might look at me and think, "Failure."

Nighttime dreams of college failure plague me.  I'm in school, but forgot to sign up for voice lessons.  I'm one semester away from graduating but I didn't fulfill the performance requirements.  My professor sees me across campus and turns her head in disappointment.  I am rejected at auditions.  I forget to attend class.

Maybe I'm not the only musician with bad dreams.

Fear choked any remaining sparks of attraction I had toward Music.  Fear of inadequacy, fear of not singing the "right" way, fear of judgment, fear of commitment.

Plus, the reality is that I've been busy!  Raising and homeschooling two boys, losing two moms, buying two houses and losing one, hosting a full procession of holidays and events, dealing with alcohol, developing and maintaining yards, taking three international trips, walking through a murder trial, washing endless dishes, marrying off three sisters and two dads...the last several years have been jam-packed.  The way I've seen it, why should I spend precious time and energy on a relationship that only fills me with pain?  Music was almost dead to me.

Almost.

Sometimes our nightmares reveal what are actually deep longings.  Check with your friendly neighborhood therapist for more detail on that, but I believe that during this dark time of bitterness I've been waiting and hoping for reconciliation with a Love that seemingly abandoned me.

Chapter 6

Have you ever fallen in love?  Did your heart flutter whenever you thought about the One?  Did you eagerly look forward to time together?  Did you spend un-counted minutes and hours thinking of ways to show your affection?  Did you giggle and smile?  Did you find yourself wanting to talk--or write--about your love?

This is the state I've been in for the last month.

"Why the change?" you ask.  "Did Music change or did you?"

Both!  Well okay, I guess I can only take the relationship metaphor so far.  Any changes that have happened in my relationship to Music came from my end, so here are some of the catalysts for my healing (yay lists!):

• Al-Anon.  No, really!  Primary among the things I've learned/re-learned during my 18 months in this sister-to-Alcoholics Anonymous program are that 1) God's good plan for my life is His plan for my life, and His plan for others' lives are for their lives; 2) I am a valuable person apart from my accomplishments; 3) I do have faults and need to accept myself as I work toward improving.
• Recognition that I have more gifts than singing.  Learning to value myself as a whole has been key to rejecting guilt.  Who is to say that the gifts used to organize a memorial service are somehow inferior to the gifts used for enthralling thousands from a stage?
• Letting go of the vice-grip that there is one good way to physically sing.  Maybe my voice professor wouldn't approve of the technique I use to sing in praise band--and maybe the technique wouldn't carry me into the opera halls of Europe--but I have fun doing it (AKA no despondent practice room tears) and I know listeners enjoy it too.
• Time.  Nine hours a week, to be exact.  It's not that I spend all the time my kids are in class "doing" music stuff, but the weekly breathing space allows me time to think.  To feel.  To dream.  To finagle my schedule.  It's a wide margin in the composition page of a harried sketch artist.
• Opportunity.  You heard me!  Opportunity!  This item deserves a chapter all to itself.

Chapter 7

Six months ago I attended a special-event worship service of sacred music by a quartet from a local church.  It consisted of a female singer (who also played guitar, banjo, glockenspiel, and clarinet), an electric guitarist, a mandolinist (also taking a turn on banjo), and a pianist.  The music was beautiful, sensitive, intelligent, welcoming, humble.  I shed many tears during the performance, thinking, "Yes!  This is music I love!  These are people who aren't performing just to impress! This is a kind of group I would love to be part of.  I wish...."  But I hardly dared acknowledge my hopeful, aching longings.

Afterward, a friend who had attended with me said, "I want more worship services like that!  I'm not a musician so I don't know how I could participate, but I'm going to talk with the lead singer and see if we can come up with something."  My heart thumped.

"I would like that too," I responded, "...and I'd love to sing with them...would you ask the leader if I could call her?"

A few weeks later, about eight people got together and brainstormed.  The quartet was happy to set aside two Sunday afternoons a month (in addition to their regular rehearsals) for very loosely structured times of singing, praying, and reflection.  The quartet leader welcomed any other musicians who would like to participate in those Sunday afternoons, and I jumped.  We started meeting in May.

The Sunday afternoon equation looked something like this: Nice people + talented musicians + no performance pressure + a relaxed atmosphere + very, very cool music + a small group (not me alone, but my contribution makes a difference) + space for contemplation of God's goodness = Safety, Delight, Love.  Music was wooing me back.

Then, at the beginning of September, the quartet leader said off-hand, "Hey Rachel!  I think I remember you saying you're busy on Thursday nights, but if you're free, would you like to join our regular quartet rehearsals?  Another guitarist has started coming, and I'd love to have you as a second vocalist in the group, too."

It was as if she casually reached into her pocket and said, "Hey, here's a winning lottery ticket!  Wanna share it with me?"

I didn't cry when I thanked her and assured her I'd be there.  I didn't yell or whoop or run around in circles.  Okay, I did smile broadly.  I think I did a delighted little hand-clappy dance at the first rehearsal when we sight-read a new piece together.  (I'm also pretty sure Jay cried when I came home afterward and he saw how happy I was.)  But I am happy.  Hopeful.  Healing.

Chapter 8

So what's different about my love affair with Music this time around?

For one, I'm obviously older and wiser.  My teenage romance burned with passion but lacked healthy perspective.  Two, I'm not singing to be famous.  Crazy how much pressure that removes!  Three, I'm not singing "required" music.  I'm singing what I choose and what I love!  (Okay okay, shout-out to my conservatory voice professor: You were right about me and sacred music.)  Four, I'm not singing to impress anyone.  I'm singing because it's fun!  I enjoy going over a piece and playing with voicing and instrumentation.  Five, I feel accepted.  The "quartet" (which is not strictly four people anymore) invited me in.  They respect my musicianship for where it is.

Six, the music group is the opposite of pretentious.  The whole reason they formed in the first place is because they found they were staying late after church services to play around with music together.  They enjoy challenging themselves, but are relaxed about what they do or don't want to attempt.  They're kind to each other.  They're creative without being snobby.

Seven, I don't have to organize things!  Do you have any idea how much stress that eliminates?  I'm not in charge of scheduling, recruiting, teaching, researching.  I'm there to sing and learn.  And worship.

Behind this whole love affair there is one Matchmaker.  He is the greatest artist and musician ever known.  In fact, He created art, music, beauty, joy, love!  He created me and loves me with all my features, faults, and foibles.  While I will never be able to see all the details of His ultimately good plan for my life, I know that guilt, bitterness, and resentment don't need to be a part of it.  I want to walk forward with faith and hope, learning from my past and meeting my future with open hands.

Will I ever become a famous singer?  I dunno (and for the first time in my life, don't really care).  Will more and more music opportunities open up to me?  I dunno.  Will I have more disappointment and grief in my life?  Probably.  Will I continue to heal and learn?  I hope so!

But in my current love-flushed glow of enjoying music, enjoying my voice, enjoying exploration, one question shines out above the rest:

How can I keep from singing?