I’m on a break from work, a sabbatical of sorts, and over the past few months have been peeling back the layers.
I’ve set out on this period of my life with an aim to explore the corners of my existence. What work I want to do, how I like to eat my eggs, what time of day I prefer to wake up, how I’d like to enjoy my weekends, who I want to spend my time with. And many more, big and small.
I’m looking at the hobbies I’ve accumulated over the years, and noticing the ones I no longer spend time on.
One thing I used to love was singing.
I had weekly lessons for most of my teenage years, did all the grades, was in choirs at school and sang in musicals. Then it all suddenly stopped at the age of about 16. Exams, romance, university applications etc got in the way I guess.
I was back at my parents for a few days recently and my mum suggested I emailed my old singing teacher, Catherine Denley. Thinking she probably wasn’t teaching anymore I shot her an email giving her a date I could do just in case she felt like entertaining this idea.
Quick reply back and, “Absolutely!” We set a time and I thought not much more of it.
A trip down memory lane
The day arrived and as I walked to her front door I was transported back 20 years. The walk was familiar and at the same time unknown. My memory of her road was in a different place, even though I used to walk it weekly for my class.
I was suddenly 16 again. So young, so much ahead of me. How would I catch her up on the years between?
As she opened the door it all flooded back. Her soft face, big eyes and gentle nature. Her roundness and warmth. We had huge smiles as we just looked at each other and took in this moment. I asked if I could hug her. Not sure I ever had before.
Her living room where I once waited impatiently was the same, the bathroom in the same place under the stairs with music sheets still pasted to the ceiling. Her hallway and music room had become fuller than I remember, every surface, every space filled with photos, music books, instruments, knick knacks.
I realised how emotional I felt being back here. About to use my voice again.
The catch up
Choosing what to reveal to each other of the past 20 years just shows how in control of your narrative you really are. I told her a bit about my career path and living in Singapore, and how I’m happily partnered now and taking a break from work. Enough but not everything, the highlights without the lowlights. She shared about her grown up kids and the love for her grandchildren. She told me how her husband battled cancer and how tough that was.
We had never spoken like this, as adults. I was only a teenager when we last saw each other and was so wrapped up in my exams and busy young life. I didn’t have the compassion or skills to ask after her.
Now I did, and enjoyed asking her questions about her career and how it felt when she stopped singing professionally. Really very hard, she revealed with a sigh. To walk away from her opera singing on stages around the world, I can only imagine.
I realised in that moment how lucky I’d been to be taught by such a renowned professional for all those years. Who had been juggling this impressive career, raising 3 boys and how I just floated in and out of her life on weekday evenings absorbing her knowledge.
She shared how saddened she is about the state of the music industry and how the arts aren’t prioritised in schools. We agreed on how much of a shame this was. How healing and beneficial music is when made available to young people as they grow and learn.
I’m embarrassed to think how I’ve abandoned my own singing voice for this length of time. How much I loved my classes with her and it hit me how much I missed it. It’s a peculiar feeling rediscovering a passion like that, so familiar to you but slightly out of reach.
Can I go there?
Singing again
She could sense this edge of melancholy and my nervous anticipation and told me we’re going to have fun and to not be afraid.
I took the familiar position by the piano and we decided on Summertime to ease me back in. But first scales to find out how my voice was now, after all this time.
Discovering my belly breathing again, imagining the stream of air and the importance of smiling, picturing myself in an auditorium with a string to the back of the hall. It was all coming back and I was metaphorically and literally beaming.
We got me up to a high H which Catherine seemed pleased with. “You’ve still got it,” she said.
Regardless of the notes I hit I was radiating with joy to be projecting this noise from my body again. I told her, “I feel so loud”.
I felt like it wasn’t allowed to be this noisy, to take up this space. But here I was being praised for it. Celebrating the loudness, the music I was making.
I had used the excuse for years that I didn’t have the time to join a choir. That it was too much of a commitment. But there was some deeper silencing embedded in me. Back inside those 20 years I had been told no too many times, the radio turned on whenever I would start to sing in the car to drown me out. That messaging sticks.
But as I stood by Catherine’s smiling side and held the phrases of the jazz piece I knew, a song she’d taught me two decades ago, I reclaimed my noise.
She kept going with her encouraging words throughout. Telling me how strong and clean and clear I sounded. Telling me it made her want to start teaching again.
Her words washed and soothed and healed as I smiled and stood firmly with my hands on my belly, and sang to the back of that metaphorical auditorium. Filling the Albert Hall with my notes. Letting the music ring in my head and against the walls. Proud and a little shocked at the sound coming from within.
I was returning to something and letting it blast out of the depths of me. Something known and long forgotten. Something locked away or shut down. But the body remembers. And it was opening and shining, and like a mega phone it was shouting from the roof tops ‘here I am’.
For old time’s sake we ended with a Les Mis number ‘Bring Him Home’ where the protagonist is singing to God to save the life of his daughter’s beau.
Bring him peace, bring him joy
He is young, he is only a boy
You can take, you can give
Let him be, let him live
If I die, let me die
Let him liveBring him home
On this final phrase as I brought parts of me home, as I sang to that young 16 year old me, my voice cracked. I welled up and saw a tear get caught in Catherine’s glasses too.
We looked at each other. Knowing something special had shifted and I thanked her.
I couldn’t quite articulate it in the moment but I realised how important this remembering was. Returning to that impressionable 16 year old full of noise and expansion and potential. Returning to a depth inside which was left unattended. Housed now in this maturer self, with the words and strength to re-find it.
“Can we do another class?” I asked as we said our goodbyes. “Of course we can!” She smiled. So back I go at the next opportunity to do some more unfolding, some more homecoming, some more noise making.
That, and, I can’t recall the specifics but I had a conversation recently. It was about making music together. And the strange black magic that is.
In a bit of a nosy way I wish I could be there too.