My voice

I've always had a love-hate relationship with my own voice.

Church and school choirs, starting in grade school.

Honor choirs.

State contests.

Show choirs.

Madrigals.

College choirs.

I tried playing other instruments, but never felt the same connection with a mouthpiece, some strings, a piece of wood, or a set of tubes as I did with my own lungs and vocal chords.

I remember the conductor to our multi-school honor choir: "Now sing a sunset."  Still one of the most powerful crescendos I have ever experienced.

The affirmation when I sang a low alto part with vibrato as a freshman in high school.

The smattering of solos I managed to score.

The crying and the joy and the whole-heartedness of it all.

Like I said, sometime during college I stopped.

There was, of course, another way of exercising my voice: writing.  The countless letters and emails I wrote to friends far away.  The origin myth I wrote in high school about how there came to be so many fish in the sea that had the whole class howling.  When an elderly friend of mine, an old professor of foreign language in Hong Kong, told me I had a real gift with words.  The college essays that my professors would share as examples of a job well done.

Once, in an economic development theory class, my professor from Haiti asked me to read my essay test answers aloud.  I had a cold, so I asked her if she would.  She made me read it anyway.  Then she asked me to read the next question, and the next.  I told her I couldn't.  I was so embarrassed, afraid of my own voice.  The words on the page were powerful, but when I could no longer hide behind them, I felt exposed.  Although I had a dizzying array of facts in my head and I could organize them in neat and persuasive packages, my voice betrayed that I was a fraud.  It was all smoke and mirrors.  There was no substance in my body to effect any real change-- it was all in my mind.

I took a public speaking class in grad school.  We gave several major speeches throughout the semester.  I had prepared my words carefully, meticulously.  Every syllable was present and correct.  If it were a paper, I felt sure I would have aced it.  And yet, when it came time, I felt sure that if I stood up in front of my peers, I would be discovered: a complete poser.

All it turned out to be was self-sabotage, from beginning to end.  The words I couldn't say out loud-- they were indeed mine, born not only out of my learning and my brain but my raw open aching heart.  These words were not me, but they could be spoken as truly my own.  These were truthful words, I spoke them with my whole heart.

By some wizardry that I still don't understand, I was named valedictorian of my small high school class.  And you know what valedictorians do: they give inspirational or sentimental speeches.  Since I do neither of those genres very well, I politely declined the opportunity.  What on earth would I say that wasn't completely trite or full of platitudes?  There were also several of us at the top of the class, so many thought I refused out of deference for those equally deserving.  I'm sure the class president or someone took up the slack; I just didn't feel it was my place.  Even though I had the platform, I deferred.  I bailed.  I copped out.

Now in my thirties, I think about how many times I have chosen to silence my own voice.  To not speak up when it was my turn.  To sabotage my own goals.  To not champion my ideals.

That's not all bad, certainly.  Listening, one has the chance to learn, and it has been my primary posture in life.

I stopped singing, mostly, and I stopped writing, for many years.  Today, I am practicing using my own voice.  Maybe writing is my voice after all.  Maybe I am braver today than I was then.  Maybe I'm just as brave now as ever.  One thing: I know that I would say out loud anything I have written.  And I keep stretching my words, like a dare.  A dare to live them into being.  A dare to live my words aloud.  To prove them with my whole life.