9:53 p.m. | 2004-04-18
Once Angelic Voices--Now Gone
Most people don't know this.
I sang opera as a child.
I was in all of the kids' choruses we could find. I performed in La Boheme. I went to a school where we did a fall play, a winter play, and a spring play.
I was the lead alto in 7th grade. I went to state with my voice. I competed against an 11th grader. I won.
Then my grandmother died.
It wasn't so much that, it was the way I watched my father break down as we sang. I was forced to finish Ave Maria alone, as my father crumbled to the floor in tears.
I didn't open my mouth for a year. I didn't sing in public. I didn't sing at home. I wouldn't sing, because every time I felt some emotion from what I had in my voice, I saw that image.
I picked it back up at some point, singing in a small group outside of school. My voice came back. My voice came back fuller, age had pushed my voice into this broad clear tone.
I went through high school, loving to sing, forgetting and pushing aside my grandmother's funeral.
Then came senior year. The musical. Oh the musical. The highlight of your year. The time when you don't come home until 2 am and you get up at 6--and you love it.
Senior year. God damn that year. I had taken on everything I could, clubs, art, yearbook, band, all on top of school. A program which teaches 4 years of combined knowledge in one set of tests.
It was January.
I couldn't breathe.
My lungs were so filled with liquid I got winded walking down the steps to my car. My throat ached and I had no voice every morning when I got up. I went to the doctor and she stared me in the eye and told me to get myself to a hospital.
I went back to class that afternoon.
I had to graduate. I had to get that piece of paper that said "IB Diploma." I had to prove to myself I could do it.
This went on for a month. Yearbook final deadlines came, proofs, nights, long hours. Basketball season, 4 games a week. Finals.
I never showed anyone how hard it was for me. I never complained because I had convinced myself that this needed to be the one time that I would do it by myself.
I huffed. I puffed. I worked my hardest through that time. I went home every night and collapsed. I remember crying because for the first time in my life I felt pain. My spine ached daily.
By the time I had finished the yearbook I could breathe normally. By the time classes were over I would wake up with my voice.
By the time IB tests had ended--I didn't hurt.
This and opera, though, where's the connection?
I put huge scars in my vocal cords. I borrowed my mother's endoscope one day to see them. There's huge white nodules stuck to my cords that hit each other as I sing.
I lost, fully, 4 notes. 2 in my top range, 2 in my most precious lower range. Everything else just got fuzzy. I can only sing at full voice for about a third of my notes.
I hate the way I sound.
I have tapes of when I was younger. That clarity, it's gone. That beauty. That radiance...is simply gone.
This summer I had a run in with a boy. You know him as Gabe. The boy had a beautiful tone. No training, just this great tone. Soft and velvety like the old jazz singers. He held my hand and made me sing. He told me my voice was beautiful.
I started to sing again. I started to love it.
I started to remember what it felt like, and while I could never get my voice back, the daily singing has improved it slightly. I can push certain notes, but others still aren't there. The scars are too deep to even be worked around.
So now I sing to make me happy. To remember what that passion was--not to be it.
All I hear, though, is people telling me to stop.
Where's my daddy who would cry when I would sing with him. Where's Nat who would laugh as I chided him with a song. Where's Gabe who would hold my hand and sing harmonies with me.
When did I get so bad that others need to tell me to stop.
Fuck.
