Voice Lesson 5 (the un-lesson)

As in all critical moments in my life I find myself in a public restroom pondering my future, the past and the uneasy present. I've been putting off lessons for three weeks now. I've tried to be optimistic and courteous. I will practice, I tell myself, and then I don't, so I email my teacher and request we reschedule.

Last week she sent me this message in response to me postponing our lesson for another week, Of course, lovely red-headed goddess!

Tonight I have told myself that I must go, no more putting it off. I must confess that I am the same person who for three months didn't practice the guitar in high school but attended the lessons with a guilty conscience and the acid of guilt in her tummy.

God, I hate re-runs. I look at my phone, 5:24. Six minutes. Be honest with her, Shannon. Don't chicken out.

A couple weeks back Brijesh, a Ph.D. student in my department who I have found on more than several occasions singing Gershwin tunes to himself in the hallway, gave me a hint. "You can enroll in a music class and not go. That's what I did."

Brijesh has a very beautifully modulated voice carrying both the Indian and British accent. "I'm enrolled in beginning piano or some such nonsense, that way I am a student and can rent the practice rooms for my own sake."

He hinted too that no one used those rooms before 9 am, so I might be able to sneak in before work.

"Really!" My voice broke. "How great would that be?!"

I imagined the satisfaction of getting up with the roosters and singing my guts out as the sun rose on a new day. What I liked about the idea was its clandestine nature and it's organic parameters. I was to sneak into one of the soundproof rooms to perform ancient melodies to an imagined crowd for simple joy of experiencing a sublime sensation before beginning my straight job as a department schmo. It was just so moderately dangerous, goofy and romantic. The kind of thing you want to be discovered for doing. But I never did it.

I pushed the snooze button from 5:25 to 7am and did not regret it much.

Tonight I wait for my teacher to call me. 5:31, she does, and she knows. "Hey... You there?" Meaning, am I at the practice space.

I'm here. I've strayed from the restroom and now I'm in mid-pace in the halls planning my confession.

I've just not practiced. Simple. I love these lessons, but I don't know what to do with them. Maybe I'm not a soloist, but a choir girl. I don't know.

Like everything else I'm doing, it seems I'm looking desperately at all these other things to stand in for something else. Something much grander then singing, dancing... maybe more to do with that part about my heart opening up. Something like that. To be moved and to share that moment. Really, that's where the satisfaction is.

"I need to confess..."

"You haven't practiced..." She asks without accusing.

"I haven't. And I've failed to articulate what it is I want from this."

The word "articulate" was chosen early on as a good word for a confession.

It's not that my teacher was not impressed with my verbiage, it's just that it's not the words that matter. She just knows the signs of someone loosing steam when they've been fueled solely of their own kooky visions.

"You can call me when you have a song..." She says. "It's not about pressure. I'm here when you're ready."

Imagine if it were not my teacher but someone else saying something like this...

This is what I'm imagining.