In October, I’ll celebrate my 6th re-birthday. It will be 6 years since an ischemic right pontine stroke blasted me in my sleep, a stroke I’ve affectionately nicknamed BS (Bastard Stroke). I won’t go into the gory details here, but if you want them, they’re here: https://uncanneryrow.blogspot.com/2012/10/stroke-of-some-sort-of-luck.html
Anyhoo, this is about a
recent milestone. I am SO AMAZINGLY LUCKY for many reasons, but one of them is
that I’m surrounded by a community of world-class musicians and music lovers.
And once every week or two, I get to sit in with the band and sing. One of my
most memorable moments singing was at the wedding of a friend’s daughter. I got
to sing “At Last” with a stellar band. It was one of those moments for me when
all the stars align—band is hot, voice is in fine form, you’re feeling
it down to your bones, not just singing it—and I almost cried, it all felt so
good. Then along came BS.
On the day before BS, I was
sitting at a singing & healing workshop offered by a friend and former
Little Town’er, and one of the things she said was that it doesn’t matter if
you sing offkey, if your voice is shaky, if you think you can’t sing, etc. What
matters is just to open up and sing. I had already had three or four TIA’s (mini
strokes) in the previous two days (which I wrote off to stress and grading
fatigue), so I was crabby and just feeling off. Right, I thought, whatEVER.
It would take me six stubborn years to understand how right she was.
Among the “deficits”
(seriously, that’s what the med/pharma complex calls the aftershocks of stroke)
I was left with after BS, was a mucked-up throat: right stroke means left vocal
cord can be “sluggish,” post-stroke BP drugs and CPAP mean that my throat is
perpetually dry, which can cause some swelling, which means my tone can be pinched,
and, worst of all, I don’t have the vocal control I had pre-BS; my voice can sometimes be…well…wobbly and willfully independent.
It took me about two years of
checking things out with a vocal rehab ENT, rehab exercises put together for me
by my friend C, a vocal teacher, and practicepracticepainfulpractice before I
felt comfortable singing in public again. Even then, I stuck to “safe”
songs—limited range, no challenging vocal frills, so familiar I could sing them
in my sleep.
Then this week, I screwed up
my courage and ASKED the band if I could sing “At Last.” I hadn’t tried it
since BS, except by myself, shut in my home office, when no one was home. And I
did it. It wasn’t great, I missed a few notes here and there, it didn’t come
out quite as good as it had when I practiced it, but DAMN, it felt FINE! I
can’t quite put this in words, but for me, singing that song was some sort of
threshold I’d been terrified to cross.
And that’s the real milestone…not
that I sang the song, but that I remembered what a loving, forgiving,
accepting, supportive community I get to live in, and that I don’t need to be
afraid. I just need to open up and sing.
Posts
