My Voices

The NaBloPoMo theme for May is 'Voices'. How ironic that I decided to opt out of daily blogging this month, seeing as I'm a singer and all. I have this lovely voice and the ability to control it in a very special way. I can't count how many people have told me how lucky I am. I know it. I feel it. When I have laryngitis I mourn its loss. Many times I've thanked whatever powers that be for also giving me healthy hearing so that I could use my voice so effectively. Did I inherit this trait from my parents? Hardly. When she was still willing to sing in church choir, my mother would timidly squeak away in the soprano section. My father was stricken with partial deafness at a fairly young age -- disease-related, not hereditary -- but his singing still leaves you wondering how a human being can span that many octaves on one note. Now that he's older, his deteriorating hearing makes it more difficult for him to hear me perform. If I sing in my hometown, he doesn't stay for a whole performance because it frustrates him. However, he's the reason I sing what I sing in the first place because he took me to my first opera performances as a young girl. How about that for a lasting gift?

My voice is also a voice in abstract. Something used to express an opinion or support a cause. It's not so much heard as felt. I don't use that type of voice nearly as often, and for that, sometimes, I'm ashamed. But as I get older, I find myself more and more outspoken. The opinions of others don't make me cower as much as they used to: my growing 'voice' is accompanied by growing courage. I just hope it's also accompanied by increasingly good judgement, otherwise it's just that noisy gong or clanging symbol talked about in the Bible, or, as Shakespeare would say, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". Ultimately, I'd rather be a smart, old hag than a stupid, old windbag. 'Nuff said.