Freely, I Roam

This audio previously appeared on a blog, polling readers for song choices.

Y’all. I told my voice teacher that I hated The Ash Grove.

I did. I went in there one day and I said, “Listen, this is why I haven’t really been practicing at home. I don’t like this song.”

And she didn’t hate me. She didn’t kick me out. She didn’t even seem particularly wounded on behalf of Welsh folk music.

She said, “Well, that’s okay.”

But maybe I need to back up.

A few months ago, I walked down a sidewalk to my first voice lesson. I wasn’t nervous.

That’s important, because I should have been terrified.

See, I’ve never been a particularly good singer. Or so I was told my whole life.

I wouldn’t even sing “Happy Birthday” in front of someone. I wouldn’t sing five seconds of a song to show somebody which song I was talking about. I wouldn’t even sing a note trying to be funny or anything.

And I shouldn’t say wouldn’t. I should say couldn’t.

I spent my entire life believing that I couldn’t sing.

And I don’t know. One day I just decided I wanted to.

On New Year’s Eve, Kelsey was sitting behind me at Mass, and I turned around and said, “Hey, can you teach me how to sing?”

She said, “Absolutely. Let’s set up some lessons.”

She’s a voice coach, if you couldn’t guess.

But anyway, in the meantime, I’d done some other things that were kind of scary, and I’d started noticing that I wasn’t as scared as I thought I should be—or as scared as I would have been at a different point in my life.

So I walked up the sidewalk to my first lesson, and she played the first note.

I matched pitch.

She played another.

I matched it.

And I still don’t entirely understand what “matching pitch” even means, or how someone does it. Apparently a person can hear a note, and her body somehow makes the same note.

Mine did.

I don’t know how, but at the end of that lesson, Kelsey told me I’d matched every pitch.

So I’ve been going to voice lessons for the better part of this year now, and I thought Kelsey was teaching me to sing.

And she is.

But that’s not all I’ve been learning.

See, when I’m singing in her room, I can tell I’m holding back. I hit notes. She even says I hit notes “beautifully.” I sing the song that I’m not really enjoying, and she says I’m doing really well.

But then I get in the car, and I sing what I was just singing, and I can really belt the tune out.

There’s volume. There’s roundness. There is sound.

And I’m not talking about hiding behind the radio. I’m talking about singing the exact same song I just sang in her room.

And then I noticed: You know what?

I kind of do this everywhere.

I kind of hold back even when I’m by myself.

At home, when it’s quiet, I have tried to make myself yell out and break the silence.

And I get it. That right there sounds weird, and I feel kind of weird sharing it with you.

But it’s already on the page, and I’m leaving it there.

I’ve been scared to shatter the silence even in my own home.

And I’m noticing all the other places I’ve kept myself silent, too. But I’m learning maybe I don’t have to.

When someone says something that hurts my feelings, I’m learning to say that it hurt my feelings. When I disagree, I’m learning to say I disagree. When someone suggests we do something and I want something different, I’m learning to say what I want.

Not in a rude way—

And look at that.

I still felt like I needed to tell you that.

I’m still testing out my voice. I’m still learning that speaking up for myself doesn’t mean I’m being rude.

I can share my thoughts.
I can allow myself to be heard.
And allowing myself to be heard means allowing myself to be known.

Which means allowing myself to be seen.

I’ve spent most of my life trying to control how much of me other people get to see. That’s been the safe place.

And part of this has come from writing this past year, too. I’ve been learning what my writing voice even is. I can read something I’ve written and say, “Yes. That’s my voice. That sounds like something I wrote. That’s me.”

But I’m also learning to do it literally.

To open my mouth.
To make sound.

Which brings me back to The Ash Grove.

There’s a phrase in the song I can never seem to sing:

Freely I roam.

I see it coming. I tense up. I miss the high note.

Except, according to Kelsey, I don’t have a problem singing that note.

“You did,” she told me once. “Two measures before, you hit that note beautifully.”

And during warm-ups, she sneaks that note in sometimes. I catch her, but I sing it anyway. Once I stopped and said, “Uh-uh.”

She said, “Oh shoot, I thought you wouldn’t notice.”

But for some reason, when freely I roam comes around, I can’t hit it.

And I don’t really like the song enough to practice over and over again trying to hit it.

So I told her.

“I don’t like this song.”

And she said in her sweet little voice coach kind of way, “That’s okay. Let’s pick another song.”

“Well, okay. What do you think?”

“Whatever you want. Pick anything you want.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

“Even something, like, new? Contemporary?”

“Yes.”

“What about a song by a man?”

“Sure.”

And suddenly I have somehow narrowed all of the songs I know down to twelve songs I think I might like to sing—which I realize is not what the word narrowed generally means.

Anyway. I can’t make any promises.

But maybe one day you’ll get to hear me sing.