Giving voice

Sometimes you learn something about yourself that you didn't know before and if you aren't paying attention you might miss it.

I like to sing.  Pop songs, hymns, show tunes...if I know the words, I'll sing them whenever I have a chance. I mouth-sing (no sound) at work when I have music on. Jeez, I even softly sang the words to Taps at a funeral yesterday.  This is not to say I have any talent. I have never really liked my voice.  I've always thought, and said, that I sing with more enthusiasm than skill.  And that's fine with me; I sing because I like to, not because I'm good at it. 

One of the nice things about my Quaker meeting is that before we get quiet we get to make some noise.  Put another way, we sing until five minutes before we settle into silence.  So I always come in about thirty minutes early so I can sing beforehand.  Isn't it great?  I mean, where else can I go for organized singing that is happy to have me there. Now a few months back someone at Meeting told me he loved my voice, it's always nice to hear a good bass (and here I always thought I was a baritone -- see what I mean about skill?), but since he is regularly there with us I figured he was being kind.  It's just nice when a lot of people show up, which is most times, and we all complement each other.


Today, no one was there to sing, which has never stopped me in the past and didn't stop me today.  I pulled out the hymnal, and about halfway through my first hymn, a friend of mine sat down next to me.  And I sang my little heart out for about thirty minutes, maybe six or seven hymns, just because I wanted to and when I was done, Debbie leaned over and said, "Thanks so much.  I just love to listen to your voice" and she got up and sat down in another bench.