I’m a singer.  I sing for pleasure, I sing in my head, I sing for work.  I’m one of those crazy people who majored in music education with an emphasis in vocal music.  I have played clarinet and saxophone, but I’ve sung for as long as I can remember.  I made up songs, I made up harmonies (some of them worked, some of them, not so much), I imitated singing styles, everything from Barbra Streisand to Karen Carpenter to instrumental sounds.  It’s something I do without thinking, as witnessed by my family when they tell me I’m humming something and don’t realize it.

Am I a great singer?  I’m okay. As a vocal major, I once read in my file that my audition was mediocre.  I am happy to say that I improved a lot after that, thanks to a great teacher. I never claimed to be a VOCALIST, much less one who specialized in art songs and opera.  But singing is a way that I can reach kids and get them excited about music and they think I’m the best music teacher/singer EVER.

All this to say that when I lose my voice or when I have some nose/throat issues, it feels like my arm has been cut off.  The last several days, I don’t know if it’s allergies or if I’ve already caught something else from the kids but I’ve gone from a soprano to a bass.  Not that there’s anything wrong with basses.  My husband is a bass/baritone.  It just sounds a little weird coming out of this face.  I can’t begin to sing in my usual range and any time I try it cracks or doesn’t sound at all.  Something I take for granted on a daily basis has been taken away.  You might say it’s only singing, but it’s something I rely on for my livelihood and sometimes my sanity.  It’s a way I identify as me.

Today was Constitution Day at school and how did we celebrate?  By singing the National Anthem and the Preamble from School House Rock of course.  I started them and left the rest up to the kids.  And they did fine.  Sometimes I think this happens so that I HAVE to stop singing and start listening more, more like a conversation than a lecture.  But I felt like I wasn’t doing my job.  Even though the kids did great, I couldn’t join them and it just felt wrong.

I suppose it’s the same with an athlete who gets injured, a professional speaker who loses their voice, a visual artist who has difficulty seeing, a band director who loses their hearing.  We lose a part of who we are.  The danger comes in when that’s ALL we identify ourselves as.  When it’s something that’s been a part of you physically, spiritually and emotionally for a long as you can remember, it’s easy to do that.

So, maybe it’s times like this that I can reflect on who I am besides just a singer.  Can I still be a good educator without it?  That would be a challenge as I tend to depend on it with my kids.  Do I have something else in my bag of tricks that I could pull out if I couldn’t sing anymore, something that also identifies me as me?  With the “R” word (retirement) looming in the maybe not so distant future, what else do I identify with that I could do?

In the meantime, it’s water with lemon, or a little blackberry brandy as one of my friends suggests and I’ll work to get the range back to the more familiar soprano.  Although I could maybe get used to this Lauren Bacall sound.  Maybe I could be a lounge singer.  My new life as a bass.