August 13, 2022: Deep Thoughts, Choir Tour Edition

Our beloved choir director, Bruce, says, “Don’t take it literally” when he wants us to watch his phrasing during the chants, but I take it a Christian precept:

Don’t take it literally.

Look up from the page.

Follow me.

My gentle friend, Vakare, says, smiling, “Singing takes courage.” She is a frequent soloist, but she means it takes courage for everyone to sing, which feels like a benediction . And I think, “Oh, that’s why so many people are afraid to do it.”

My friend Mary says, “It’s an incarnational faith,” and she’s talking about religion, but it’s equally true of the performing arts, faces and voices and eyes and arms and ears, giving and receiving. Sound and light up in the glorious dome, ringing and ringing even after we stop. We make the hair stand up on people’s necks, and the organist, Katie, makes their chests vibrate.  

And this although it takes effort, and our own bodies are soggy toast. Our throats are scratchy and the soles of our feet are paper thin.  We itch.  Our bandaids can’t stick. (The skin, we are told, is our largest organ, and we have never been more aware of our skin than while we’ve been standing and singing this week, our bodies running with sweat. We know which paths the rivulets carve on the way down from our steaming hair, and we hope one won’t go into our eyes.) We have to remind ourselves that other people probably have a headache, or a hangover, or are yearning for an egg.

It is our last day together as a group, ever, and Bruce retires after our evening service.  This too is a truth of ensemble performance: we form a tribe, make friends, go on a journey, suffer a diaspora. Choir tour just distills the process.

I don’t like saying goodbye. I’m going to get a lump in my throat, minimum, which is also what throats are for.