From Pocket the Moon “Rooftops” video - 2011
I have always been a singer. I have always loved music. I have always been the person to make people mixtapes… and then mix CDs…. and then playlists. I was in an all-girl band in high school and from the years of 2003 to 2014, I played gigs both as a singer/songwriter and as the singer (and sometimes also guitar player/keyboard player/even bass player on one song!) of various bands.
In the summer of 2020, I played an acoustic gig that I live-streamed from my living room, but since then, I have barely sung at all. Recently, I tried to sing at karaoke. It did not sound great. Granted, it wasn't the best song choice for my range, karaoke is never the ideal singing setup, and no one cares if you sound good at karaoke. But this was the first time I had tried to sing in probably years, and I wasn't expecting it to be so difficult. In the past, even if I was a little rusty, I could usually get it together enough by the end of the song to at least hit an impressive note or two, but that definitely was not the case this time. Since then, I have tried singing along with the radio when I'm driving occasionally--songs I used to cover frequently--and I wasn't really able to. It sounded nothing like it used to.
People have told me I'm just out of practice, and if I worked at it, I would be able to sing. That may be true. I'm sure if I practiced really hard every day, I could get my voice back to sounding good at least some of the time. But I have an obstacle that most people don't.
I have a rare genetic neurologic condition called spinocerebellar ataxia. The condition mainly affects balance and coordination, but it can also impact vocal chords, speech, swallowing, etc. Even when I was at the tail end of my time as a singer, when my SCA symptoms first started presenting, there were a few times I was in the middle of a song at a show and my voice would completely cut out. I had no idea it was probably SCA-related at the time; I was just embarrassed.
The absolute last time I sang was at Unity North Atlanta two years ago. I sang one song with a group and the other song was “It Is Well” by Bethel Music (which features the old hymn “It is Well with My Soul”) but it was not a song that required a wide range or anything. At the height of my singing career, I could have halfassed rehearsing the song a few times and sounded okay. (I mean, I wouldn't have done that, but I could have.) I started realizing things were changing when I thought about how much time and effort I had to put into practicing that one song.
I kind of thought of that performance as my “farewell to singing,” and I got a little emotional at the end because of it. I also got emotional for other reasons that related specifically to the song I was singing (which is another blog post).
I recently thought about an interview I saw once on Oprah with Julie Andrews. This was after the surgery she had on vocal nodules that left her voice damaged. By this point, she had started publishing children's books, and she said that she was still singing now; it was just in a different way.
Now don't get me wrong, I am in no way comparing myself to Julie Andrews! But if someone with one of the world's best voices could come to a point of peace about not having the voice she once had, it gave me a little hope that someday I would find acceptance about mine.
I have always been someone who's loved too many things artistically. At one point, I was an actress, a dancer, a musical theatre performer, an indie rocker, a playwright, a novelist, a screenwriter, a poet. But eventually, it whittled down to music and writing. I was getting to a place where it was becoming virtually impossible to try to “make it” as a singer/songwriter and a writer. It's hard enough to work a day job while trying to make it as just one of those things, and the music industry becomes almost impossible to break into for women over the age of 35… or even 30. So when I played my last real gig on my 29th birthday at Smith's Olde Bar, I chose writing over music.
Still, I sang at church, I sang at karaoke, and I sang in the car, but eventually, I stopped. I think I must have known my voice would be different on some level, but I wasn't forced to face this fact until recently. And now it feels like I have lost a part of my identity.
In 2021, I wrote, “Music is a part of me as much as breathing is or walking. And whether I’m singing at church, writing a story or play about music, or maybe eventually even venturing into an open mic night again, I can’t give singing up.”
And maybe I'm no longer singing in the car. Maybe I won't be singing at karaoke. Maybe I don't sing at church anymore. But I'm still singing. I'm singing every time I write a character who loves music as much as I do. I'm singing every time I make someone a playlist of songs I love. I'm singing even when I'm just rocking out to a song I love and lip-syncing silently. It's just a different melody. You might not be able to hear it with your ears, but if you listen with your spirit, you will.