Author Archives: 805diva

Mar26

Hand Made

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Genesis 1:1—In the beginning God created…

I spent part of an afternoon recently with my cousin Jim (aka Bobo) and his wife Donna in the home studio where she makes original fused glass art pieces, jewelry, bookmarks, window hangings, Christmas ornaments and just about anything else imaginable that can be made with glass.  She had posted pictures on Facebook of art pieces/caricatures she had made of Bobo and his brother, Hazen, doing their favorite hobbies, golfing and fishing, respectively.  I was so taken with them that I asked Donna if she could do one of me singing, and she said she’d give it a try.  When she contacted me to let me know that my art piece was completed, we made a date for me to go over and pick it up.  And when she unveiled it, I squealed with delight!

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We enjoyed a wonderful visit, someplace other than a funeral home, which is where we tend to run into each other these days.  I looked around her studio and learned the story of how she got into working with glass.  The colors, textures and shapes fascinated me as I poked in every corner of the space, and Donna explained that each piece is one of a kind because when it goes into the kiln for firing, she never knows exactly how it’s going to turn out.  Colors and finishes change when they are fired.  That element of surprise is part of the joy of fused glass work.

Donna was a hairstylist for years before retiring and beginning this new creative chapter of her life.  I commented that doing hair was an art form and she replied, “Well, it should be.”  Her daughters are both creative as well, with enterprises and interests ranging from music to photography to embroidery.  And they’ve passed that creativity to their children as well.  It runs in the family just like brown eyes or blonde hair.

My friend Vicki recently sent me a surprise in the mail, a beautiful pair of handmade silver earrings shaped like treble clefs.  She wrote in her card that she’d seen them where a lady was showing her handmade creations and they made her think of me.  I’ve worn them numerous times since receiving them and people always comment on how beautiful and unusual they are.  And with gratitude,  I always share the story of how they came to me.

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Several years ago, my friend Olivia, who was a member of the fraternity I serve as chapter mother, made me a bracelet in the fraternity colors, with a heart charm and my initial.  It’s a treasured gift and a reminder of the gift of creativity that lives within her, and within all of us.

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I am primarily a musician, a singer.  But I also write, make scrapbooks and greeting cards, and take pictures.  My friend David told me years ago that all creative people have more than one outlet for expression, and I believe that is true.  There are writers who also paint, painters who also dance, dancers who also quilt, quilters who also play instruments…the combinations are limitless.  

Genesis tells us that “In the beginning God created…”, (emphasis mine) and that He “made mankind in His image…”.  It stands to reason, then, that we are all endowed by the Creator with the gift of our own creativity, in whatever ways it manifests itself.  I count myself blessed to come from a heritage of so much music and creativity on both sides of my family.  I may not express my creative instincts in all the same ways as my predecessors have, but I try to express myself to the best of my ability and in the ways that best suit me.  And I continue to explore new ways to express those creative urges.  God gave them to me to use, and I hope to use them to bless other people.

Mar20

Reclining Chairs And White Flowers

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Pop Cutshaw’s birthday and my memories…

My father-in-law, Floyd Houston Cutshaw, was born on March 20, 1923.  He’d be turning 91.  That seems unfathomable to me.

I have to say that the Pop Cutshaw I knew was probably a very different person than the father his kids grew up knowing.

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By the time I came onto the scene he was about to retire, and I think that growing a little older and developing some health problems had mellowed him some.  To me, he was always easy to be around, with a dry sense of humor and a favorite chair.

Jeff’s growing-up memories include Pop making old-school, stove-top popcorn in a pan that was, in Jeff’s recollection, beat-up and black from all the stuff that got cooked and/or burned in it, and no longer flat on the bottom but “bowed up in the middle”.  Pop Cutshaw brought home a swirly brown ball from someplace and drilled holes in it to make Jeff’s first little bowling ball, a treasure we have to this day.  Jeff spent countless hours propping up a pillow in their kitchen or den behind his set of little plastic bowling pins as he practiced big boy bowling.

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My history with Pop was a lot shorter because I came into the family as the last child-in-law.  I always liked him and I felt that he liked me too.  A routine developed over the years when we would go over to their house for dinner or whatever reason for a visit.  We always went in the sliding glass doors into the den, and Pop was generally sitting in his recliner in the corner watching sports on TV.  Mom Cutshaw might be in her chair as well, opposite his, or she might be in the kitchen.  I always leaned down to kiss Pop on the corner of his forehead (usually leaving a lipstick smear behind) and he always said “Thank you!” when I did it.

I mentioned that he developed health issues as he got older. One of those was prostate cancer.  It scared all of us to death, because he already had a heart condition, and there was concern that side effects from treatment could make his existing problems worse.  Fortunately, no surgery was needed, just radiation (which was still no walk in the park).  When he began treatment, I sent him an arrangement of white roses, the flowers I always choose to express respect.  Our phone rang that night and it was Mom Cutshaw saying, “Your father-in-law has something he’d like to tell you,”.  He told me he’d never gotten flowers from a woman before and he was touched by the gesture, and he thanked me.  He did very well during radiation, especially for his age and considering his heart problem.

He endured bladder cancer prior to the prostate cancer, a heart attack, several angioplasties, double hernia surgery and an enormous aortic aneurysm that he didn’t want to get fixed until he finished building the carport for the motor home!  That was just how he was.  In his younger days, he could build or fix just about anything thrown his way.  He and Mom Cutshaw eloped to Ringgold, Georgia after he came back from The War, a period of his life that he never talked about much.  The war, not the marriage.

How strange and sad that after surviving so much, in the end it was Alzheimer’s Disease that took him from us.  How ironic that, after years of lipstick-smeared forehead kisses, I should be wearing the original Kissy Shirt the night he died and I kissed him for the last time.  And how poignant was the conversation we had in a dream following his death.

I dreamed that, like every other time we had gone to their house, Pop was there in his recliner, stretched out with his feet up.  The whole family was there for dinner and everyone else was in the kitchen.  I leaned down and kissed him on the forehead just like always, leaving my mark behind. And he thanked me.  I sat down in Mom C’s chair. He and I were by ourselves in the den, and I knew that he was dead, but he had been allowed to return for a visit with me.  He thanked me once again for the white roses I’d sent him years before, and said he would like me to plant a garden of white flowers for him, whatever kind I wanted, but all white.

And then he was gone, I was awake, and tears of joy and gratitude were flowing before my eyes even opened.  Dreams like this are so vivid, real and beautiful when they come, and I would endure every bad dream gladly for the chance to experience these occasional visits from my departed loved ones.  I miss them all so much, but now and then I am granted the gift of a visit like this one with Pop.  I have never gotten around to planting that white garden.  Maybe this year that will happen.  But every time I see white flowers of any kind, I remember Pop and that precious moment we shared in my dream.

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Happy birthday in Heaven, Pop.  I’m sending you a big forehead smooch.  ❤

Mar14

Happy 89th, Aunt Ruby

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Your first birthday in Heaven…

And we all miss you every day.  I haven’t been as diligent about keeping in touch with your kids as I’d like.  It’s hard with all our schedules being crazy like they are.  I know that’s no excuse.

Thank you for showing up in my dreams when you have, even when it’s been bittersweet.  The first dream was so hard.  I dreamed that we were in a huge gymnasium somewhere, with me up high in the bleachers and you down on the gym floor.  I couldn’t get to where you were no matter how hard I tried, and all I wanted was to reach you.  I guess that just speaks to how I feel about you since you died.  Sometimes all I want is to reach you, but I can’t be where you are.

The few dreams since then have been sweeter because I’ve been able to hug you. In each dream I’ve just held you for the longest time, pressing you into my chest until I could feel both our hearts beating at the same time.  Like if I pressed hard enough, you would leave your imprint on me.

The truth is, you DID leave your imprint on me, in ways I’ll probably spend the rest of my life thanking you for.  Lord, how I miss you.  How we all miss you.

Part of me still can’t quite reconcile myself to the fact that you died, even though I was there when it happened.  I felt your last breath, your last heartbeat.  I guess I just know that, while you are gone from this Earthly life, you aren’t really gone.  I’ll be able to reach you again someday, to hold you close and to share an eternity with you and Mama and all the others who are with you in Heaven.  For now I have to be content to know that you are healthy and whole there, surrounded by God’s love and reunited with so many of our loved ones.  Heaven must be so beautiful, and even more so with you there.

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So, Happy Birthday in Heaven.  I hope you and Mama and the rest of The Big Five can sit down to a big meal together, laughing and remembering the many happy times we enjoyed together.   I miss you every day, but I know you are with me in the ways that really matter, and I know that I will see you again someday.  I love you.

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Mar12

Dust And Ashes

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There’s a reason God made us out of dirt…

Having been raised in the United Methodist Church, I am familiar with the season of Lent and the tradition of self-denial many Christians observe as we remember the final days of Christ’s earthly ministry and His journey to the cross.  Year in and year out, whether I’ve been active in a church or not, Lent has always been a special time for me as I remember Who Jesus is, and who I am.

What I am.

This year I am singing and serving in a Lutheran church, and their observance of Lent includes elements I had never experienced before, including The Imposition of Ashes, a portion of the Ash Wednesday service in which the pastor or priest takes ashes and makes the sign of the cross on the foreheads of those who wish to receive them.  The ashes came with the scriptural reminder that,  “… thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.”  (Genesis 3:19)  Receiving the ashes proved to be an overwhelming moment for me, and as I returned to my seat, quiet tears crawled down my cheeks as I contemplated the coming season of Lent and the nature of Christ’s sacrifice for me. No amount of self-denial I exercise during Lent can make me truly understand the magnitude of that sacrifice…and that is not what Lenten self-denial is meant to accomplish anyway.  My self-denial helps me to be more mindful of Who He is.

And what I am.

I am dust, and to dust I am going to return.  Genesis tells us that God took the dust of the ground, breathed life into it and it became Man.  Without God’s breath of life in me, I am only dust.  A collection of chemicals, elements and water.  Someone once analyzed the monetary worth of a human body based upon its chemical/elemental makeup, and that value was something along the lines of $5, including our skin.  A fascinating and humbling prospect.

I’ve always believed there is a reason God made us out of dirt. If He had chosen gold or jewels to make humankind, we might feel overly confident in the intrinsic value of our substance.  Acknowledging that God made us from the dust of the earth, breathing His Spirit into us to give us life, we can realize where our value really comes from, if we choose to.  I am grateful that my substance is frail dust, and that my true worth is what God has breathed into me.

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Mar5

Giving It Up For Lent

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When I give something up, I gain something else…

I spent the afternoon yesterday visiting with Aunt Helen and her kids, my cousins Lisa and Mike.  It was a much-needed visit with family I don’t get to see nearly often enough.  For years we have run into each other most frequently at the funeral home, and that is a situation I think we all would like to change.  After some recent events in each of our lives, we might be more likely to make time for visits like yesterday.

I remarked yesterday that I collected feathers but I had not found one in a while, and I was looking forward to springtime when the birds are more active and there might be more feathers to find.  In an interesting bit of timing and providence, today on the first day of Lent,  I found my first feather in months.  It’s not a pretty one.  It’s kind of dirty and pitiful, actually, enough to make me wonder what the little bird might have suffered in the process of dropping it.

But I didn’t think twice about picking it up and adding it to the others I have gathered over the last few years.  It’s pitiful, but I will give it a home.  As Lent commences, I think about how pitiful I am, but God has given me a home even in my pitiful state.  Many religious traditions encourage their adherents to give up various indulgences during Lent, or to take on some extra project to enhance one’s spiritual life.  A couple of times during Lent I have written letters to people telling them how much they mean to me.  It turned out to be a study in gratitude that blessed me more than it blessed the recipients.

Several years ago I decided to read the C.S. classic “Mere Christianity”.  It took time that I could have used tor other pursuits, but what I gained from reading it far outweighed the time I invested.  This year, in addition to eating more sensibly, I have decided it’s time for more C.S. Lewis during Lent, and the book I’ve chosen is “The Problem of Pain”.  I am certain that God led me to this particular book for a reason; after enduring Aunt Ruby’s death last summer and watching numerous friends lose their loved ones, especially parents, in the last several months, suffering has been very present in my world.

Jesus told us that in this world our lives would be filled with trouble.  He never promised is that we would not suffer.  What He did promise is that we would not suffer alone; He is with us in our pain.  As I give up pieces of my time to do extra reading during Lent, I am trusting that God has something for me to gain through that investment.  He always does.

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(the opening page before the preface to “The Problem of Pain” by C.S. Lewis, and the sad little feather I found today)

Feb27

The Massengill Side

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Mamaw and Papaw and why I’m glad I knew them…

Mamaw and Papaw were Dad’s parents, and the only members of his family who stayed in Knoxville.  All Dad’s brothers and sisters lived out of state, following job opportunities, or husbands’ job opportunities, to places like California, Florida and Massachusetts.  Aunt Alberta was the closest of Dad’s siblings geographically, living near Atlanta.  She was also the furthest from him chronologically, being the oldest, with Dad the baby of the family.

Frank Britton Massengill married Mattie Gertrude Dunn in 1918 and they spent their lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, raising their 6 children.  They lived to see their 70th wedding anniversary a few months before Papaw was diagnosed with liver cancer and died at age 89.  As I remember them, and as anyone who knew them would attest, Mamaw was a tough little birdlike woman who could shoot the crack of a gnat’s ass (sorry for the language!) at 100 paces and work circles around women half her age well into her senior years.  When Reed and I were kids, Dad would generally go and visit with them on Sunday nights and have supper.  Sometimes Mama and Reed and I all went with him, sometimes just us kids, and sometimes only one of us would go.  Without fail, after supper was eaten and the grownups had retired to the living room for coffee and conversation, Mamaw would get down “the dishes” from the hook above the sink for me to play with, a small yellow funnel, a tea ball and some measuring spoons that provided me endless entertainment while the grownups sat and talked.  When Mamaw made biscuits, there was usually a little remnant of dough left over. Since that little dab of dough was too small to make another biscuit, but too big to waste, she would make it into a little snake and sprinkle cinnamon on it.  The cinnamon snake was the best treat in the world for a little kid like me.  She played piano and organ, so some of the musical genes come from her, as well as my prominent chin, dark hair (she was part Cherokee) and sharp tongue.  She once described herself as having a tongue like a circular saw, and I definitely inherited than tendency from her.  She could be blunt and opinionated, but I never thought she was mean.  There was a mischievous sparkle in her eyes and smile that I hope I inherited along with that chin of hers.  She and Papaw always had a garden, mostly vegetables to enjoy in season and to can and freeze for winter provisions.  They didn’t have a lot of indulgences, but Mamaw did enjoy growing flowers in the backyard.  She had a thumb so green she could have grown roses out of rocks.  A beautiful pink rosebush of hers now lives in Dad’s yard, transplanted from Mamaw and Papaw’s house.

Papaw was always…eccentric.  Mama said that as long as she knew him he was different.  Physically, he was as strong as an ox and, like Mamaw, he could work circles around men half his age.  He did lots of different kinds of work; he worked on Knoxville’s streetcars and spent years as a house painter.  Emotionally, though, he was…fragile.  I remember hearing about him leaving a desperately needed job because something didn’t go to suit him or someone said something he didn’t like.  Raising 6 kids during The Depression and The War, walking away from a job was just not done, unless you were my Papaw.  Dad talks about how poor they were, and it might not have been so bad if Papaw had held his tongue and stayed with the job.  And I remember times when he took to his bed because he “didn’t feel well”.  I realize now that he was probably bi-polar, although back in those days they didn’t have a name for it.  And even if there had been a name for it, Papaw was not the sort who would have sought treatment had it been available and/or affordable.  The Papaw I knew was, I suspect, a very different man from the father my Dad and his siblings knew.  The Papaw I knew was not perfect, but I always knew he loved me.  I never remember him calling me by my name; he always called me “Sister”.  His sense of humor was dry and pithy.  It was Papaw who convinced Reed and me that there was a right sock and a left sock.  To this day, if my socks have discernible feet prints on them, I put them on the corresponding feet.  (And yes, since I walk around in stocking feet a lot of the time, my socks do get feet prints.  Don’t judge me.)  It was Papaw who said if you painted your toenails red your feet wouldn’t stink.  (And yes, I actually recall seeing him once with red toenails when I was very little.)  One of my favorite Papaw memories is of the time when Jeff and I were dating and Papaw asked Jeff, “Boy, do you read the Bible right smart?”  Jeff blushed and squirmed, mumbling, “No sir, I’m afraid I don’t.”  Papaw responded “That’s all right, I don’t neither.”  Yet, it was Papaw who explained to me the principle of tithing, adding that when he and Mamaw gave the Lord His tithe, He always made the rest go further and they never missed that money.

I was blessed to have Mamaw and Papaw until I was a married adult, and I’m grateful that I had the chance to know them as well as I did.  A lot of who I am came from them, after all, both genetically and in the memories I have of times spent in their company.  I wish everyone could have the chance to know them like I knew them, because they brought so much color, humor and love into my life.  Knowing I’ll see them again someday in Heaven brings me a lot of comfort.  I can imagine Papaw up there painting one of Heaven’s many mansions, and Mamaw tending to roses in God’s garden.

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Feb19

The Change

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Changes, changes, everywhere…

A couple of years ago I took a ministry class that required me to put together a genogram.  A genogram is basically an expanded family tree of sorts, with the standard names, birth and death dates, but also including other relevant family information such as marriages, divorces, patterns of disease and addiction and other such family skeletons.  It is a tool to help figure out why our family relationships and dynamics are the way they are, and in turn, why we are the way we are.  In putting my own genogram together it dawned on me how little I know about my family history beyond my grandparents.

And as I realized how little of this information I knew, I began to miss my departed loved ones in a whole new way.  Now that I am in the throes of menopause, I can’t help thinking what I’d give to have 15 minutes to talk to Mama and my grandmothers and ask every question I could blurt out in that quick amount of time, to find out more of our “female” history.  I know it’s a natural part of life, but it sure would be nice to get some answers from my female forbears about how their experiences might be influencing my own.  As it is, I have to rely on my memory of the stories that circulated around the women in my family going through The Change.

Granny’s last period nearly killed her, apparently.  Aunt Ruby was living in the little house on Wynn Street, just down the road and around the corner from Granny’s place on Arnold.  Granny was in the habit of walking down to visit with Aunt Ruby every afternoon, but one day she didn’t show up.  Aunt Ruby told me that Uncle Otto got ahold of her and said, “You should probably get to Mama’s house, she’s up there bleedin’ like a stuck hog.”  Before it was all over, the doctor had to come and pack her to get the bleeding to subside, and that was the very last of it.  In those days such things were not discussed, other than to say in hushed tones that someone was suffering from “female trouble”.  Which could mean anything from having her period to cancer.

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Mama’s menopause did not come on gradually, either.  I remember being at home with her when she started saying that she felt funny and sick, hot and weak.  She paced the floor and eventually laid down on the living room floor and put her feet up on the couch.  I got cold compresses for her and prayed hard.  I thought she was having a stroke or worse, and it scared me to death.  It scared her too.  She said she had never had such an awful feeling in her life before.  When she went to the doctor, he did some blood tests and something startling showed up.  She was producing no estrogen at all.  Like, yesterday she had some and today she had none.  NONE.  He said that would definitely explain her strange symptoms, and they went about formulating a treatment plan to get her feeling better.  For a while she went in for monthly hormone injections.  ”I go in on Tuesday for my Hot Shot,” she would joke.  Her traumatic entry into The Change was brought on, in part, by emotional stress due to some drastic economic changes.  She and Dad had 2 kids in college when Dad’s company demoted him and several other senior managers (Dad suspected possibly due to age), resulting in a severe drop in income.  Dad said he got demoted while Mama was having a period and she never bled another streak again.

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Aunt Mary and Aunt Martha both seemed to have some trouble during The Change as well, from what I can remember.  I was a kid and Aunt Mary was always hot, and Aunt Martha was always nervous.  Aunt Martha’s recollections of her experience with The Change could be funny.  ”They Lord, I felt like my nipples was on fire, so I stuck ice cubes down my brassiere!”   She also suffered from headaches later in life and would rub Icy Hot arthritis gel on her forehead.  I have never tried this and I don’t intend to…but I also never say never.

Aunt Ruby and Aunt Elaine both had hysterectomies, so their Changes weren’t typical.  I exchanged messages recently with “Aunt” Helen, who is actually my first cousin, and with Debbie, another first cousin, to pry into their experiences.  Both of them were very sweet in sharing what they could with me, and offered encouragement and love as I navigate the waters of my own Change.

Not having to worry about periods and birth control anymore will be a wonderful relief.  But the night sweats are disrupting my sleep enough now that I think I am losing IQ points.  I’ve joked that every time I wake up sweating, I can hear brain cells screaming as they die.  My Change may also be more challenging because I’ve never borne a child.  I just hope and pray that my transition through this stage of my life will be…wait for it… A Change for the Better!

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Feb10

Long Life

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Prophetic treasures and simple pleasures as Valentine’s Day approaches…

As I have asserted before, I am a collector, of objects and of memories.  Gathering has been a lifelong pursuit for me, and each object I have found (or received) and kept has a story.  Some of my collections are large. I own more neckties than most men I know, for example, and most of them are outrageously colorful, ugly or interesting in some way.  And yes, I actually wear them, usually styled with a tailored shirt, a vest and girly jewelry. The Necktie Collection deserves to be displayed in an art museum, but it will have to settle for its own entry on Patchwork And Potpourri at some future date. Be on the lookout for that!

My collections include figurines of angels, dogs and pigs.  I have collections of baskets and wreaths.  A favorite wreath, heart-shaped and made of grapevine, contains dried flowers from weddings I have sung for, funerals of loved ones, flowers I have received from Sweet Pea and other friends and loved ones, and flowers I’ve sent to Sweet Pea over the years.  Of course, there are also the hymnals and Bibles that came to me from Mama and other forebears, as well as treasure boxes filled with priceless cards, letters and pictures.  I must be the most sentimental person in the world.  Each item I have received or found has a story behind it, a reason why it belongs with me.

Someday when I am gone from this world, someone may wonder why I kept so much…stuff.  Part of what I hope to accomplish with Patchwork And Potpourri is to explain my collections, and to make other people contemplate their own, and share the stories behind the stuff.  Hence Longlife.

When Sweet Pea and I returned from our honeymoon, he immediately went back to work at his job, and I set about unpacking and setting up our very humble little household.  Cardboard boxes filled our tiny rental house, which to us seemed like a palace even though it was really sort of a dump.  We made it home and filled it with love as newlyweds always do.  The first day of married reality when he went to work and I started unpacking, I was thirsty. It was the end of June, 1986, record heat and no air conditioning.  We had stocked the fridge and pantry and started getting the kitchen in order, but I didn’t know which box contained the glasses.  I checked boxes and scrounged around the kitchen to find something to pour my icy-cold Mello Yello into so I could fuel myself for the day’s work.  In a corner of the counter I saw a grimy old pint-sized Mason jar.  Just the right size for my frosty beverage once I cleaned it up! 

Unlike the Mason jars Mama and The Aunts used for canning their green beans and tomatoes, this little jar did not bear the name of Ball or Kerr.  It was stamped “Longlife”.  Long life.  What a wonderful omen for a newlywed couple starting life together in their first little rental house, filled with love and dreams and optimism.  I cleaned out my new little jar, filled it with my bubbly beverage of choice and began unpacking our life together, one box at a time. 

So someday, when I am gone, someone may wonder why, among the china, silver and crystal, a humble Longlife Mason jar has a place of honor in the china cabinet from Mom Cutshaw’s house.  These days I don’t drink from it very often. I usually use a larger, lidded 32-ounce bottle to make sure I consume enough liquid each day, and I keep the lid on to avoid spills because I am a bit clumsy.  And, truthfully, I don’t want to risk breaking my precious little jar, again, because I am clumsy.  It means more to me than I could ever explain.  I hope someday, now that I have told its story, it will mean just as much to someone else.

Longlife…long life. 

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Feb3

Vox Humana

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“The human voice is the organ of the soul.”—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Mama always told people that when I was born I came out singing.  I certainly don’t remember it, but I would like to think that my birth cries were at least a little bit musical!  Today’s church services and the choice of operatic soprano Renee’ Fleming to sing the Star Spangled Banner for the 2014 BIG FOOTBALL GAME (which, apparently cannot be called by its more “super” moniker unless one has permission to do so) have gotten me thinking about the human voice, mine and other people’s.

I’ve been singing pretty much all my life, from the time I was a small child.  It was just how I expressed myself and the thing I loved most to do in the world.  Those things are still true.  I took voice lessons beginning in the 8th grade and continued through college, earning a Bachelor of  Music in Applied Voice (it’s called Vocal Performance now).

As a voice student and musician, my fascination with the human voice led me into many other areas of study.  Classically trained singers, for example, need to have at least a shallow working knowledge of several foreign languages.  My first ever voice teacher started me with “the singer’s language”, Italian, a language of pure vowels and the art of bel canto, which means “beautiful singing”.  Singing in a foreign language made me feel very grown-up, but it also gave me a desire to learn how to make my foreign language diction as convincing as possible.  The ultimate goal is for listeners to think whatever language I am singing is my native tongue.

Singers also need to know certain things about how the human body is put together and how it functions, more than the average person generally needs to know.  Our bodies are our instruments and we have to understand how they work.  The voice doesn’t start in the throat.  It starts deep in the abdomen with the diaphragm, a muscle which we spend years strengthening in order to breathe deeply and efficiently, and to control the expulsion of air in long phrases.  We are trained to imagine filling our lungs up from the bottom in order to maximize their capacity.  Once the air is in, it is all about controlling how it comes out, but we have to be able to relax certain muscles even as we exercise this control.  The air passes through the vocal cords, two of the tiniest and strongest muscles in the human body, producing vocalizations of all kinds…singing, speech, laughter.

In college one of the classes I took and enjoyed was Physics of Musical Sound.  It fascinated me when my professor showed us an oscilloscope, an instrument that measures the human voice and other sounds, producing a sort of “sound print” of what it has recorded.  And much like fingerprints, these sound prints are unique.  I remember thinking how much I would love to have a picture of my very own voice print.  Now, with modern technology, one of our computers here at home has an oscilloscope, and I can capture my voice print!

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I spent a number of years working in radio, primarily as an on-air announcer and commercial copywriter/producer.  My musical training kept me mindful that I needed to be careful with my voice.  Even though it was not singing, radio work was also a very specialized use of the voice, and I knew both radio people and singers who developed voice trouble due to improper technique and bad habits.  My radio years were a lot of fun, and I think they gave me a different appreciation for the communication that is only possible with the human voice.

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I still do a bit of occasional voice-over work for a friend’s radio stations, but my first love will always be to sing.  I let my singing go for a long time, making the excuses we all make about not having enough time or energy to commit to music… something I would not allow to happen if I could have a do-over.  As it is, though, I sing as often as I have the opportunity.  Singing is, for me, a way to express the feelings for which there are no words, a way to thank and praise the God Who spoke the universe into being with His Voice. I will hope to sing for as long as l am able, expressing, thanking and praising with my own vox humana. 

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“I will sing unto the LORD, for He hath dealt bountifully with me.”

Psalm 13:6

Jan23

Aunt Ruby’s Dream

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Home Places and listening to my instincts…

Tuesday, July 23, 2013 was a monthly in-service at the hospice where I volunteer. The morning was muggy and humid so instead of pants I wore a lightweight dress with a cardigan over it, and the outfit turned out to be cute. Plus it was a great hair day, so the morning started off on a bright note. The thought crossed my mind that I ought to go and check in on Aunt Ruby after in-service was over.

At our in-service I was able to see Glenda, a lovely friend who was in my volunteer training group back in 2009 and with whom I had shared Monday afternoons at the hospice until our schedules changed and we rarely ran into each other anymore. We even had our picture made together that day, and it is a treasure to me for a number of reasons. We had a wonderful visit and caught up on each other’s lives as best we could in the time we had together.

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My outfit was cute, my hair looked good, and visiting with Glenda had filled my heart with happiness. Something inside my happy heart kept telling me, “You should go and see Aunt Ruby while you’re out today.” After I left the hospice I did a little shopping, and I found a very cute pair of faux-suede boots with a plush fur lining on sale for a ridiculous price. The stores had already started putting out their fall stock, and as hot as the day was, I could look at those boots and dream about the cooler weather that would eventually come. Pulling out of the mall parking lot, my spirit once again tugged at me. ”Go and see Aunt Ruby while you’re out today. You NEED to go and see her.” So I whipped my car back toward the north end of town and headed to the assisted living where Aunt Ruby had spent the last several months, her new home.

When I arrived she was sitting on the end of a sofa, napping, as had become her daily post-lunch routine. I sat down next to her and she opened her eyes and smiled before I even said hello, scooping her into a big hug. Her eyesight was very poor but I was close enough to her that she could recognize me even before she heard my voice. That smile and that hug made me very happy that I had listened to my instincts and gone on to visit with her. But our conversation held other blessings— mixed, prophetic ones.

At one point during our visit she said, “You know, I had the most unusual dream last night.” I asked her what she had dreamed about and she said, “I dreamed about Mother and Daddy and the old home place.”

“Really?” I asked. ”Was it a good dream? What all do you remember about it?”

She said, “Oh, it was a nice dream. I just dreamed that we were all there together again, the kids and everybody, and we were all so happy.”

With a lump in my throat and a queasy stomach, I said, “It sounds wonderful.  I’m glad you had such a happy dream.”

She said, “Oh I am too, it was so nice to be with everybody again.”

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Less than 3 weeks later she had her massive stroke and was gone, at the advanced age of 88, and yet still so suddenly.   When I visited with her at the assisted living that muggy Tuesday and she shared her dream with me, I realized that she was getting closer to going Home, but I didn’t realize just how close she was.  I believe that wonderful dream of hers was God’s way of preparing her for Heaven and the trip she would be making there very soon…sooner than any of us ever expected.

For a number of years, every time we’ve gone on a vacation, I’ve had the niggling thought in the back of my mind that something might happen to Aunt Ruby while we were gone and we might have to make a frantic trip back home. Obviously I don’t have to think about that any longer. She is Home now, and I believe she is experiencing the scene from her dream, reunited with her parents and the rest of the family in a new, yet somehow familiar,  Home Place.