#32

Darling, keep teaching me how to trust my Love.

#22

Darling, you've turned me into a cynic.
And I'm tired of people telling me things I didn't know but should have known about my body.
And I miss you.
And without you I feel hopeless.
And I love you.
Please, Love, let something work soon.

I thank you, Lord God, for all my pains.
If it pleases You, Lord, increase them a hundredfold.
I shall thankfully accept whatever sorrow You give, not sparing me;
for in the fulfillment of Your will I find my greatest solace.
-St. Francis of Assisi

#16

I trust you.

#15

Why am I so worried about getting love from other people
when all I really need is love
from you
and our God?

#14

When you sing, you pray twice.
I can't wait until we're able to pray
one million trillion times a day.

#13

Some days
you don't hurt.
Thank God.

On being a singer who is unable to sing

            One time on facebook a friend of mine asked her friends what object we thought best exemplified our souls. Or our lives. Or maybe she just asked what our favorite objects were… Honestly, I don’t remember exactly what the question was. But my answer was “voice box.” For those of you who know me, you will hardly find that surprising. I love words and music and almost anything that the voice has the capability to do. When I was little I would read stories with different voices because I was so fascinated by accents. To this day I have to refrain myself from interrogating people I’ve just met about their linguistic backgrounds, because most people would get freaked out by me going “OH MY GOSH SAY THAT WORD AGAIN YOU SAY ____ IN THIS WAY, WHICH IS SO COOL.” I love studying language because it is so infinite. My favorite Bible verse is John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” There are all sorts of cool theological interpretations of this- go look them up, but the reason that I love it so much is that Words=God. So by studying linguistics (in my view), I’m studying God in all of God’s complex, hard to decipher infiniteness. How cool is that?! Also, have you seen a video of vocal folds? So tiny yet so so so powerful.

            But more than any of that, the reason I answered with “voice box” is because I’m a singer. Singing and music are how I express myself. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to sing since September, and for a long time I didn’t know why. Singing all of a sudden became painful. I would get tired after singing for only a few minutes.

            On October 24^th I was diagnosed with muscle tension dysphonia. What this means, essentially, is that the muscles around my vocal tract work too hard and work ineffectively. So, the more I use my voice, the tighter my muscles get and the more pain I’m in. Fun, huh? I even got this snazzy little camera stuck through my nose and into my throat. So now I have an awesome and only slightly embarrassing video of my very own voice box in action. So at least that’s something.

            Muscle tension dysphonia is apparently one of the most common voice disorders. My vocal folds are completely healthy and I am told (and have to have faith) that this is curable. So I’m currently in voice therapy.

            And I’m so, so lucky to have the privilege to be able to get this taken care of, but it’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Not being able to sing really, really sucks.

1) I have to do voice therapy exercises that make me sound like a dying cow (sorry, all of my family and everyone in the general area of the JWall practice rooms).

2) I never know when my voice will or will not fail me.

3) I’ve had to push off so many deadlines and take so many incompletes for voice lessons.

4) I never know when I’m going to be in pain next.

5) I have to sit around with ice packs and heat packs wrapped around my throat to ease the pain.

6) I won’t be able to do my community theatre’s 24 hour musical they’re doing next week because I can barely sing for 24 minutes let alone 24 hours.

7) I’m not able to perform in my student theatre group’s musical we’re doing this semester.

8) I had to withdraw from choir this week. The choir I have wanted to be in ever since the day I first visited Macalester. I’ve been trying to ease my way into singing again, but every time I do I can’t sing for days after the fact. There’s something about choral singing.

9) I am so, so tired of being near tears about this.

But, as much as this sucks, and boy does it suck, I am so, so lucky to be surrounded with so much love.

1) When I was home over winter break and had to make my dying cow noises, no one complained once, even though our house is really small and is chaotic as it is.

2) Although my voice more often than not doesn’t work, there are days when I can sing and there is no better feeling in the world.

3) I’m in a department that is supportive and patient and has let me do what I have needed to do for my health. This wouldn’t be true everywhere.

4) Even though I’m usually in pain, sometimes I’m not.

5) Heat packs actually feel really freaking good wrapped around your neck. Just saying. Plus, it’s cold in Minnesota right now, so added heat is always nice. Also, what a fashion statement to walk around with one wrapped around your neck, am I right?

6) I’ll hopefully at least be home and able to watch the 24 hour musical. We’ll see.

7) I’ve been getting a lot of great producing experience through getting this musical project off the ground, even though I won’t be performing.

8) Sitting in choir practice not being able to sing has forced me to be a really good musical listener. Also, since I won’t be going on tour with them over spring break, I get a few more days to snuggle with my cats at home.

9) Have I been crying a lot? Yes. More than I would like to. But I have a voice teacher who is incredibly supportive and who has faith that things are going to get better and that the Universe is trying to tell us something even when I’m at my most cynical. I have a great voice therapist who is doing everything she can to help me. I have wonderful parents who have somehow found the way to help me with these really expensive therapy sessions and who understand that singing is a necessity for me. When I withdrew from choir my director told me that they would welcome me back whenever I was ready. My acting teacher had the whole class give me a hug when he saw how not okay I was. This disorder has caused me to consider careers that I had never even thought of before. I am surrounded by friends who have put up with how distracted I have been and how much of a mess I have been. I am loved by a God who is teaching me to be patient and trusting and who I believe is somehow suffering alongside me through this. I don’t talk about this a lot, but at times this is all that is holding me together.

This is hard. I grow more frustrated by the day. I can’t wait for the day that I will be able to sing again without pain. But until then, I am so grateful for all of the people who have been taking care of me. Thank you if this has been you.

           

You are the sun, you are the moon

This semester, I'm taking a class about North Indian classical music. We've been learning all about different Indian music traditions, which are all really interesting, profound, and tied up in spirituality. Half of the class is singing, and today we learned a song with this poem that really struck me:

Sthayi
Tu hi surya tu hi chandra
Tu hi pavan tu hi agan
Tu hi aap tu akaas
Tu he dharani Yajamaan

Sthayi
You are the sun, you are the moon
You are the wind, you are the fire
You are yourself, you are the sky
You are the earth and the conductor of activities

Our teacher, Pooja, prefaced this song by telling us that it's over 200 years old and is about the Almighty. It's always so cool how music can unite us in our search for the Almighty/Transcendence/the Sublime/the Divine/God/the Universe/whatever else  you want to call it. That which is beyond our understanding yet for some reason so much a part of us.
So, what struck me so much about this poem? The word for you. Pooja told us that "tu" is the word they use in Hindi for friends/other people you are informal with. They use "ap" for parents and grandparents and so forth. What is so incredibly interesting is that this poem uses "tu" to address the Almighty... because it's a part of yourself and you are familiar with it. Honorifics are always something that I think about because they are so much a part of Korean, which has complete different levels and ways of speaking to people depending on how much respect you owe them. What is so interesting for me is that the Korean Bible is notoriously hard to understand, especially for non-native speakers, because of the super high honorifics it uses to address God... yet this poem addresses God in the informal way.

What do you think?

New directions

I haven't posted in over a month-- this often happens whenever I try starting a blog... Life gets in the way or I run out of things to talk about or it just isn't worth it.

I've come to the realization that I keep talking about silly stuff that in the grand scheme of things doesn't really matter and doesn't really speak to me... So I think that it's time to expand the purpose of this blog.

I'll admit- initially I started this because I heard it was a really good way to draw traffic to your etsy shop. Well, I'm still going to share and talk about projects of mine, and if I find an etsy shop that is really spectacular I'll share it, but I want to do more.

This blog is now going to become a receptacle for my thoughts, ideas, and dreams. I'll throw journal entries on here and poetry and art and questions... I've found that my mind is very theologically and philosophically oriented, so probably a lot of posts will end up being about that, but don't worry! I will do my best to make my thoughts and questions relevant to those of you that don't share my beliefs, because I think we can all learn from each other's questions.

"Learning to Fly" taken by me Spring 2011 of my friend Chris