in song

It’s amazing how the act of singing can take you to such polar opposites.

Last night I performed at the World Cafe Live open mic night in Philly. I got home late, slept for about three hours, and then woke up in order to wash my hair and put on something presentable in order to get to a Catholic church in time to rehearse and then sing for a funeral.

Oh, did I say rehearse?

Silly me, that is a mistake.

Because, see, I didn’t.

Get to rehearse, I mean.

Well, that’s not altogether true either. I did get to rehearse the song I was singing while my friend Christian accompanied me on the guitar. The song that I’ve sung a thousand times and was not nervous about at all. That was the song I did get to rehearse.

But the other one. The tricksy one. The beautiful hymn for which I had never received the complete sheet music and remember? had never rehearsed. That was the one I was really counting on practicing with the organist and I don’t know, at the very least hearing the introduction and the interlude.

But no dice.

Joe, the organist, heard me sing a few notes quietly and decided we didn’t need to practice. You’ve got this one, he said. I feel total confidence in you, he let me know with a thumbs up.

As if the thumbs up made up for the lack of practice. Well not just the thumbs up. He kissed me too, which might have helped, but not with Ave Maria.

And even when I asked if we could go over it once he looked absolutely befuddled at the very notion of practicing something which clearly needed no practice.

Gulp.

And that was that.

Except it wasn’t.

I walked up to sing Ave Maria and knew that I was standing there on a hope and a prayer. I opened my mouth and I sang it but let me tell you, it was one of those times when you finish the first verse and cannot believe God would be so merciless as to have allowed Shubert to write a whole other one.

Usually when I sing songs I am happy in every section of it, relishing the song, savoring the words in my mouth like they taste good. But this time I was a little scared and I don’t like that. And Joe was wanting me to lead and there I was wanting Joe to lead and so there we both were doing a very tentative kind of limp together that eventually got to where we were going.

But it sure did feel like it was taking it’s sweet old time.

Oh, and I do love that song. It’s beautiful and you can’t tell me it’s not. The melody is sinuous and I can see it moving to the pattern of the lace on a victorian valentine’s day card. Round and soft, ephemeral and strong. Not thick, but definitely lasting. And I also have to admit that I do love singing in a Catholic church. The way the notes ring without hardly any effort at all makes me wish all over again that I had gotten to practice Ave Maria so that I could have made them ring even more.

But there you go, it was not what I would call my favorite moment, but it happened. And I know the family friend who asked me to sing for his father’s funeral was very happy, so I am grateful to have done it. Maybe I should say touched instead; happy isn’t really the word when involving a funeral, I think.

But the World Cafe the night before, the other singing I did within the past 24 hours.

That was a blast. Just nothing else but a really good time. My sister and I went last minute, got there later than intended, and so I missed even making it onto the sign-up sheet and had to put my name on the loser alternate list. But we were highly entertained listening to some of Philly’s finest woo the packed club and even got to eat the world’s worst cheese plate while doing it.

And what do you know, but I did get to sing. I was the very last of the night, could only do one song (as opposed to two, since I was on the loser alternate list), and in an effort to speed things up for the understandably tired crowd, the MC made me sit at the piano bench on stage while the previous few acts were performing.

Awesome.

I was just sitting there, for no apparent reason, while not performing. See, I am not the kind of person that likes to be in the spotlight for no good reason. I’d much rather read a book or catch a frog. Or even read a book about catching frogs. But because the MC did not want to have to wait the .10 seconds it would take me to walk from my chair to the piano when it was my turn to play, I had to wait on stage, poised and ready, with nothing to do.

It was actually pretty funny.

And a very nice guy ended up sitting with me on the piano bench, keeping me company and making me feel less of an idiot, so I took comfort in that.

And then I performed and it was my own song so I totally knew it and could make the intro and interludes as long or as short as I wanted and there was also comfort in that.

And I loved it.

The funeral was sadly beautiful, haunting and light; the World Cafe was jaunty and shadowed, crowded with music that came directly from anonymous living rooms.

I am grateful to have been at both places, grateful to have come by them by a song.