We were driving out of the Home Depot parking lot when Ed Sheeran's "Bad Habits" came on the radio. Love. The sun was shining, the bed of the truck was full of 16 foot lengths of cedar shiplap for a bathroom reno, jams were blasting out of the speakers: endorphins galore. Then an interesting thing happened. Luis was singing the techno countermelody of the song and my mind began to think its thinks. I did not stop singing at the top of my lungs and clapping and really hitting my falsetto but inside I was absorbing how much I enjoyed Luis chosen part of the song. Usually my brain focuses on the hard driving, neck snapping beat and the melody. But as I basked in the countermelody delivered by my husband, I thought, "Isn't that interesting, I love that part but I would never sing it and I almost don't even hear it until he brings it forward. There's my boy alternately singing and whistling this funky countermelody because that's what he hears first."
Of course because I'm an inherent exaggerator, I must make a mountain out of this molehill. Honestly, the idea crystallized fully formed into my mind without effort: this is exactly how our life together has been. I'm not saying Luis sings the countermelody to my melody on a permanent basis. It's not a question of one person singing the lead and the other doo-wopping in the background, he hears and sees things in a different way and from a different perspective than I do. He has brought to our equation thinks I'd never thunk before: Spanish, Peru, innate kicking against the goads, wild independence, calm fidelity. These are the obvious but there have been a million revelations over our time, just like that countermelody. The interesting thing is, I come from this family of big, aggressive, competitive, loud and many children. "Loudest and longest" is a bit of a motto and joke referring to which of us can sing the most obtrusively, even (or especially) at church or a funeral. So probably when I met Luis I was not in the habit of singing the countermelody to someone else's song. Indeed, I was gonna sing my own song at the top of my lungs; get on board or get drowned out. Somehow and somewhere, our song has expanded and retracted, pushed and pulled and developed into a interesting and very surprising duet: sometimes he sings the melody, sometimes I, sometimes one or the other of us is the audience to the others' solo. In sum, I feel rather lucky because I LOVE a duet.
My sisters and I have talked about this song and were each separately hurt and bowled over by a line from Selena Gomez' "Lose You To Love Me":
"Sang off key in my chorus 'cuz it wasn't yours."
Choke. I can't. It hurts me in the somewhere unknown center of my soul to imagine someone purposefully ruining another's song. Don't get me wrong, intentional off-tune harmonies can be hilarious if everyone's in on the joke. Try it sometime with The Three Little Pigs’ jaunty rendition of “Who’s Afraid of The Big Bad Wolf?!” Endless hilarity- tra la la la laaaaa. A different thing is a malicious neglect or self-centered lack of care for someone else's song. What if I do it to another? I've seen it and it is devastating. Thanks to my mother who loved music enough to doggedly share it with her kids, I had, at least, a few good harmonies in my repertoire. I can still picture her strained face while she lifted her eyebrows and finger to show me exactly where the note was that I was missing. "No, here" and then she'd sing the note for me. Unfortunately I probably used the tool as a battering ram to sing the harmony louder (and longer) than the one singing the melody. But still. I loved to harmonize with my mother. She, having aged past self-centered youth, having been a mother for many years had learned the humility and nuance of being the audience, the music teacher, the encourager, the doo -wopper and so we sang together all the time. She invited me to enter the song and even let me take over. This is an amazing gift that she gave to all of her children. Each of us has separate or shared memories that can be referenced in song, either from the radio, from church, from my mom making a song out of anything and inviting everybody into the party.
I have one particular memory that encapsulates how shared music worked in our family: My brother had just died and we were all wallowing in the endless mire of depression and sorrow and darkness. A friend came over for a condolence visit. He was probably 21 at the time and not many of my contemporaries could wrap their minds around condolence. His mother was dying with brain cancer so he got it and made an heroic effort to show up. There we were, up in our living room and for some reason we started singing "The Sound of Music" (probably because we thought we were the poor man's family Von Trapp). My friend Marc suddenly pipes in with the most beautiful angelic "aaaaaaaah" .... you know the part. It makes me tear up even today remembering him entering into our song of sorrow and celebration of my brother Ben with his ethereal countermelody. I will never forget. Another funeral related incident hearkens to the time of my father's death. My son Miguel came to be with me in Maine at my Dad's funeral. We the siblings hauled out our showiest, loudest, longest notes and harmonies to honour ( yes there is a u in there to make the honour absolute) our father. This man who could sing "Terror of the Gibbet" at haute voice from the shower would not be memorialized with any less than our full vigour ( yes u). Afterward Miguel stared at me wide-eyed shaking with suppressed mirth and surprise. "That could have been in a movie- that's the only way I can describe it." I chuckled knowingly, because indeed the movie "Loudest and Longest" would be a wonderful homage to our sibling bonding and struggle...at a funeral. And even though song could be raised to the level of blood sport in my family, it has always been a source of solace and wonder and expression of things our hearts needed to say but couldn't.
At some point I began to understand that all of creation was God's song to us and that we had been and were constantly being invited to join in this song. What does that mean? Let me stop backstroking down the river memory and allow the slipstream to catch me, arms akimbo, hair floating, backward to the place I need to go. When I was in fourth grade I had this teacher who was magnificent to behold. She was probably 6 ft 2. I could be exaggerating (as I do) because who knows how tall adults are when you're in the fourth grade? She has a black beehive that added another 6 inches. Her eyes were usually shadowed in an iridescent green or blue with the wings of Madame Butterfly outlined in sharp black. She wore brightly colored floral pattern dresses that left the impression that an armoire and a chintz couch had had a baby and she was the living product. Substantial, impressive.....terrifying. On the first day of fourth grade, I walked into the classroom, took one look at her and forgot to read the things she had written of the blackboard. This was unfortunate because the instruction were: go to the back table, pick your name card, choose your own desk, put your name card on your chosen desk. I think today I could be diagnosed with social anxiety so new situations got me all out of whack and my gingery essence turned me into a flaming face of horrified shame. Back in 1978, I was just told " stop crossing your arms and try to smile at people". So I walked into Mrs. Modica's classroom, saw her, uncrossed my arms, gave her the weakest of smiles, went to the back table and promptly plopped myself down on the chair in front of my name card, at the back table, ears ringing. At some point my teacher released me from the prison of my making and let me choose my own desk. She didn't even hold my awkwardness against me. Later in the year, I remember reading through the Chronicles of Narnia and coming to her desk to give an oral book report. I was so enraptured by the idea that I had discovered a secret story within the story that I very enthusiastically told her about The Lion in “The Magicians Nephew” singing the world into being...and I think C S Lewis meant that it was like God creating the world.....and do you think that perhaps God sang the world into being or is that just what the author thought? She listened avidly as if I had just discovered literature, metaphor and allegory single handedly. Kind lady. Next year I fell into 5th grade with a new level of confidence and comfort with another wonderful teacher Mrs. Anthony. She gave me the book "A Wrinkle In Time." In it, I remember the stars singing with the joy of creation. I would not say I had a fully formed idea of what all this meant (in fact I still don't) but it opened me up to the depth and breadth of what music could mean to my life, to others, in communication, in creation....oh the possibilities.
Then suddenly I was a mother and it was my turn to teach the harmonies, and melodies and countermelodies and to be the audience. I wanted to invite my children into the world of music, the song of Creation. I wanted them to experience the ineffable that can only be conveyed through music and the joining in. I was about to critique my efforts in this area but I will refrain because I'm trying to give myself room for kindness and growth. The story isn't over yet. I have been contemplating recently (the past 20ish years) the idea of all of our actions being our part that enters into the song of Creation: raising kids, washing dishes, driving kids all over creation, gardening, cooking, singing, writing, kissing, hugging, smiling, screaming, giving birth, crying, mourning, fighting, painting, folding clothes. Some parts are discordant, trite, boring, repetitive, dissonant. But sometimes, the harmony is so pure, the countermelody so true, the baseline so heart thumpingly good that one feels they've slipped the bonds of gravity, complacency and drudgery, so entering the ethereal yet earthly space that is the song of creation. Here the invitation to join has been accepted and
"You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you
and all the trees of the field will clap their hands"
The distillation of this happens, sometimes, in the parking lot of Home Depot.
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