July 26, 2002

The humidity builds outside as another summer thunderstorm approaches from the west. They have been few and far between to date this season. The drought word had been bandied about earlier this month before we were inundated with 30mm of rain on Monday. This week has been one of perfect summer weather by my standards - 25C/77F and not too humid during the day, and down to 15C/60F overnight. Naturally, I've spent the week cooped up indoors in the dungeon that is my office. The only windows in here are installed on the computers. (Ha ha.)

It's become habit to listen to jazz when I write entries. Right now, Billie Holiday is belting out You've Changed. I think it's my favourite of all her songs that we possess. Whoop, now it's over and Dinah Washington is wailing away. Days like this, when I'm here in my workspace alone, are much more enjoyable when I can sing along as loud as I want to the tunes Winamp spits out at me.

Singing is one of my hidden pleasures. I'm not terribly good at it in adulthood, but when I'm by myself and the tunes are demanding that I join in, I do so. I'll bet you didn't know that I was in the school choir for both the schools I attended in Bermuda. (Or you did because I mentioned it in a past entry and just don't remember doing so. Whatever.) Proof that at one point in my life, my voice was good enough for public consumption.

Halloween, 1971. The Eliot School, Devonshire Parish, Bermuda, is putting on a "Halloween Hullabaloo" variety show. I'm sure you can guess what the theme of the show is. [Background info: Bermuda's population is 70% black, 30% white. Most of the white children go to what we call private schools, so in the public schools such as The Eliot School the student body ratio is skewed more to 90%/10%. Hi there! I'm young Master 10%.] The show organizers wanted to reflect various world cultures in the production while keeping things in a Halloween theme. Someone had a stroke of genius. They saw little old me, the lone Canadian (let alone white) kid in my class, and thought "Let's get him to go out on stage to sing Frere Jacques, solo. He can be the little French Canadian boy!" The logic being, of course, that since I am Canadian and a child of the military, I must be able to speak French fluently. I couldn't (and still can't) speak the language, but agreed to the part regardless.

As with a lot of childhood memories, the details of much of the night escape me now. I remember my Mom leaving me in the care of the teachers and heading out into the audience to watch. I don't recall anything of the kids who went out before me, nor if I simply walked onto stage or if the curtains opened to reveal me. I can however see the audience as clear as day in my mind's eye; how large it was, especially to a 7 year old. I'm sure I was nervous, but I was determined not to disappoint. When my cue was given, I sang Frere Jacques as best as I could. I wrapped my tongue around the words and spat them out to the crowd loudly and clearly. I made eye contact with as many faces in the audience as I could. When the song ended, the place erupted with applause. I bowed and left the stage, feeling something inside that I had never encountered before. I went into the audience to sit with my Mom and watch the rest of the show, though I felt like I was floating on a cloud. When the night was over and we made our way out, people were coming up to me and telling me what a wonderful job I did.

I was sold. I joined the school choir shortly thereafter. When we moved to another parish in Bermuda that summer and I started at Southampton Glebe the next school year, I signed up for their choir as soon as I could. I remember performing with the choir at a Martin Luther King Jr memorial concert and the Christmas pageant. During the latter, the whole choir was on stage but some of us were asked to step forward and solo for some carol verses. Mine was the first verse of The Holly And The Ivy. When we moved to Winnipeg the following year and I went to two schools in the first three months of Grade 5, I experienced for the first time the "new kid" syndrome and my burgeoning choir career came to an abrupt end. It was easier to survive by not drawing attention to one's self where ever possible. Over time, the combination of puberty and the lack of voice training has taken it's toll. I am now less a singer and more just another voice in the crowd that warbles along to the music.

I know now in adulthood what it was that filled me that night. I hear actors and musicians talk about a particular performance high that they get after a show, that makes them want to come back and do it all again. I must have been one drugged-up-on-singing little 7 year old.

The other day, Elle posted an entry in which she sings a song from a Charlie's Angel musical episode, of all things. On a whim, I recorded myself pseudo-singing the accompanying lyrics and sent that off to her. She's since posted a new entry, so I have to conclude that the sound of my singing voice didn't kill her. I wonder if there's hope for the pipes yet.

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