Lullabies

I find when I'm stressed out I sing to myself. The more depressed or angry or hopeless I feel, the more I sing.

Today I couldn't stop. It was sing or cry. So, there I was walking down East Hastings Street singing to myself! I fit right in.

It's not a narcissistic thing that I find the sound of my own voice comforting; not like talking because I like the sound of my own voice. It's like a lullaby. A special song from me to me. Similar to rocking myself when I grieve. Sometimes all you have is your self and that's as it should be. Singing to myself, or sometimes just making sound (like an "ohm" on my signature note) does remind me so much of that feeling: lying in a cot, safe, wrapped in a blanket of warmth being rocked to sleep with my mother's love washing over me.

I don't have any profound theories to sum this experience up with. I feel sure there's one in there about the importance of singing and love and evolution... Perhaps someone else can expound on that for me. I just really wanted to share, maybe even hear if anyone else out there does the same thing? It certainly brings home how important it is to me to continue with my Teach the World to Sing Experiment. If I didn't have my voice, I have no idea how I'd cope with extreme emotion. Not to be able to express, to send my message out to the universe through sound and to feel that connection reverberating out all the way to the stars, not to siphon off all that excess tension... I shudder to think what a wreck I'd be.

***A quick addendum here: I do sing when I'm happy too!!
I don't want you to think, if you do ever see me singing away as I walk down the street, that I'm necessarily feeling suicidal. I sing all the time, no matter how I'm feeling. If I'm feeling anything I'm probably singing about it. But there's casual happy go lucky singing and then there's singing with urgency. Singing with need and longing and alone-ness. That's what I'm talking about here.