So, I guess I’m Singing Again
By Erin Deborah Waks
‘Why,’ my flatmate shouted, barging into the kitchen last night, ‘did I totally forget you could sing?’
I’ll admit, she stopped me in my tracks. ‘Erin, I haven’t heard you sing in months!’
Was that true? Surely not. I always sang - in the car, the shower, while cooking - right? I paused, putting down the wooden spoon and turning down the volume on Chappell Roan.
She was right. What started as a gradual decline in performing eventually became silencing my own voice altogether.
I tried to brush off the thought, but it niggled at the back of my mind for days. What had changed?
‘Have you heard her sing?’ I remember my mum and best friend asking my ex-boyfriend. Cue a subtle nod - and nothing else. I’d been dating said musician for several months. But something about being the lesser talented of us, and the one with the less high-brow, indie music tastes made me quieten my own talents. I never minded. That was his realm. After all, other things in my life were more important. It’s not like music was my passion. Right?
And yet, when I reflect that the person I loved never once told me he thought I had a beautiful voice, it makes far more sense why I, gradually and then all at once, stopped using it.
I always felt the potent absence of those words from him. I thought to myself, well, you can’t make someone like your voice. He just doesn’t think you’re that great; don’t fish for compliments, Erin.
But I was nonetheless saddened by it. He’s the only person who’s ever heard me sing and not said I was any good. I imagine he remembers it differently - perhaps it was implied in his observations that he heard me singing in the shower, or that I could reach high notes, but I know those specific words never came out of his mouth, because I felt the cutting poignancy of their absence.
Eventually, I stopped bringing it up. I don’t blame him: how was he to know his silence in turn silenced me, when I never even asked for praise? But then again, should one be expected to ask for validation for something they so keenly love?
I think, with hindsight, that it was a way to keep me locked out of a part of his world. I’ll never know if he actually thought I was untalented, or just didn’t have the words to tell me so. But I guess being with someone who doesn’t in their bones see your sparkle, it’s understandable that you might, momentarily, stop seeing it yourself.
When that relationship ended, I found myself in almost a frenzy of creative inspiration. My brother gave me his old guitar, delighted, and he and one of my flatmates took it upon themselves to teach me the basics. I learnt more chords, built up calluses on my fingers, bought (pink) guitar picks. I started singing again. Singing loudly.
And so, last night, I cranked the volume back up. I’m never going to be a professional singer, pianist, guitarist. I lack the incomparable talent and passionate dedication. My musical prowess will probably always be limited to duets with my brother at home and impressing people in karaoke bars. But I realised that I want to be around people who see that sparkle so clearly, so obviously, so without reserve that they must barge in on me, pyjama-clad and ready for bed, belting out embarrassingly at who knows what hour, just to remind me of how brightly - and loudly - I shine.
