Right now, while the washing machine is sloshing clothes around, and the dryer is roaring away, I’m listening to a recorded lesson given to my husband and me by my (late) teacher of Indian classical vocal music, Pandit S.G. Devasthali. He was a teacher of Hindi at Loyola School in Pune, India in his professional life, and a vocal teacher of unsurpassed genius and generosity in his after-school private time.
Listening to him and to us singing with him, I am overcome by a nameless emotion. I left singing seventeen years ago to become a school-teacher. Now, I’m slowly trying to reclaim my roots in music. Oh, on the surface, I look like I know it, because I sing as a matter of course, but not in a deep way. Knowing is not the same as doing. In the practice of a discipline lies its power, its beauty and its truth. Leave the practice, and you have its shadow.
My teacher’s voice is the voice of utter beauty and power, urging, pulling us along in its wake, but singing in that deep way now … it’s not as easy for me as it was before. For various reasons, I walked away from the practice of it. Now, I want it back.
I want it all back.
Music is in my blood and bones and feet and hands, even in the clicking of my teeth when I’m trying to not outwardly reveal that I’m tapping a beat to a song. My mother sang to me in her womb, and I began singing in tune at age two and a half. South Indian (Carnatic) classical music is part of my heritage, sitar and Hindustani vocal music is also part of my heritage. I am Indian in my music — Pan-Indian. And the West claimed me early on, as well. The Beatles gave me dreams about playing guitar in a band and singing in harmony. 60s and 70s rock, jazz from the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, R&B, Motown, music from Turkey, Persia, African countries, Asian countries … they’re all in there roiling inside me. I wrote songs, played guitar, sitar, composed music, led bands, performed my own and others’ music.
Now, I want to go back to playing my guitar in a more serious way than I have done these past seventeen years.
I want to dust off my sitar, restring and tune it – and play it.
I want to dust off my voice (okay, so I sing every day, but not in full voice, and not with the power and energy I used to have — that comes with practice).
I want to sing again.
How can I do that AND write short stories, poems, a novel? How can I do that AND continue to do all the other things — home-school my daughter, take my dog out for walks, grow our own food in the garden, tend to the garden, do laundry, clean bathrooms, sweep the floor?
I’m not as young as I was.
But I’ll take it a day at a time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~