Can't Stop the Music

     For me, the holiday season has always been about the music.
     I have fond memories of stomping along in the snow, going caroling with the other kids from the neighborhood - back when it was still deemed safe to knock on strangers' doors and sing in their foyers for some cookies (and a few coins they'd put in the coffee can we'd conveniently brought along).

     Every year I'd look forward to going to Christmas Eve services at my Grandma's church, just so we could all sing "Silent Night" together, accompanied by a slightly out-of-tune organ, holding candles with those paper drip shields to protect our hands from the wax that would start to melt with wild abandon around the middle of the second verse.
     But, for sheer awesomeness, nothing beats being in a school holiday concert.
     Sure, I did the elementary school thing.
     We all did.
     Then in middle school we were all forced to choose our life path: band or choir.
     Mine was choir.
     Three years of the ridiculously high-pitched desecration of texts both sacred and secular ensued.
     My middle school choir had one boy who could actually sing.
     And I mean he could sing.
     He had classical training, amazing posture, and the ability to hit the high notes with pristine clarity. After getting a load of him, our choir director did the only thing she could do: make the rest of us his back-up singers. 
     That year we ditched Frosty and did numbers from Ahmal and the Night Visitors instead. It was probably the most culturally-edifying holiday concert our middle school had ever seen. Of course, most of us spent the evening singing "Ahhh...." and "Ohhh...." in hushed voices, so that the tone-deafness that pervaded our ranks would not overshadow il divo. Still, the applause was hearty that year. Yes, it was.
     Our high school choir was headed up by a dictator who demanded absolute allegiance from his minions. We bought fabric from him and were instructed which pattern to buy so all the girls' skirts matched perfectly. There were shoe rules (pumps, black, one-inch heel, no embellishments) and hideous red poly-blend sweaters.
     He was a perfectionist of the first order, and the only reason I'm still alive to type this is that no one would rat me out when I blurted, "Oh, shit!" after coming in a measure too early during a noontime concert at a shopping mall.
     Our holiday program was entirely sacred, much of it in Latin. We'd start practicing for it in early-October. All that lead time was necessary for the non-Catholics in the room to learn a new language, as well as the notes to sing.
     One year he went all Benjamin Britten on us - not a pretty sight. Totally fucked up my ability to spell for half my junior year.
     And when a Norwegian exchange student with a glass-shattering soprano showed up, we all found ourselves singing in her native tongue too. Man, the crowd lapped that one up like dogs.
     Every year, we ended the program with the same song: "Beautiful Savior" (Finally, something in English!).
     The school I teach at has been holding their holiday concerts this week, and I've been thinking about those adults out there in the crowd. Sure, they're all proud of their whipper-snappers up there belting it out, but it does get to be a long night, doesn't it?
     I recently realized that my parents stopped coming to my holiday concerts when I learned how to drive. Yes, once I had a way to get my sensible-pump/fugly-sweatered self to the venue without them, they were outta there. Can't say I blame them, though. I really can't.
     Now I get my holiday groove on singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" with my daughter. As I watch her stand in the middle of the living room, belting it out solo, smiling proudly, and hitting her marks on all the hand gestures that go along with it, two words enter my mind: show choir.
     And it's a fate I am more than willing to accept.
     Until she can drive.

Taste

Today, through a random series of events that involved streptococcus, extremely helpful grandparents, and a business dinner with the sales staff, I got a seven-hour long taste of what my life would be like if I had no child, no dog, and no husband.

I'd finally get the house clean.

I'd play awesome music real loud and sing along.

I'd talk smack while virtual kickboxing with the Wii.

I'd eat my dinner in the living room while watching Sex and the City.

I'd ponder major home remodeling projects.

I'd keep looking over my shoulder for someone to need me.

I'd be disappointed when I didn't find someone to need me.

When Pigs Flu

I remember standing in line with my parents at the Department of Health to get vaccinations the last time a version of the swine flu came around; my mom passed out in front of me as they stuck the needle in my arm, and I think this fact is adding to my general sense of unease/dread at the news coming out of Mexico - except this time there's no vaccine. 

The Short Story

I took my mom to a doctor's appointment the other day; it was a pre-op physical. She's going to have a mastectomy on Monday. The lumpectomy she had in July is no longer considered adequate, since she could only weather half the prescribed chemotherapy. Needless to say, it has been a rough ride these last six months, and we're all hopeful that this surgery will be the last detour before we finally get her on the road to recovery. 

It has been tough on all of us to watch Mom go through this, but my dad has borne the brunt of it. He and Mom started dating in high school back in 1957, so, to say they've been through a lot together is an understatement. They've gone through poverty and prosperity, births and deaths, and all the moments that make a life in between. This has been the hardest thing by far, for both of them. 

My dad is a voracious reader. We all joke about how when you open dresser drawers in their house, you find books instead of clothes. The bookshelves filled years ago, and Dad can't bear to part with his treasures. So, drawers get filled, tabletops disappear under piles of paperbacks, and stacks of books on the floor form makeshift mazes in a couple of little-used rooms. Dad loves to tell the story about the fact that he never even had a library card until he met Mom. She took him there on a date once and got him signed up. 

Dad loves to tell a lot of stories, in fact. He has an amazing memory for detail and a gift for bringing memories of times gone by to life. I am blessed to have a vivid picture of my parents and the parts of their lives that pre-date me thanks to my dad and his lifetime of storytelling. 

After Mom and I got back to their house after her appointment, Dad arrived with a couple bags from Leeann Chin. I stopped in my tracks as I noticed him taking fistfuls of fortune cookies out of one of the bags. He had at least three dozen cookies there on the table and could tell by the look on my face that I was perplexed. 

"Oh, when your mom's not feeling well, the only thing she can stomach are these fortune cookies, so I buy a bunch for her a couple times a week. The employees always laugh and go get more from the back room when I walk in the door. Tonight, I wiped them out completely."

He said it so matter-of-factly, as if he, the master storyteller, wasn't even aware of the fact that he'd just told me this beautiful little story about Mom, and him, and their relationship, and what it means love each other through sickness and in health. He'd just summed up their whole life together in about three sentences.

Mom just gave a simple nod from her place at the table. 

I nodded too.