I am sitting in my (newly) clean home office, listening to Vivaldia's Gloria Magnificat Mass and remembering high school.

I had an amazing choir teacher for three years in high school. I can't remember her name, but she was a tiny little thing with a head full of curly stawberry blonde hair. We all worshiped the ground she walked on, and when she said, "We're going to learn a Mass this semester" we all said, "Sure, why not? Sounds fun!"

The Magnificat is an amazing piece of music in twelve movements. It's about fory minutes long, depending on who's conducting. Nine of the twelve movements are chorals, the rest are solos or duets. I was an alto, one of the stronger voices in the section, but certianly not solo quality. Hypothyroidism was in the process of ruining my voice at that point--I'd had a promising voice as a child, but my vocal cords have thickened and I've gotten an interestingly creaky quality to my voice that is not particularly attractive while singing. So I was relegated to the alto section, filling in with the sopranos as needed.

It was hard work. Half of the work was the memorization; the other half was getting note-perfect and in sync (not to mention in tune). Almost seven years later I can sing the alto part on this thing, almost note for note. It's that deeply ingrained into me.

There's something about choir and band that causes people to bond very, very closely in a short period of time. I've had better friendships than I made in choir, but I've had none that were so intense in such a short time. And, of course, there was Renee. Renee was one of the first girls I was concious of having a crush on, and she was increibly confusing to me because of it. She was the only person I ever actually cut class for. We'd sit out on the field and she'd tell me about the boys she liked and her problems with her family and I'd sit there and talk to her and try to cheer her up and try to ignore the fact that every time I talked to her, my heart leapt into my throat.

She was just that kind of girl. To me, anyway. The first in a long string of people who I thought I could maybe save from themselves. (It was an effective distraction from my own drowning...)

And when the time came to sing the Magnificat, we both sang our hearts out. The performance was a heart-wringing experience, all of us swept forward on our months of work, putting everything we had into this one performance, this one time.

Not a bad way to spend four months, really.

509 hush

pause. pole
my little raft among
floating lilies, between
cattails and over weed and tadpole.
I spend countless hours
here in the summer, dangling
my feet among the shallows and diving
down into the cool places that never
feel the touch of the sun.
It's like breaking into autumn, the cold
resisting and then parting for my
arrowing body and my lungs full of sunlight
and surface air, trailing paddle-bugs
in my swirling wake as I swim down and down
into darkness. It closes over me and still I swim.

Deeper. I must go deeper. I hear, now, the swish
and thump of my heart and blood, alive with fear
and curiosity. What lies below? Am I allowed to know?

The chill presses me into myself. I feel an urge to breathe.
I hang, remembering this is water, remembering
that I am despite myself a creature of light.
Remembering that the air would welcome me and still I stay
below, under the surface of the cold, hours and lifetimes
and reluctance between me and the surface. Time strains.

And I suddenly give in, kick upwards, breathing out as I hit
warm water and warmer water and then air and light too bright
giving into my air-breathing nature all at once with a gasp
too loud for ears that have listened so long to still cold water.
I float, the sun blessing my face without apology, and I breathe
swearing to the last of me I will go under again I will go
under and stay down and down until I understand
the chill peace under water

And every summer until I am seventeen I descend
and descend again, reaching for the cold
and the stillness that never quite comes.

Peace, I say. Hush.

--11.19.00

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