Do You Know What Part You Sing?

“Do you know what part you sing?”

The conductor’s baton was leveled at me with a smug superiority; the voice was full of condescension as it assumed ignorance.

Nothing had been resolved with the question of the music intern and now, as I attended my first Christmas concert rehearsal in over a year, I was feeling rather self-conscious.  And I was not-a-little annoyed as he proceeded to single me out. What I wanted to do was stand up and say, “Listen here, Choir Boy, I’ve been in multiple choirs and have over a decade of music training to my name, but yes, I clearly need you to tell me where ‘middle C’ is!” But I swallowed what I wanted to say and just nodded.  His behavior only confirmed my perception of professional artists: condescending, snide, aloof.*

My sole (and disastrous) relationship had been with a concert pianist, and I was done (DONE!) with musicians.  As far as I was concerned, they were all terribly high-maintenance and not worth the trouble.

6 weeks later… “Facebook?  What’s Facebook?” At the sound of my question, my youngest sister Carrie snorted and replied, “What?  It’s, like, this ridiculous MySpace-thing, but it’s supposedly for college kids.  Why?  How did you hear about it?” The emphasis on the word “you” had the intended affect of making me feel every one of my 80 years. (at least, I’m pretty sure that’s how old my baby sister thinks I am) I stared back at the computer screen, again reading the Facebook invitation sent to me by Bob, the music intern.  (because his name was Bob, and I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that in this story line before)  Initiating contact, even over the Internet, made me slightly nervous.  What was he up to?  But I was also curious.  Had he taken my e-mail off the choir list? Why?

2 weeks after that… having emailed each other several times (and having a newly established Facebook profile), I was coming around to the idea of Bob.  He was nicer than anticipated, and not as high-maintenance as I’d assumed.  We even had a lot in common!  I was happy to have made a new friend.

He was genuinely a nice guy, and he would undoubtedly make some nice girl a good husband at some point…


 

*Bob is always my editor on these life posts, and in reading this one, he would like me to specifically indicate to the reading audience that he feels he was not condescending or aloof in ANY way.