One night in the summer of 1994 I owned the karaoke night in front of a massive crowd at the bandshell in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire despite my obvious lack of singing ability or musical talent.
My still-forming thirteen-year-old brain hadn’t yet developed a resistance to making a spectacle of myself so I took the stage with unwarranted bravado.
The second my pre-pubescent voice growled the words “you ain’t nothing but a hound dog” into the mic, the audience was mine.
When I added in the twists and pelvic thrusts, the audience roared in approval.
Were some of them laughing at me? Almost certainly.
Most of them, most likely.
But it didn’t phase me because I was having so much fun. They offered a microphone and I grabbed it. Unpolished and unrehearsed to share my joy with the world.
I sang a lot as a child, especially in the summer.
Nearly every moment from the beginning of July to the end was spent learning, memorizing, practicing and rehearsing songs for a big summer musical we put on through the school.
Where I really let it rip was on the bike rides to and from rehearsal thinking I was moving too fast for anybody to hear me well. This, of course, was an illusion.
Though the wind passing by my ears may have muffled the sound to me, anyone in earshot certainly heard me belting out show tunes with all of my might.
I can’t help but wonder what the poor joggers and dog-walking neighbors must have thought as a chubby kid with acne came whistling past singing, “Oh what a beautiful morning,” at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.
By my mid-teens, however, the singing stopped.
I became more inhibited.
Aware that I wasn’t a particularly good singer, I decided not to do it publicly anymore even though it was one of my biggest sources of joy.
For the twenty years that followed that source of joy became a source of apprehension.
Once in my late twenties as part of a bar trivia night my team had to sing Yellow Submarine for some reason and I wanted to melt into the floor.
I still won’t sing at church because I live in Connecticut where congregations sing in a collective whisper and I am incapable of whisper singing so I just stand there thumbing through the hymnal listening to the organ music drown out a tiny sea of even tinier voices.
But now, the singing’s back.
Singing has become a big part of my life again since becoming a stay-at-home dad.
Not just the private songs I sing to get the baby to stop crying, but the public displays at story times in libraries and parks throughout my community.
Most people set aside their singing vulnerabilities for kids songs.
The only hesitation I’ve ever heard from other parents at story time is at the Durham Library’s Mother Goose story time when Miss Diana’s “Where is Thumbkin” rendition includes unabashedly going all-in on finding Middleman.
Let’s just say that “Two Little Blue Birds” aren’t the only birds flying around the Durham Library’s basement classroom on Monday mornings.
When the children’s librarian says that my kids will pick up and reflect the enthusiasm I have towards a class, I take her at her word.
That’s why I belt out that the wheels on the bus go “round and round,” and lean into the demonstration that when cows wake up in the morning they always say, “moo moo!”
I’m trying to bring this energy into other parts of my life.
Yoko Ono didn’t let an utter lack of talent stop her from doing duets with the most successful singer of all time so why should it should stop me from belting out “the heat is on” every time I use my bathroom’s heat lamp?
There is so much monotony in my life as a stay-at-home dad and so much negativity in society in general right now. Singing, even a few quick bars of “someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah,” counters both of those pressures.
So anyone who sees me around town proudly singing anything: show tunes, old TV show theme songs, nursery rhymes, or the instrumentals for “Hail to the Chief,” I’m sorry if it throws you for a loop.
If you can, take comfort knowing it’s because at that very moment I’m living a life without inhibitions and with joy in my heart.
Join in if you know the words and don’t worry if you’re a little off key: I probably am too.
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