do stuff, make stuff, sing songs

The funny thing about my last post, about the puppets and the girl and her imaginary puppet house, is that I lived in a house like that except my house wasn't filled with puppets, it was filled with music.  All the time, every day, music music music.  I've mentioned before that my mom and I lived with my grandparents, my papa Dale and my grandma Sue, until I was eight.  They were so good, so much, so influential to me.  Papa used to play, by ear, his Hammond organ and pianos and keyboards all the time, and no, really, it was more than that.  It was more than a hobby or something he did two nights a week or to pass the time.  He did it like it was eating or reading or washing his hands.  He just sat down and played, without fanfare, no big deal, making something beautiful out of the air. He played like he was having a conversation with the whole house.  He played any song you asked, and he would make it sound better than you ever remembered, in his own way and his own voice, deliberate and with stride. I would pay a hundred million dollars to hear him play again.

my twenty-five-years-ago family

He taught me songs and music and sometimes we would make cassette tapes, him playing and me singing.  My grandma listened to these tapes of our songs up until the day she died; the last time I visited her (in July, 36 weeks pregnant, eeking in a last trip to see her before Hal arrived) she made us listen to them.  I hid outside in the yard because I was shy and she and Luke laughed at me and they smiled when I finally came back in the room, eyes all twinkly every time, they had been telling secrets. "I just always wish you had done more with your singing," she would say.  And I would smile because I didn't know how else to respond.

So anyway.

I decided to be brave and submit a singing video for The Fifth Annual Blogger Christmalhijrahanukwanzaakah Online Holiday Concert if for no other reason than than the knowledge that it would have made my grandparents really, really happy.  A singing video!  Like singing, on video, on YouTube.  This is the girl who wouldn't listen to the tapes of her ten year old self singing just four months ago.  But I made myself try.  Of course I kept getting two thirds of the way through and then forgetting a word or Alice would come in crying or Clark would run up and clasp his hand over my mouth.  I was frustrated and kept putting the project off and I wanted to say, forget it, no, this is silly, I quit, but Luke encouraged me after the crazies were in bed last night to just do something short and quick and so I did and it turned out okay, I'd say, even though I had to sing low and quietly to not wake up the kids on the other side of the wall, even though, like most things in life, it isn't perfect or exactly right.  I can't hold out for exactly right anymore, or I'll never jump.  So I sent my just recorded video (thank you iPhone 4) in five minutes before midnight last night and it felt like so... not a big deal.  Really.  Truly.  I don't even feel embarrassed.  It's just, you know, whatever.  Funny how you can get braver, just by making yourself be braver.

Merry Christmas lovelies.