Getting to Om

Getting to Om

I sit on my mat and stare at the wall as the rest of my yoga class chants om. “Enjoy the sound and the vibration as you chant,” says our instructor, smiling peacefully.

I do neither. Chanting is too close to singing for me. And singing is not something I do in public.

As the class proceeds through their oms, I note the speckled pattern on the wall and consider the reasons for my silence. I grew up in a family of non-singers. Our voices stray from the key, or maybe they were never on key to begin with. “We’re just not singers,” my mother has said at many family gatherings.

The next day I have lunch with my friend Mandy, who surprises me with the news that she’s been taking acting classes. “I wanted to do something completely outside my comfort zone,” she says, stirring her iced tea.

“Tell me more.” I lean in across the table.

I generally aim to stay well within my own comfort zone. I dive right into the center and burrow deep. But Mandy’s words resonate.

For the next few days, an idea hovers at the edge of my consciousness. A tiny voice in my head whispers, “Singing lessons.”

A booming voice interrupts: “You’re a terrible singer; you have no ear.”

“But I’ve always wanted to sing,” the whisper replies.

And before the booming voice can take over, I send an email to Caren, who taught my daughter to play guitar. She replies that she teaches voice and loves to work with beginners.

In sixth grade, when two of my friends were chosen for the Metropolitan Opera Children’s Chorus, I became the audience for their tales of stage doors, makeup, and temperamental opera stars. “We can’t go bike-riding this weekend,” they’d say. “We have rehearsal.”

In junior high, I didn’t make the cut for Fiddler On the Roof. I spent months envying the way the cast would spontaneously break into “Sunrise, Sunset” in the schoolyard. The next year, the director of South Pacific took pity on me and put me in the chorus. I was a nurse, but felt like a star.

For months, my father teased me mercilessly, singing, “I’m gonna wash that man right outa my hair,” as loudly and tunelessly as possible. The following season, a new director was less generous, and I was relegated to the audience once again.

Thirty-five years later, I’m on a yoga mat not uttering a sound. Later that week, I find myself at my very first singing lesson.

“Singing makes you vulnerable,” Caren says. “You need to feel safe in order to do it.”

Caren is a no-nonsense redhead with a sparkling voice. And though she loves to perform, she seems to understand a lot about fear.

“Singing is just a skill you can learn with practice,” she says.

This doesn’t seem possible. “Just so you understand,” I tell her. “I whisper ‘Happy Birthday’; I don’t even chant om at yoga.”

She nods, as if she already knew this.

“When you start out, “ she says, “finding the right note is like walking into a dark room. You reach for the light switch and miss, but you grope around and then you somehow remember that the switch is about a foot to your right.”

We start with a vocal exercise called “hee downs”—singing several notes of a scale with the word “hee” instead of “do, re, mi.” Caren demonstrates and asks if I’m ready to join in.

Definitely not. It’s more like jumping off a cliff than walking into a dark room. I’m anything but a cliff diver, but I go into automatic pilot. Perched on a folding chair, I try to mimic the hees. I don’t sing, but my body does. I listen in amazement as sounds come out of my mouth.

“Try that note again,” Caren says. “Just a bit higher; no, come back down halfway; OK, better.” She nods, listens, sings a few notes. No mocking or teasing: each note is just a note, and sometimes it needs adjustment.

Back at yoga, the oms roll around again. I close my eyes as they ring out around me, trying to figure out if anyone’s note sounds wrong.

In Caren’s studio, my voice quavers on a high note. “It’s out of my range,” I tell her.

“Not at all,” she says. “You just need to put more air on it. More air and less judgment.”

I’m amazed by this news: Singing is less about a magical ability than it is about breathing. I practice my hees, but they’re all over the place. Is that note too high or too low? It’s a coin toss. Every now and then, a hee sounds right.

I mention my lessons only to people sure to greet the news without scorn. My teenagers don’t make the list. I do confide in Mandy, who assures me that I was born to sing.

“Do you ever feel out of your league in your acting class?” I ask.

She laughs and snorts at the same time. “Constantly,” she says. “And I’m not only the worst, I’m the oldest.”

Caren and I venture into song with the classic tune “Moon River.”

“I want you to make some noise,” she says. “Just belt the words out, and trust that it will sound OK. And if it doesn’t, so what?”

I keep practicing, singing a bit louder, breathing deeper, thinking, “So what?”

Back at yoga, it’s time for the oms. I take a deep breath and glance around to make sure no one is watching me. Then I listen as my om somehow blends right in.

————
Rachel Trachten is a freelance writer and contributing editor for Edible East Bay magazine. She’s still singing and has progressed to two-part harmonies, with lots of help from Caren.

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