Plane trips. They used to freak me out.
It wasn’t the fear of flying.
The first time I was on a plane, it was summer before 6th grade, and our family flew to CALIFORNIA to visit my Aunt Susan and Uncle Dubby.
They had a pool and EVERYTHING. ?
When I saw the 30,000-foot view for the first time, I thought, “Wow, I’m teeny.”
For the next 25 years, plane trips would incite this minuscule anxiety. Suddenly, it was super sad that none of the folks driving their ant cars down below in New Jersey knew or cared who I was.
(I’m told this is a very specific trait of my personality type. If you know the Enneagram, I’m a deep Type 4, the Individualist. Picture me in a black turtleneck, a beret and mauve scarf smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and listening to Edith Piaf on a Gramophone, and you’re getting in the neighborhood.)
My anxiety about being unknown followed me everywhere: London Underground escalators, road trips past unknown cities, and crowed theaters.
In world religion class, I learned that most Eastern traditions didn’t even believe in a self! ?
Good thing the James Webb Telescope came along in my 40s; my lil ego might not have been able to take all that galactic incomprehensibility.
It boiled down to this: I longed to be known, understood, and loved.
It’s still a primary need.
Whenever Melissa and I get crossways and we’re not hearing each other, I often say “I just want you to UNDERSTAND me!”
This significance panic wouldn’t mellow until my late 30s. My conversion to coziness in my infinitesimal tininess came through a major life pulverization.
Getting spiritually and emotionally pummeled cracked a lot of barriers, and as Leonard Cohen sang, “That’s how the light gets in.”
I couldn’t let it in before that. I couldn’t receive love in everyday, ordinary ways.
That’s one of the reasons the stage drew me like a moth to the spotlight; the force you feel from applause felt like the necessary amount to get the approval from the outside to the inside where I wanted it so badly.
The only thing about using applause as your love supply is that it metabolizes like cotton candy, and before you know it, you’re performing everywhere you go.
The life pulverization I’m talking about was a divorce, but it wasn’t the heartbreak and hurt I hollered through that created the love-greeting fissures.
It was the wince-filled survey of those I’d hurt during the years of the relationship. I’d said okay to being isolated, and I pushed away ride-or-dies who went on loving me while I was stuck.
The thing that cracked the barriers and let love in was two words: “I’m sorry.”
I said, “I’m sorry for how I hurt you.” I couldn’t pay it back. I couldn’t undo the damage.
And most of my people said, “I forgive you. I missed you, and l love you.”
I saw I was capable of damage and destruction. And I saw those who loved me were capable of showing me mercy.
This was the event that let the message in: “You are loved, and your teeny, significant diamond of a soul is here to love and be loved.”
Now planes are peachy. I look at the cloud tops and the towns below, and I think, “Wow this is so big, and we’re just a wee little tiny place in the back of a smallish galaxy that’s one of uncountable galaxies.” I’m astounded by brain-stopping awe and cradled in a belief that I’m individually seen, cared for, and loved.
If we as singing storytellers could absorb a piece of this — if we could stand on a stage trusting in our little part in the wondrous whole knowing we’re miraculously and mathematically unrepeatable — what kind of heart do you think we’d open to those listening?
This is the integration I want for every singer who shares a song.
You’ve heard me harp about the exhausting advice that says you have to stand out and all the ways we compete and try to do cooler tricks.
What if you knew your stand-out was a given? What if you knew down deep in your knower that your inimitable soul is a captivating generator of storytelling healing, and all you have to do is your homework and then open the door to that?
THAT’S an authentic sound. And it’s transferrable to any style you sing and any character’s story you’re privileged to embody.
My hope for you — that you’ll let love in through all the ordinary and everyday channels it shows up through and that you’ll be able to open your heart and share it when you sing.
Because you know it’s true. There’s only one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing.
Love MUCH,
Dan
PS I made you another playlist! Here’s Vibrato Summer Camp. A series of videos that walk you through all the ways vibrato can be delicious, frustrating, mystifying, and terrific, and will give you understanding so that you know how to troubleshoot your own vibrato issues when they arise.
And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the YouTube channel. Besides this email, I’m going to make YouTube the platform I focus on for sharing the good singing word.
But yeah! Subscribe! There’ll be good teachy stuff as well as some quality entertainment coming your way. Join me!
