05.27.08
I Can Breathe Again
A friend and I were asked to sing at a wedding. We don’t do ‘modern’ songs (we prefer show tunes in Phrygian mode–write if you got that). The bride-to-be said, “It doesn’t matter what you sing, just make it short. ‘Cause we’ll just be waiting at the alter for it to be over.” (I didn’t ask, “What–the song or the wedding? Or the marriage?).
I told her, “We can do that, in fact it’s our most-requested song, ‘Waiting for it to be over.’”
Before my group members and I sing, we joke around, making fun of how bad our song will turn out (and many times we are accurate with our predictions). We do this for a (n unconscious) reason: the laughter helps us to breathe, opens the lung and chest muscles (I am guessing here; but it feels like that is happening), and makes the songs come out of the throat easier (that is not the medical phrase I’m sure).
That “breathing easier” is what happens when we let down our guard, and we let out our humor capabilities. And it can happen to anyone–you don’t have to sing. It happened the other day at the antique store where I blew most of my tax refund on vintage clothing (1950’s not 1800’s).
I was the first one to let down my guard and joke with the clerks and the owner. (I figured I would practice what I blog).
Then they chimed in, too, with their light remarks and jokes. I could actually feel myself relaxing, breathing more easily.
As we had a fun exchange, we grew to see each other as co-humans, not customer and clerk, stranger and stranger. That barrier between stranger and co-human has come down!
