chorus
“Still we’re often told, ‘seek and ye shall find.’”
-
Ira Gershwin
Music
was born in me
In a
place you would never imagine
In a
synagogue in Detroit, Michigan
A
cement triangle hanging out onto the service drive
That
ran next to Telegraph Road
Lines
of stained glass running up its middle
In
velvet heels on the marble lobby floor
Winter
wind sticking under the skin of black tights
In
the waxy smell of my aunt and cousin’s lipstick
As
we’d kiss silent hellos
While
I stepped past them in our pew to get to my seat:
There
is where music began.
It
was there
In the
same prayers with the same tune year after year
My
father harmonizing in his clear tenor.
Synagogue
is not like church
There
is no choir swaying and clapping
Moving
to the music
The
singers are hidden behind a façade
Their
voices are piped out into the air
So they
come from nowhere
From
the core
The
voice of the creation of God
And
my father and his brother sang along
In
their matching navy blue sport coats
Faces
buried in the prayer book
Despite
knowing it by heart a lifetime ago.
When
I got old enough I sang as well
Tried
to match my dad’s harmonies
Pronounced
the s’s instead of the t’s, like all the old guys did
An
ancient way to speak a time worn language
I
listened to the way my father repeated the English after the rabbi in a monotone, emotionless voice
And
I copied him
Extolled
the beauty of God like I was dictating a legal letter
When
I was twelve
I
learned the mournful tune of my Torah portion
For
my bat mitzvah
I
practiced until I had it memorized
And
on the day
I
was perfect
Not
a single note or pronunciation incorrect
Not
a single crack of the throat
My
little girls’ voice was a bell ringing out into the sanctuary
The
Rabbi told my parents
That
in all his years of doing bar and bat mitzvahs
I
was the best he’d ever heard
My
father was unbearably proud
I thought
it was because perfection was important to him
I
know now
It’s
because that was the last time
I
did exactly what he wanted me to
The
last time I actually wanted to do it
In
the years to come we would crash up against each other
I
became quick to shriek and swear
Quick
to slam my bedroom door as hard as possible
Against
his acid tone
More
and more like him
Until
he was astounded by me
Until
we had no idea how to live in the same house.
It
would be years before we’d find common ground
I
had moved to California
I
had no synagogue
But
I wrote songs
He’d
send me old sheet music, Irving Berlin and George Gershwin
Thick
manila envelopes travelling across ten states to get to me
Speaking
to me in the only common language
We
knew
Still
no words to explain
That
the Mahzor and my notebook serve the
same purpose
That
the prayers I learned at six years old
Are
carved so hard into my memory that I sing them
When
I am alone cooking dinner
That
all of it,
Torah
portions and screams and slammed doors
The
Viper Room at midnight on a Tuesday and my upright piano in my first apartment
The
words of a rabbi and “Someone to Watch Over Me”
The
piles of sheet music in his den
and
the cds stacked against my teenage bedroom wall
All
of it is just
Us
Singing
