I snicker wondering if she'll ask for vocal coaching lessons next. Her grandmother and great aunt Wanda use to sing in night clubs in the late 40's and I do love listening to Kenna sing and she does have a beautiful voice, unlike me, but the only vocal coaching lessons she'll be getting is in school chorus.
When she was a mere toddler she would cover her ears when I would sing to her just like Cruz has started doing. Yes, I'll admit my singing voice draws blood from any bystander who happens to be within earshot of my lyrical voice, and it's best (for all) if I quell any vocal warbling or at least save it for the shower. Unfortunately I wasn't blessed with the melodious gene.
I sat in Kenna's piano teacher's living room the other day and as I listened to Mrs. D talk to her I sensed an unrest in the air, the same inquietude I felt when I walked in the door, but at that moment more intense and I could tell even though her words to Kenna were positive and encouraging, they seemed heavy with preoccupation and sadness to me, the assimilation somewhat draining for me. After Kenna's lesson was over we sat in small talk, a half-hour piano lesson turned into a two hour (gab) session. At times she'd turn to Kenna, smile, and play a note on the piano and ask her to show her where that note was on the staff in the arrangement they had been working on.
During this hour and a half chit-chat, amidst those extended piano instructions and occasional verbiage there were many emotional stories narrated on her part, I even noticed Kenna teared up a couple times during her sentimental voyage of the past. And as I sat there, taking in a history of a woman who has seen, experienced and witnessed so much in her life I thought about a phrase often spoken. I looked around her room, pictures and mementos scattered here and there and I realized in some way or another, whether through keepsakes, music, poetry and obituaries, or just reminiscing of these earlier times, we all tend to live in the past, it is always present. And that phrase, "stop living in the past" a phrase I've heard once or twice, is just that, a phrase. A phrase I now am certain is only said by those who possess more than a few shortcomings, ones who are afraid and have trouble admitting to their failures.
These items, vestiges of an earlier time, remnants we can never completely rid ourselves of no matter how hard we may try. They will always be with us, the good, the bad and everything in-between. They haunt our life and make us who we are. And therefore, we all live in the past to some extent, even those who are afraid of it.
