Singing Saved My Soul

When did you start singing?

That's probably the question I hear the most and the answer is I've been singing my entire life, which isn't really that uncommon, because I think it is human nature to sing & dance & express ourselves, but singing saved my life in more ways than I can explain plainly.

I had a very traumatic grand entrance into this world with some extreme abuse & neglect that ultimately ended up in me being taken by CPS and eventually adopted at the age of 5. With little to no memory of those early formative experiences, I was haunted and plagued with a number of emotional problems including extreme anxiety, panic attacks, night terrors, manic depression, attachment disorders among other things that really just exacerbated the growing pains of being a child in this world. For many years, I was a lost sad little girl tortured by so many emotions and experiences I wasn't equipped to fully understand or comprehend. This made it incredibly difficult for me to form connections even with my family and with kids at schools. Numerous other factors of a difficult childhood only contributed to that struggle.

From an early age I demonstrated a desire to socialize. I was highly conversational, particularly with adults & strangers, exhibiting an advanced vocabulary. I would often talk at great length to anyone who was willing to listen. I also had equally numerous questions, but I really wanted to be viewed as a unique little interesting human being. I wanted to be noticed and I wanted to bring joy and happiness to anyone I came in contact with, but I really wasn't quite sure how to do that.

As a 4 year old I would open up the hymnals in church and pretend I could read the music making up my own songs as I read the lyrics. I already loved to read and learn as much as possible. I would make up my own songs especially for my sister who was a year younger than myself. By the time I was 6 years old I knew most of the popular church hymns and sang them loud and proud from the pews. Adult congregants would turn around and tell me I had a beautiful voice and I should be in the choir, and although always tall for my age, I was too young.

I like to attribute my joy and career I have to a certain music teacher, whom I have not been able to locate despite numerous efforts. I started taking her music classes in 4th grade in Enumclaw, Washington at JJ Smith Elementary School. Her name was Lori McDonald. By 6th grade, Mrs. McDonald had encouraged me to sign up for the annual school Talent Show. I was terrified as I was not very popular amongst my peers. I was chubby and tall with thick glasses and just generally dorky. When she asked me to sign up I knew exactly what song I wanted to perform. The song was "Memory" from the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical, "Cats" which debuted my birth year in 1981. I had heard another young girl singing that song at a theater camp several years before and it was instantly my first favorite song. I even had a gold piano jewelry music box that played this tune gifted to me from my Mom. I remember my teacher looked apprehensive and almost discouraged me saying it was a very difficult song, but she said if anyone could sing it I could and I did!

I remember that event so clearly. After my audition, the staff told me I was their favorite performance so they opted to have me be the grand finale. I wore a very early 90's outfit that included high waisted black and white floral culottes and a matching button up blouse with shoulder pads and a black floppy hat with a white flower on it. I was feeling very cute. Unfortunately, I was heckled a bit by the other kids who began mooing at me the moment I stepped out on the stage and when they announced I was the finale someone shouted "it's not over until the fat lady sings!" They didn't know I had just spent the past 30 minutes hyperventilating into a paper bag with my mom in the bathroom from a panic attack over potential heckling. My legs felt like the might give out, they began quivering uncontrollably and I wondered if anyone else noticed the quiver tremble of my culottes. I began to sing, zoning out, looking past the audience, focusing entirely on the song and the words. I remember that I refused to sing the verse that said "Touch Me" saying that would gross out the other kids because I thought I was disgusting. I closed my eyes, the last high note reached and I opened my eyes to see nearly everyone (at least the parents) standing in ovation, Dad crying and whistling so loud he surely hurt some ear drums. I felt a high and rush I had never experienced.

The following year I joined chorus and I was delighted that Mrs. McDonald had taken a position as the new music and choir teacher at the junior high! She continued to encourage me to sing, creating a traveling ensemble for me and 5 other selected kids. Nobody in choir made fun of me and I finally garnered respect for the first time from my peers. I was selected for the prestigious Seattle Girls Choir and even allowed to join the Enumclaw Community choir two years before I was the minimum age. I placed the highest scores in every competition and made it into state choirs. Aside from all the accolades and musical achievements though I could feel something changing in my soul. I felt a sense of true purpose in life developing, a reason to live despite experiencing extreme suicidal thoughts from a young age into high school.

My chronic depression really seemed to be overwhelming and the worst by high school. Thoughts of suicide plagued me constantly unless I was singing. By the time I thought I couldn't feel any worse, my father, my number one fan, suddenly was hospitalized with a unexplained illness and within a week was considered terminal. By this time we were residing in Conifer, Colorado and right before my dad fell ill he had seen me perform for a 1950's themed Dinner theater show my high school choir had put on where I had performed "Unchained Melody" by the Righteous Brothers. While my father was on his ventilator & life support I sang this song to him and noticed something interesting, his heart rate would slow or quicken to a more even rate, his oxygen would improve and his numbers just generally got better. Music was making him feel better even if he couldn't tell us so. Later on, this observation & experience got me quite interested in studying the effects of music on people who are sick, and I started looking into music therapy degrees. I had already noticed my mood always improved when I was singing and it made me forget my dark thoughts for awhile. Ultimately, my father died within 2 weeks and I made a pivotal life changing decision to try to live my best life and with purpose and stop my obsession with death.

My senior year of high school my teachers and mother were warning me that there would be no career for me in the contemporary music world because of my appearance. I would be endlessly heckled and harassed if I was to pursue any other genre of music other than classical/opera music and foolishly, I believed this. I even had one teacher my senior year at The Woodlands High School choose to make an example of me by standing me up in front of my classroom in a untard, physically removing my eyeglasses from my face in front of everyone then pointing to my body and saying "This is unacceptable if you want to ever be on stage. You need to make a choice - eat or sing!" I was so completely embarrassed and mortified. Unfortunately, these words and this experience made such an impact on me it prevented me from pursuing my career dreams for nearly a full decade!

I ended up receiving a full scholarship to study music and was offered full scholarships to pretty much any university or college I wished to attend worldwide. I chose Chapman University because they had a Music Therapy department, which ultimately I didn't qualify for because I had never learned guitar, piano or percussion and I only wanted to work with hospice or the elderly & memory care. I studied music, but after college I had decided I really never cared for acting so opera wasn't really an option for me and those words of my mother and teacher were still ringing in my ears and yes I was still eating AND singing. I took a series of completely unrelated uninspiring day jobs throughout my 20's. Occasionally, I rehearsed with a female jazz trio that hardly ever played out or I sang karaoke and although happily married with the most amazing supportive wife, I felt this huge gaping hole in my soul and I knew exactly what was missing. My soul was starving and needed to be both fed and freed. I wasted so many years from my teens through 20's with a mantra of "I'll sing when I'm skinny," yet try as I might I started to realize, skinny may not be in the cards for me and all I was doing was punishing myself in the mean time.

At 29 years old, a manager at a bar where I sang karaoke on Wednesdays approached me and said she knew I was professionally trained and I should be around professional musicians so she invited me to a blues jam night at a local Elks Lodge. That night, I met Ben, who had a surf rock band and we performed "Fever" by Peggy Lee together. Then and there he asked me to be the lead singer of his band and I was onstage. Shockingly, nobody heckled me, nobody said a word except they were so surprised I could sing. Nobody had known I was a singer except my karaoke friends.

As far as I am concerned, if you never heard me sing, you never really met me. Who I was had been kept a secret from nearly everyone I knew in my life at that time! Growing up I had a hard time forming human connections and attachments because of early trauma, but it is music that allows me to really make a genuine connection with people. When people get chills, goosebumps, tears, or joy from me singing I feel like a part of my soul has touched their soul in a connection much deeper than a hug or embrace, it is at a vibrational level. It is spiritual and it is love. When I sing I picture my voice is actually made of pure love and frequencies able to heal anyone who is listening, from physical, spiritual and emotional sources of pain. I want all my listeners, no matter what age, social class, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, religion or background to know that they are loved. This is without any doubt my soul purpose in life and it is my desire and mission in life to share this talent, this gift from the Universe, with anyone who will listen. I believe all divine & innate gifts are meant to be shared and we are here to be of service with these gifts for one another. All of my fans know this.

By the age of 30 in 2011 I was in a big band, a female jazz trio, and the surf rock & rockabilly band. I was singing so much and I made my wife promise never to let me give up on myself again. Not only was I feeding my own soul, but at every single show people would come up to tell me how I had really moved them, often to tears, and that they wanted more. I was singing as often as possible every single week and by 2014 I was able to quit my day job and sing as a full time profession in a solo music career.

Before the pandemic, I was performing 30-40 shows every single month for everything from senior communities for Memory Care patients to high end country clubs, galas, Pride festivals, resorts, restaurants and private parties. I had even released my very first professionally produced EP Album featuring my first original song, Tidal Wave, which made it into the Top 10 Easy Listening and Indie Music List for National Radio charts! I was seeing my name next to the likes of Lizzo, Taylor Swift, Maroon 5 and Billie Eilish and I was so giddy with excitement! During 2020 I went into a panic not being able to sing, but I was able to stream weekly concerts and even do singing telegrams and miraculously released my 2nd professionally produced EP entitled Two Worlds featuring 2 more original songs. People said my music made coping with the pandemic and lock downs so much easier. They found comfort tuning into my live streams. Families & couples would gather around computers to listen to my music or played music for ailing loved ones isolated in hospitals or share and tag loved ones in songs they knew were meaningful to their loved ones. Technology combined with music/entertainment was a true blessing for us all. There were so many tender loving moments shared and tears shed through the songs.

Now, things are starting to come back to a sense of normalcy as gigs are picking up, events are coming back, venues are reopening. I have been learning to produce my own music completely by myself at home with software and I want to put out more original music that heals the world. I have released 4 original songs and I feel like I have so much more lurking in me. I want to work with more world class producers and I want to be able to travel and perform for incredible life changing events around the globe. At 40 years old, I know I'm older than a lot of music artists starting their careers, but with body positivity, LGBTQIA inclusiveness and general love everybody attitudes trending, maybe I can overcome ageism and break through, but no one can do that alone. I need support. I need a platform. I need funding. I need producers. I need inspiration and yes I even need money to achieve these dreams. I believe everything happens exactly the way it is supposed to though and all the pieces will fall in place as they should because all we have is right now and I'm living & singing at the top of my lungs in this moment!