Throwing darts - #102

A shot and a miss.

In life’s endless supply of darts to throw at the board of involvement, I somehow ended up in a church lobby as people flowed in around me, some taking the stairs to the left and others taking the doors to the right.

A woman saw me, a tree branch sticking straight up in the middle of the stream.

“Choir or AA?”

“Uh, choir,” I replied. She pointed me toward the doors, and I walked into a version of my past.

Music used to be an ever present part of my life, something I loved. I sang in the school choirs, at every talent show we had, with the community theater, with the Cleveland Orchestra, throughout college in an a cappella group (that’s me on the solo), and on pianos at bars in the Caribbean. In DC I was briefly part of a cover band, in New York I very briefly wrote music with the guy who asks the questions in 73 Questions. And then, I stopped. 

Until I threw a dart at “local choral society.” 

I had been singing under my breath at the gym when my coach turned toward me.

“If you’re singing, you’ve got more reps in you. Join the choir!”

A choir? My heart lifted at the idea. I missed the rigor of practice and performance. I missed the competition of earning solos. I missed the electricity of being backstage, the moment when the lights go down, and the moment you stepped onto the stage. My imagination ran away. I pictured a choir 50 deep, I pictured gospels and trills, I pictured bluesy solos and the camaraderie of performance. I was like a 40-year-old with a rusty shoulder picturing Friday night lights while signing up for the local intramural team — absolutely delusional.

The front two pews on either side of the small cathedral aisle were filled with some 20 odd people: a woman I knew from CrossFit, another woman I recognized but couldn’t place from where, two younger women still so fresh in their love that they touched each other almost the entire rehearsal, three men? maybe four?, two teenage girls seemingly only days past pre-teen, and then a cadre of older women. There were no auditions. You self-selected which section you were in and the director merely trusted you were right. The music was decidedly choral. And it was while singing the alto section of the Hallelujah Chorus for the billionth time in my life that I realized in that moment that perhaps, just maybe, my maladaptive daydreaming had in this case … wronged me.

“We’re all here because we love to sing together,” the choir director announced. Is that why I was there? My darker demons were laughing. Babe you’re here because you love competition, attention, and belting — not because you love how Arvo Pärt melodies come together.

That’s when the choir director asked me to introduce myself.

“Everyone clap! We need to make Kelton feel welcome because I just know she’s going to commit to the whole season!”

What was I supposed to do?

At this point, I’m just trying to see what sticks. Since moving to a new town I’ve gone to five classes, eight library events, and three educational walks. I’ve volunteered at races, concerts, weeding days, for the humane society, and for my own little town. I’ve joined a gym, picked up two new sports, and now I’m in a choir. 

I wish I could say the choir scratched an itch and inspired me, but the thing about throwing darts is that sometimes you miss. Sometimes the dart ricochets off the board. Sometimes it’s as if your arm is not your own and the dart just throws itself in a completely wrong direction. The choir not only made my voice hurt from lack of practice but it made my heart hurt with nostalgia. It left me feeling disappointed in myself for having neglected something that used to mean so much to me.

It had been 15 years since I’d read sheet music, and I found myself humbled and embarrassed. I merely let my mouth hang open, toneless breath imitating the crescendos around me. I felt at sea in a room of people familiar with one another. I felt like a has been. I felt like I’d made a mistake.

For a moment, I’d like to talk about actual darts. If there is a dart board at a bar and someone suggests a game, I try to get someone else to play. I don’t like to play darts because I’m bad at it. I’m really bad at throwing darts. In fact, I’m demonstrably bad at throwing pretty much anything. If you asked me to toss you the keys, they would either be thrown directly into your face or twenty feet away from you. My arms are merely poorly constructed slingshots operated by someone that is not me. So I don’t throw darts because I, a perfectionist, an “optimizer”, a person obsessed with monetizing their hobbies, do not like to fail. 

In the game of metaphorical darts, a missed shot has turned into a four month commitment and two December concerts — arguably much worse than throwing an actual dart into the wall next to the board. I’m hoping for a Sister Act turnaround here, that I am merely the rusty nail that learns to appreciate the circumstances they find themselves in. 

But more so, I am hoping to investigate all that self-disappointment in the pews of a church in a not-church-choir surrounded by people who just might become my friends. I am hoping to look more closely at what it means to do something merely because it’s a way to feel connected and even closer at my expectations. I’m hoping that if I look more closely, I’ll see that this dart landed right where it was meant to.