An open love letter to the CBH Choir and Band

Dear CBH Choir family,

I am so honored to be singing with all of you this year. Will invited me to join the choir last summer before High Holidays, and I just wasn’t ready to do it then. Mostly, I was scared. (Terrified, really.) I sat at Rosh Hashanah services last year watching all of you with a mix of awe and excitement, knowing that if I could get over myself, I would get to be one of you.

So why the fear?

Quite honestly, I knew I would love it. Somehow, it felt scary to be on the precipice of doing something so potentially nourishing to my spirit. I didn’t know if I could actually let myself feel that kind of fullness and joy.

Our choir retreat a few weeks ago was very powerful for me for that reason. It was so nurturing in a way that I haven’t experienced in a long time. I cried quietly through yoga when Rebecca talked about release. I cried through “Om.” I cried through tree pose, supporting each other as we balanced in a circle. I cried through the activity of breathing with our backs up against a partner’s back. Afterwards, my partner told me, “I didn’t want to move… didn’t want to let go…. I haven’t felt like someone has had my back since I got divorced a few years ago.”

I couldn’t speak to respond to my partner because the feeling of connection to her and to the rest of the group was so strong. The energy the choir creates by being together, even without singing, takes my breath away.  

There is a lot of love and support there.

After a really rough last few years, I didn’t know that I could feel that connected to a group of people anymore. It is surprisingly hard to let go and just let yourself be loved by a lot of new people.

The CBH choir is so much more than what I imagined last year as I sat and watched all of you from the side. I didn’t know that choir members celebrated birthdays together or knew all about each other’s kids’ activities or said Kaddish with each other.

I have learned a lot through choir this year, for example:

1)   How to appropriately pronounce “Hallelujah” with long vowels

2)   How to operationalize “hushed intensity”

3)   How to read Will’s many forms of eyebrow communications

(FYI, in case you missed it tonight, the one where his eye gets big and he looks at you intently with his eyebrow raised means we are about to move onto the next section of the song.)

I’ve also learned to let a lot more joy come back into my life and to let myself fully experience it. Specifically, I love the sense of wholeness I feel in singing with all of you. I think one of our songs sums that feeling up perfectly:

"Ashira v’azameira ura k’vodi"

Rough translation:

I will sing and chant and awaken my soul

Through my voice and breath I can bring forth my own essence

Which is connected to all sparks of the Divine

I am so happy to be celebrating this new year with all of you in the choir loft (with the bubbles... that I did not put there, but feel the need to blow occasionally).

With much love and respect and awe,

Ariela

Attachment

Sometimes I have a tendency to get so attached to people or things outside myself that I forget to pay attention to what’s inside me. And as much as it feels hard to let go of those things, it is even harder to hold on to Me – especially when my hands and heart are otherwise occupied.

I have worked really hard in this last year to let go of things that look nice and shiny on the outside but ultimately do not serve me well. It is a lot of work to release finger muscles nearing rigor mortis (old habits that die hard) or knuckles tightened in a death grip (fear). 

Next weekend’s choir concert is really important for me. A bit of an anniversary, in fact. When I attended the concert last year I was not in a great place in my life… feeling stuck in a job that I let make me miserable and color the rest of my life 50 shades of black.

Hearing the choir sing, exactly a year ago today, was part of the turning point of learning to let go. Here’s what I wrote the day after the concert.

March 23, 2014

Most people don’t know that I get lost in music

Swimmy-head-can’t-think-about-anything-else-but-deliciously-present lost

Only a few people know about my musical obsessions

Songs I will play on repeat for days on end

Wanting to consume them and make them part of me

Because I know they were written just for me

One of “my” songs can take me somewhere else entirely

Or ground me so deeply in myself that I sometimes can’t move

The Bet Haverim choir has that effect on me too

Music that tugs at my Jewish roots

Reminds me of my beautiful traditions, of who I am

Listening to the choir last night was like hearing my own voice again

After so many months of feeling lost and silenced

Every time I hear the choir, I want so deeply to be a part of it

To become more confident in my own voice in music

But I usually tell that voice to be quiet

Because if I take that chance

It could come out all wrong

So it is probably best left alone inside

Quiet

But last night I started to feel a little piece of me cracking away a bit

Daring me to let go of the structure holding me back from fully being Me

And I stopped and wondered what it could possibly feel like to be free of the constraints I put on myself
And immerse myself in what I deeply love 

Music

So many changes for me in this last year that are so much more important than leaving an awful work situation – most notably, starting voice lessons and joining the choir – two things that seemed impossibly scary and out of my comfort zone a year ago today. And now, I can’t imagine my life without either of them, especially choir.

I spent many years watching the choir with awe.

Watching Joy, so true to her name, light up the sopranos with her bright smile.

Hearing Gayanne’s soulful voice fill the room with life and love.

Seeing Will create and perform songs so beautiful they move me to tears.

(Every. Single. Time.)

These people who were once just familiar faces are now treasured new friends.

Carrie, whom Elena has adopted as her special aunt down the street.

McKenzie, whom Elena calls, “The lady with the happy eyes and beautiful hair.”

Brad, whom we fondly refer to as “Mustachio” after Purim.

Nefesh and Irene, who give amazing hugs.

Shana, my alto rock and old friend who can always make me giggle.

And so many others I can’t imagine not seeing each week.

All of these people, I may never have been able to hold in my heart, had I not been able to let go of some other things that seemed so important for so long.

----

On a recent beach trip, collecting shells along the shore, I thought about how the ocean inspires me to become less attached to things. The waves come and go, bringing with them new treasures and taking away others. I thought about how if I hold on to everything I just found, I have no room for what is yet to come. That if my focus is on making sure I keep what I have, I can't notice anything new, let alone decide if I want to make a trade.

It’s hard to change and grow without letting go of something. 

And all of that process revolves around fear. Not having enough faith that what could be next will be the right thing for me in that moment. It is so much easier to be attached to what is known, even when I know I no longer need or want it.

My friend once told me, 

“May this Passover be the year you bring yourself out of your own personal Egypt.”

As I work on leaving behind fear in favor of faith, I am wondering… 

What are you letting go of this year?

Come to our choir concert on Saturday! Information found right here!