keep on singing

 I learned to sing in the fields where raspberries grow and coyotes outrun cars. It is there where I learned to bandage my wounds and defeat those who tried to outrun me. I stood in a choir for years and it felt less like a place for singing birds and more like a place for sleeping crickets. I am not writing to say there is anything wrong with singing in a choir, but there is also nothing wrong with singing where the prairie meets the coulee or in the shower or to the baby who sleeps at your breast. Somewhere along the trail, for many of us, we meet at the crossroads of a society that tells us to quit singing and try our best to fit into a different box. If we were birds, sparrows would be asked for a chickadee's song and in doing so, the song of the sparrow would be thrown into the canyon. If we were trees, the evergreen would be asked for the oak's bark and in doing so, there would be no trees to fill the mountainside.

I believe singing should be an everyday activity - much like cooking your breakfast or reading a book, it exists to retrieve the sleeping parts inside of us all and to turn those parts into a wide-eyed life. If you took away my mother dancing as she vacuumed the house or silenced her from singing to her babies, I would have been born into a much smaller world. I am here and I am who I am because of her always letting the music within her come out. She sang and danced like the sun was always golden and the fields were made of music.

So, today as the clouds white as cotton float by and the hours of the day bring me closer to a beginning or an end, I will sing at least once. I will sing, not because I am being told to or because I have a song for others, but because it makes my heart grow in size. Whether the music within me is that of a magpie, a sparrow or the sweet-sounding chickadee, I will keep on singing.
 
outfit details: ankit headphones, thrifted shoes, oasap dress, crown & glory floral headband
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8 comments:

  1. Beautiful, beautiful photographs. Your darling dress is goals. <3

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  2. Oh Amy, you never ever cease to amaze me and your words never fail to fill me up to overflowing, making me feel understood and as though i can do anything in the world.

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  3. Your dress is so adorable! I love it
    xo
    www.laurajaneatelier.com

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  4. Lovely pictures! Love your flower crown!
    xo,
    ohmydarlingdeer.blogspot.gr

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  5. What a beautiful happy dress, and a beautiful happy post! You surely have a voice! Many voices, I suspect.

    The other day when I sang with Val and Tim my voice dropped down into a low register on one of our well-rehearsed songs - I reached the C below middle C, then I nearly reached the C two above Middle C! I don't know who was more surprised, Val, and Tim or me. Me I think.. I had my ears covered even as I reached the notes. Grinning with the surprise of it. How marvellous it is.

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  6. You write beautifully, and I love your style! Your photography inspires me so much . . . keep on keeping on! :)
    Amanda Brown
    skgfun.com

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