Destiny is a Package Deal

I met my singing teacher today. I was sitting around for near half and hour waiting for her to come back from lunch. I had to sit with a typical group of rowdy youth who were playing loud pop music from their phones and swearing at their phones and each other. After shouting ‘Oh my god I fucking love this song’ they sang along to it with their beautifully trained lilty voices, while I mimed, shamed. And in that time two women walked in, I had no idea what the teacher looked like, or how old she was. The first woman was over forty, most pear shaped, and wearing dreadful white pants to accentuate this. I didn’t like her at all, and I swore to myself that if that was my singing teacher, I wasn’t even going to try her out. I knew from the moment our eyes met that I hated her, and she would be very unsympathetic to my awful voice and troubled psyche. But she walked out again and the people who had said they would introduce us when she arrived said nothing of the sort.

So I kept waiting. What was I actually going to say to this woman? I had no idea. And just as I was trying to formulate an eloquent tactful way of asking her for what I needed- a woman who I was sure was her walked in. She is young, twenties, dark hair, olive skin, a little round in places, big teeth and perfectly applied make up.

I kept thinking to myself, what was I expecting? Amanda fucking Palmer? Someone quirky understanding and cool? Someone who would know me in advance, say- ‘Hey, I know you, you were the girl who did that, (what word can I hope to get away with here? Something nice and flattering, yet not a total lie…) emotive performance of “My Alcoholic Friends” for that singing competition.’ Yeah right. Someone who would say, let’s start today, this afternoon, free of charge, see if you like it, you seem like I nice girl… urgh, no that sounds like a thoroughly sleazy singing teacher. Someone who doesn’t fit in the same way that I don’t. Someone who wouldn’t train all the life out of my voice.

There was this girl at my primary school, the first person I ever knew who was getting singing lessons and she had this voice… or rather she didn’t. It sounded so washed out, so perfect and lilty and weak. That of someone who sings in a choir, not a rock band. No soul, no depth. I didn’t want my voice homogenised. So it took me ages to get singing lessons again, and we all know how that ended.

And now I have been presented with the epitome of homogenised mid-twenties culture. We’ll se how it goes.

☆Anika☆