Transcendent Voices

Once I rented a room in a Seattle house where one of the other renters was an opera/gospel singer. There in the house, he'd be talking in a group or going about his day and unexpectedly sing out. Or I'd wake to his beautiful voice somewhere in the house and feel so fortunate. You see, I can't sing although I've had extensive instruction. But I'm always singing - sigh. Anyhow, among the many accomplished singers I've known, there are a few voices that can literally lift us above the troubles of the earth – just in hearing them. 

        So in my life, it was later, miles and mountains north of there, when another gifted singer was driving my friends the night they saved me on the road. When I woke the next morning in a sleeping bag on a carpet where I'd slept the first time in weeks, I heard him singing in the kitchen. His voice was so perfect that it transformed the day. I could still hear him singing down the road as he left that morning. That was the last time that I woke to a beautiful voice. And then a month ago in this building around midnight someone came home down the hall, and a beautiful voice -- female this time - sang "Sleep in heavenly peace." Only those four words. But the voice was as golden as the two before, and the air, the room, virtually everything was transformed. 

 

 

 

(Previous story: 'The night my friends saved  me on the road' to be posted again.)