Music during this season of Christmas makes every pore in my body gasp.

I spent decades as a soprano in church choirs, college choirs, and semi-professional chorales.  One of my favorite seasonal gigs was singing with the Rittenhouse Inn singers in Bayfield Wisconsin.  I’d motor over from Duluth and spent a night, singing multiple concerts in the dining rooms there.  I was a first soprano, one of the blessed (I would say) who get to take lofty flight through vocal chords.

Hearing the MPR offerings and experiencing the gift of singing in our church choir, I am home.  I have body memories of where I was when I was able to wrap my voice around various choral works.  I feel gratitude gratitude gratitude.

And, I feel some nostalgia.  I am no longer a first soprano, and maybe not much of a real soprano any more.  I don’t devote myself to singing as I once did.  I am a rusty and less confident member of the corps.  My life has taken me into other sorts of ways of using my voice.  What was is no more.

But for a time, I soared without fear.

Do I long sometimes for the opportunity to sing as I once did; often and in fabulous company?  Of course.

But the voice that used to join with others to create beauty sings yet in this body and life that has seen some changes.

And that is enough.