A Place In The Choir

"All God's critters got a place in the choir, some sing lower, some sing higher, some sing out loud on the telephone wire, and some just clap their hands, or paws, or anything they got now." - Bill Staines

In Ancient Greece, even great philosophers, men of science, antique nerds with clay tablets instead of smart tablets, thought that music could cure disease. I happen to agree with them. A melody has the illiterate ability to penetrate every wall, break down every cancelled childhood heartache, repair the wounds from a stray alcoholic father or imprisoned mother, and jostle the dregs of inspiration back to the surface. Looking around today, as a few miscellaneous people braved the Sunday blues to sing and eat cookies in our newly-painted living room, I saw the pain drain from each's face in a different medium: years of loneliness spilled onto the floor and evaporated into the cacophonous air, the blood from the stabs of memory shards dripped off skin and disappeared, and our little family's anxiety about the small guest list dissolved at the first note of "Fire and Rain."

The cats chimed in for their part, wailing from the upper floors when we hit a trill or triplet, and bumbling through the forest of unfamiliar feet resting on the rug. The fatter one buried his face in the coffee cake and earned an exile by the window until the last grandparent closed the front door, joyfully an hour and a half behind schedule, to everyone's thrill. But as the people and the voices flowed through the house, the cats lost no pain. The only ones who get to shed their tension are the convoluted humans, the ones who know enough to be completely and totally unaware that anything has changed.