I was wrong...starting the second post is harder than the first. I've no outline for this blog, and being that I'm still new to all this, it's taking me a little while to find my own narrative voice.

I've kept a journal since I was 8 years old. So you'd think I'd know my own voice after 30 years of writing. But with my journal, i'm writing with only one reader in mind - myself. For work, I write a lot, but I often "borrow" other people's voices - I get in and get comfortable in someone else's mind, bringing to life their artistic visions and intentions.

But here, it's different.

I had a friend who used to perform in coffee houses covering popular rock and pop songs. He had a beautiful voice with this ability to sound like the artists who performed them -  an expressive Bono, to a raw and gritty Eddie Vedder. I asked him once if he would be performing any of his original songs. He replied, "No. I've been covering songs for so long that I don't know what my own voice sounds like." At the time, I thought that was a ridiculous answer, but I get it now.

When you keep secrets, the stories you share don't always mirror what you really want to say. For me, I coped by self-censoring everything I said, what I expressed, what I voiced. Most of the time, the narrative remained at surface level, and I navigated the world by presenting different voices and facets of myself. I've been doing this for so long that digging to find my own voice beneath all the layers of secrets, shame, guilt, and anxiety has been challenging.

A few years ago, I participated in a vocal workshop lead by Tyley Ross, a Grammy nominated recording artist, co-founder of the East Village Opera Company, and an instructor of voice at NYU's Tisch and Steinhardt schools. I was a classically trained opera singer in my youth, but a friend recommended that I take Tyley's workshop as a refresher. His approach to voice was different and required a greater awareness of body, thought and feelings. One of his exercises required everyone in the workshop to anonymously submit a secret. Each student was then assigned someone else's secret  for study and vocalization. We walked around the room freely, vocalizing in different ways - whispers, hisses, fast, slow, articulated, emotively. We said the secrets under our breaths, we said them to one another as we passed each other, we said them to the walls, we sang them.

The purpose of the exercise was to not let the body and mind hold you back from vocalizing what we would instinctively internalize. I don't remember the secret that was assigned to me - I never embraced it as my own. But I do remember feeling quite self-conscious yet detached when I ended up face to face with the person assigned with my secret. At the time, I didn't truly understand or appreciate Tyley's workshop - to give into the process and express, confront and release what holds us back or is blocking our lost voices. In hindsight, the secret I submitted was quite superficial in comparison to the others. But at the time, it reflected where I was at in my own personal journey and what I was coming to terms with.

Secret reveal #2 - My secret submitted for the voice workshop - "I'm in love with a clown."

Yup, that's what he does for a living - he works in a circus - red nose, clown costume, mini-bike, juggling, etc. There's a story there too, but that's for another day, another post...