Excerpt from Chapter 7: Walking Away

After the toothpaste episode, I wandered the halls of my high school like a zombie, shuffling my feet and staring at only the ground in front of me when I walked. When I returned home from school, I’d look at my neatly folded and creased breakdancing gear, my hard-toed Adidas, and want to kick something. I was no longer a part of that life, that crew, and yet, I also wasn’t just the buttoned-up, second-hand-store wearing, L.L. Bean dude either. I felt like I was spiraling into a losing battle.

Every time I had music class, though, my mood lifted, and I felt like I was closer to who I wanted to be. Other than Coach Miller, Ms. G was the only other adult whose opinion mattered to me—besides my mom, of course, and even then, things were sometimes strained. When I walked into Ms. G’s class, the reminders of the street life, of breakdancing and robbing people, taking advantage of girls and having a gun put to my head, all of that fell away.

One morning Ms. G read a special announcement.

“Listen up, kids. ‘This Friday, between nutrition and sixth period, we will have college counselors in the multipurpose room to answer any of your questions. All juniors are encouraged to attend.’”

A lump grew in my throat and chest. I used to dream about going to college, finding a way to escape the hard knocks into which I’d been born. But despite the closely examined Northeastern University TV commercials and regular assurance from my mother, there was nothing else in my life that reflected to me that college was a good idea. I slumped down in my seat and pulled my hood up over my head.

“Douglas, see me after class?”

I looked up at Ms. G with a painful recognition of “the talk” she was about to have with me, and still, a part of my spirit soared in that moment. She sees me. She knows what I’m capable of.

After class, I gathered my backpack and zipped it up slowly, just as Ms. G moseyed over to me.

“You are planning on going to college, right, Douglas?” She looked at me with those grandma eyes—the ones that will spoil you but never let you get away with anything.

“Yeah, my grades aren’t so great. Probably not.” I stood, fixing my sweatshirt and tossing my backpack over my shoulder.

“Child, you can play Tchaikovsky on that violin. There’s no reason that should go anywhere but college first.” She squared her shoulders at me, all four-feet-eleven inches of her, and looked up at my face, into my eyes. “Do you hear me? You’re going to college, and I don’t care who says opposite.”

“Ms. G, I’m barely passing my classes, and I haven’t played violin very much in the last few years. I think I missed my shot.” I shifted my weight from foot to foot and stuck both hands in my pockets, trying to shove out the thoughts of worthlessness, of past violence and trauma.

“Douglas, you come to choir. I’ll find a place for you. I’m not hearing any more of this waffling. Say you’ll go to college.”

I stared down at her petite face and frame, and for the first time since I could remember, happiness, recognition, rose in my chest without the aid of drugs or alcohol.

The next afternoon, I attended Ms. G’s after-school choir. All the kids were theater kids, and I didn’t feel like I fit in at first. But once I opened my mouth to sing, once we all opened our mouths to sing, the music brought us together, and I found my new place. It didn’t take long for me to consciously put down my violin and bow and put that energy toward my vocal cords in the school choir. 

I found out quickly that I enjoyed singing even more than I enjoyed playing the violin; it came more naturally to me. Music always had its way of speaking to my soul without saying a word, and when I’d hear people sing from the bottom of their hearts, it always sent chills down my spine. When I listened to them sing, the heavens seemed to open up over my life, and my perspective became one of endless possibilities. In those moments, I forgot about feeling trapped by used clothing and fearing going hungry. From the bottom of my toes, I felt that through music, I could find joy and happiness.

Ms. G taught us to sing from our hearts and not from our heads, to be one with the music. It was a way that we could express our feelings and develop our God-given potential, so I sang, and sang, and sang. I, like Mama Luff, enjoyed listening to the radio and creating the harmony to almost every song I heard. This preference sometimes got me in trouble in music class or choir practice with Ms. G. From time to time, instead of singing the notes on the page, I would listen to the song with my soul and instinctively add as many harmonies as I could find. In a way, I felt like each of these moments was a combination of Mama Luff’s and Ms. G’s influences: Mama Luff raised me up singing, and Ms. G showed me how, and that was a powerful combination!

One example of this was at Christmas as we practiced for our upcoming performance. We got to the end of the song, and before I even realized it, the music took control of my senses. I swayed back and forth like Ray Charles, my eyes rolled back into my head, and I ad-libbed the missing bars to the song in perfect-pitch harmony. Then, as was par for the course, the entire piece came to a complete halt.

I slowly put my head forward, opening one eye at a time, and I saw a few students shaking their heads at me, while others laughed. Despite us all being from different corners of the universe, we all loved to sing and found empathy for each other when the time was right.

“Douglas, I need you to stop singing what sounds nice to you and just sing the notes in front of you.” Ms. G always spoke to me in a serious-but-I’m-teasing way, but, at the end of the day, we all knew that Ms. G allowed it to happen because it was a part of growing our self-esteem and self-confidence . . . and we were grateful for it.

Ms. G’s love for music and service extended outside of school. That same holiday season where I got busted for singing my own version of “O Holy Night,” we went to a nursing home during the holidays to perform Christmas carols.

When the double doors opened up to the main entrance to the home, the smell of antiseptic and old people overwhelmed me. Even the white walls lacked vibrancy, as there didn’t seem to be much of any life happening in there. As we made our way to the community room where the residents ate meals and often socialized and played bingo games, a group of seniors sat talking with one another in the corner. I imagined for a moment that they were telling old war or drinking stories, much like I imagined I might if I were to get that old one day. But aside from this little bunch of men, the majority of the residents were nestled in their wheelchairs or hanging onto their walkers with their heads down.

Our youthfulness and boisterous voices were foreign sounds in this otherwise transitory place, and we drew more and more attention with each passing minute from other corners of the facility. Ms. G gathered us to run through the song order once more, and I caught myself in a daydream. What did these folks do in their heydays? What colleges did they go to, did they have children and grandchildren, and how many of them can sing?

The moment we hit our first unified chord, the faces of all the residents watching lit up like daylight, and seeing the looks on their faces when we started singing brought so much joy to me that I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face the entire performance. I even had to stifle a chuckle or two when the oldest, most tone-deaf resident, got so into the carols that he sang them at the top of his lungs, off-tempo, from the back of the room. It was all in good will, and for me, it was magical to see how the whole environment and mood in the room changed because we were singing together.

Music was my lifeblood, and it became the thread that pulled me out of the muck and through the toughest points in high school. I’ll never forget Ms. G telling me to go to college; her voice, her reason, became the guiding reminder to me that anything really is possible.

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