IF - Spring & Sunday Scribblings

I was struggling to think what to draw this week for "Spring" until after I'd written my Sunday Scribblings. Where its clear that today, at least, I wish I was a lark or other songbird...

And for those of you who commented last week on my monster blot - I've put up an interpretation.

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Sunday Scribblings have started and the first prompt is:


What would you attempt if you knew you would not fail?

I'd fly - like superman without the cape though - I'd love to just fly. I fly in my dreams and it brings me to strange lands but I'm more interested in the sheer joy of flying.

I'd fly to see all my friends and, if I knew I would not fail, I'd teach them all to fly too.

To fly without wings
To fly without things
To fly


What else?

I'd sing. Now that's a big one for me. I love to sing but not to be heard.

I've had too much bad press, poor reviews, even from cats.

But when I sing my heart really does have wings.

I have attempted all sorts of different ways of singing. I've chanted. I've practised overtoning. I've been on courses where I have to sing. All to no avail. I still get the concerned looks and bad press...

It all started when I was a little one singing in a school carol practice and the headmaster, Mr Curtois, noticed someone was singing off-key and the finger was pointed at me. I was so enthusiastic that I tried and tried...

The next finger to point at me was from my Brown Owl she said I couldn't sing in tune when we were practising carols.... but worst of all was one of the days when I'd just started comprehensive... I was called up by the music teachers to stop for an audition after assembly.... it turned out that one of my mother's friends was a locally famous singer and my mother had asked her to put in a good word for me and my music abilities at my new school... the audition was one of those hellish moments where you see people's faces turning from happily expecting to have found themselves a new soloist to wondering how they are going to mask this child's wail when she insists on singing in class!

So now maybe you wonder why my mother did this? Well I don't know! At the time I was doing well enough playing violin and recorder. But I took no exams even though I was playing grade 5 music - was I really any good at all? I don't know. My violin teacher heard me playing the piano and said I had a good hand at it. So I swapped. I bet he sighed in relief... My piano teacher was horrid and I wished I hadn't swapped. She even convinced me that I had no sense of rhythm too and after that my recorder playing went downhill - the kind teacher who organised our Renaissance Recorder group tried to help me pick up the rhythm again and started to stand behind me and gently acted like a metronome tapping me on my shoulder... all this did though was reinforce the idea that I had no sense of music.

So if I knew I would not fail I'd take back the joy of making music and not care whether or not I'm in time or singing off-key - I'd lose my self-consciousness of all this past history of upset and just go back to the joy.

And if Mr Nomad reads this he may now understand why I don't like talking about music....