Early Sunday, as I packed the car, tightened the straps on the bike rack, and prepared for a trip to New Hampshire, I hoped that the twenty-five mile bike ride later that morning with friends would clear my mind and soul. An upcoming doc appointment Monday morning had me concerned about my health. For two months I’d been wrestling with the “what-ifs,” convinced the cancer had returned. Data from the pathology lab did nothing to assuage my anxiety and bring peace to the restless nights and days of anxiously catching my breath as I clung to irrational thoughts and feelings of imminent despair. The woe is me attitude, unusual if not foreign, couldn’t be shaken.
Public discourse these days is fraught with dishonesty, meanness, and lack of civility. That coupled with health concerns had made me question my resilience under duress, my hope and faith, and challenged long held beliefs in human goodness that I’d come to trust. My skill at compartmentalizing the personal and public was being tested.
The first part of the three-hour drive, along state routes 7, 125, and 100, wound through the Champlain Valley, over the Green Mountains, and down the Mad River Valley to Interstate 89, a peaceful meandering terrain surrounded by beautiful fall colors. When I reached the interstate, I adjusted my hearing aids to concert level, and inserted one of the five Doo-Wop CDs I’d chosen for the trip.
The first song, “Hushabye” by the Mystics, pulled me in and I began to sing along. Though the days of my youth have passed, the ability to smile and the capacity for song and laughter remain intact. Several songs later, The Rivingtons belted out “Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow,” a tune that defied any attempt of mine to resist foot-stomping and shouting out the feel-good repeated refrain Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow, Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow. Doo-Wop classics accompanied me all the way to my friend’s driveway, despair and anxiety left somewhere behind on the side of the road.
The bike ride, dinner and night with friends David and Marsha was enjoyable, and the Monday morning doc appointment wonderfully predictable. The results from the blood draw, a week earlier, were the same as the previous nine blood work-ups—eight years post prostate cancer surgery and I continued to be in remission, a celebratory fact that Dr. John Munoz, my surgeon, and I shared during Monday’s annual consultation. I left his office spirits high and impatient to return to singing and lip-syncing the tunes of my youth that had elevated my spirit—and that’s what I did all the way home—hoarse voice and sore lips notwithstanding.
Tuesday morning, before dawn and an early morning breakfast with my colleague and friend Gus, I read a Brian Doyle essay, for me a meditation, that awakened me to what I’d been experiencing during the 350-mile round trip drive. The following is from his engaging, thoughtful, and challenging collection of essays (The Thorny Grace of It –Loyola Press, 2013):
do wa do wa diddy.
Okay, here’s a story for you this morning. A young man in a monastery tells it to me. He’s a brother, seven years in, still essentially the new guy, although as he says there actually are newer guys, but basically in our monastery any guy under the age of ninety is a new guy, which gives you a sense of the long-term attitude here; I mean, our monastery is more than sixty years old, but our sister monasteries elsewhere in the world still consider us a ragged outpost in the wilderness of the New World. One great thing about us monks is that we have a good sense of scale, if the Merciful One chooses to appear again in human guise in twenty thousand years, there will certainly be a monk who will grumble that he sure was in a hurry. You have to laugh. Anyway, the story I want to tell you is about one night in choir practice when things got hilarious and sweetly crazy for a while. We still laugh about it and I think maybe the story will be told here for, well, twenty thousand years, until the Merciful One slips in the chapel door and joins us Himself. You think He’s a tenor or a baritone?
So here’s the context: we warm up for choir practice by stretching, bending at the waist, swinging our hips from side to side, waving our arms like we are doing the wave, jogging in place. It always knocks me out to see guys nearly ninety years old shaking out their muscles like they are on the sideline getting ready to enter a basketball game, you know? Then we do some vocal calisthenics, some yawning, some mouth-stretches, just rattling off strings of nonsense words and numbers to get our lips loose, and on this night one of the guys started us off with a run or syllables like nu wah nu wah nu, and that slid right into do wa do wa, and then one of the older guys riffed on it as do wa do wa diddy, and that set us off. He had been in the Army, this guy, and he said later that his mind still naturally falls into cadence if he’s not paying attention, and do wa diddy has a parade cadence, I guess, because off we all went, singing one do wa do wa song after another. “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by the Tokens, and “In the Still of the Night” by the Five Satins, and “Earth Angel” by the Penguins, and “Duke of Earl” by Gene Chandler, and “Maybe” by The Chantels, although that one was hard because none of us can quite get up to the highest range. By then we were all laughing too hard to sing well anyway, and we were supposed to be practicing Ascension and Pentecost hymns, after all, and it’s not like we had all the time in the world to fool around, you would be surprised how clock-bound monastic life is, and don’t forget that we are all up before four in the morning every day to chant the first of five offices for the day. So we all sort of collected ourselves and got back to work, but at the very end of practice, just as we were about to head off in the four holy directions, the guy who had been in the Army said quietly one more, fellas? So we sang “Tonight, Tonight” by The Mello Kings, which is a really lovely song anyway, but imagine how lovely it sounds when sung by a gaggle of Trappist guys of all ages in a wooden chapel in a fir forest on an evening in autumn, one of those crisp clear starry nights when you can hear owls and crickets for a mile. I have to say it was one of the most beautiful and holy musical moments I have ever experienced. Who would have thought that a song by The Mello Kings would be one of the most haunting spiritual moments guys in a monastery ever experienced? But the ways of the Merciful One are mysterious and often very funny, if you pay attention closely, it seems to me. Also, I think He is totally into music. The more I think about it the more I am convinced the most direct road to the One is music. Everything’s music, if you hear it right, you know what I mean?
Yes, Brian, I know what you mean.
Too frequently darkness and sacrilege blemish or chip away at the sacred in my life—questions and doubts notwithstanding. Doo Wop songs from my youth and a tale of Trappist monks reminded me of all things spiritual—the ones in plain sight we often miss.
by 
Now that was fun. And it will reverberate for me as I prepare for a week long trip to Montana to work with a professor/economist/environmentalist who has a ranch on the Yellowstone “tract” and who has been doing free market/economic/environmental stuff for quite a while. And since I am not, nor have I ever been, the “nature guy” this trip is going to be a hoot. And now the average temperature is lower than what I have seen since my childhood days in Washington State. Oh, more fun.
Roy,
Yes it must have been fun for the monks and Brian as it was for me to read and vicariously enjoy, and you too. There’s plenty of ‘music’ in Montana so hope you hear and take in the tunes as they come your way. Thanks for spending some time with my thoughts.
Roger
I share your experience of having a bleak mood lifted to “feelin’ real good” while singing along in the car to those enticing golden oldies, such as we played on the juke box in the back room of Lange’s. There mere mention of “In the Still of the Night” and “Maybe,” brings an immediate longing for swaying along while slow dancing. Nowadays I find myself hoping and praying that God will help us out of the morass of our current state of public discourse and the direction of our government. The pure pleasure of sweet nostalgic memories and songs brings a bit of relief and helps to keep balance of the yin and yang of it all. Enjoy the good news of your continuing good health, and be here now! Write on, mon ami.
Colette,
Thanks for reading and commenting. Swaying, dancing, hoping, praying, and listening/looking for breaks in the darkness can be (as you’ve suggested), made possible by the rare and unplanned moments. Lange’s was a fun place for all of us to hang-out–a place where for a few moments on any given evening our teen angst evaporated and we ‘danced.’
Roger
Congratulations on the great health news! I love how you uplifted yourself in song in the midst of frozen fear. I remember one winter in the 1980s when I was horribly depressed and out of nowhere started whistling as I was walking back to my apartment. A postman happened by and smiled at me. I thought, if he only knew. Funny, I made him feel good as I was walking in my dark cloud. Singing, whistling, humming, yodeling, chanting, all that, does something to the soul. Vibrations within tuning ourselves up. Thank you for the smiles.
Jo Anne,
The transition was without conscious intent–made it special and surprising. Much the same as your whistling adventure, an experience shared by the postman–wonderful, and who knows what he was carrying into that. Thank you for reading, commenting, and sharing your experience.
Roger
Glad you got the good news. Keeping a sense of humor and singing? Sounds like a plan for the best and most faithful way to live.
Thank you, Kim. Humor and song bring faith alive and light to the darkness. When David cut a swatch of cloth from Saul’s cloak in the darkened cave there was no music but I’ll bet the sly and crafty guy was smiling!
Roger
Glad to hear that you are clear! Yes, Music does help when we are stressed…
Best,
K.S.
K.S.,
Thank you, and let’s all make music, and listen for it when stressed–it is there.
Roger
I was practising my chorus music and my mood was being lifted by Mozart’s Alleluia sung with the aide of a practice tape. Singing it over and over again with no one around to hear me! Then I stopped to read my email and discovered Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow. What a great mood lifter music is (along with some dancing)!
Happy to hear of your good test results. It is almost six years for me. How vulnerable we are! For today? Let’s have some fun!
Dona,
Six years and counting, congratulations! Mood lifting when there’s heavy-lifting to be done can be accomplished when buoyed by the likes of Mozart, the Rivingtons and all the other tunesmiths who reach our souls through their lyrics, compositions, voices and instruments. May you continue to sing and dance, find fun whether alone or in the presence of others. While in grad school, commuting on my motorcycle, I passed a man who danced at the same street corner every morning and evening when I passed by. After several weeks I stopped and asked him why he danced. “I love the music,” he exclaimed, “can’t you hear it?”
I began to listen.
Thanks for reading and commenting,
Roger
Well, lots of “resonances” in this piece of yours with my and other readers’ experiences. For me, choral rehearsals have been my escape into a different place from worry and angst. While in medical practice, my evenings at choir practice were a time away from concerns about patient care. Saturday afternoon in Rutland, Margaret Roddy and I had 3 hours of practice with the VSO chorus and I did not think of destructive political discourse, but instead of rhythm and text and notes and expression. It was lovely. We did not do “doo wop” unless you count an interesting arrangement of Jingle Bells. And then there was Sunday morning with Tom belting out a jazz solo during the choir anthem with the choir blissfully unaware of the LCD projector on the fritz. That was fun.
Glad for your good news.
Ted,
Thank you for describing/living the magic music has to transport us–“…rhythm and text and notes and expression”–you’ve added your voice to others who have commented about this same experience while being private and singing solo–Tom’s included. One of my associations to your comment is that we don’t have to be able ‘to carry a tune’ for music to carry us away or into a healthier space, a new perspective, or a fun and enriching spiritual place. Crows gather in the trees outside my home office window and though Doo Wop, Mozart, or Jingle Bells may not be in the musical repertoire they bring to such gatherings I love to hear the chorus of robust cawing they seem to enjoy and share with each other.
Thanks for your comments,
Roger
From a friend: “I can so relate to the “oldies” and really getting into them when I too hear them. Being a child of the ’50’s and ’60’s sure was a great time for living with the tunes. Memories flood and you just can’t help feeling happy!”
Roger … fabulous news about the blood work and continued remission – NOT to be taken for granted. AND if you’re still biking … that’s pretty great, too. Sounds like a progression that resonates with “Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley” to “Blue Moon” to “Who Wrote the Book of Love” and concluding with “People Get Ready”! Maybe we should do more sharing of playlists with your fellow Blogger-Responders and the Trappists (Hmmm …sounds like the name of a 50’s group right there!). And BTW … did you ever get the Larry Carlton CD, “Alone, But Never Alone” ?? Bless you brother. Your “Eternal Men’s Group” still prays for you!
Chuck
Hi Chuck,
Thank you for reading and commenting. Love your list of songs–never could decide whether fast or slow dance to Blue Moon worked, and in hindsight it didn’t matter because my dance partner and I were writing our own Book of Love. Thanks for keeping me in your prayers, a space I’m fortunate and grateful to be in given the many needing those thoughts, prayers and attention.
Cheers to you and the Oldies that continue to bring a welcome flutter,
Roger
Thankful for the good medical report. Appreciate the reminder of favorites from the past.
Just read about the power of gratitude on our overall well being together. Thankful for good news this Thanksgiving season
Alan,
Doo Wop, friends but mostly gratitude this time of year. Thanks for reading and commenting.
Roger
P.S. My hope is to catch “gratitude’s infectious bug,” and make it a year round companion.