From Alto to Bass, How a Choir Boy Becomes a Mountain Man.

I’m something of a man’s man.  I have a beard.  I have a deep voice.  My hair is somewhat unkempt, and the only time it’s not unkempt is when I push It straight back because I’m too lazy to put real time into my hair.  I like to be outdoors more than indoors, but still know how to bake.  I know my way around a grill as well as my way around a kitchen.  I am, by most appearances and qualifiers, quite masculine.  

These are my pajamas, including the viking helmet. That's the kind of Manly I am.

 

That wasn’t always the case.  

When I was younger, I was a bit shorter than average.   I wasn’t tiny, but I certainly wasn’t tall.  I didn’t hit puberty as early as many of my peers or even my twin brother, so while they learned to shave, I continued singing in a semi-professional children’s choir in the Alto section. (If you don’t know, that’s generally the lower of the female voices, very few men have voices that high by the time they hit their teens). While my friends learned about baseball, I learned about classic literature.  While they spent the morning before school playing soccer outside, I read fantasy novels about faraway adventures, and dangerous mysteries.  

I was a chorister, which is a very nice way of saying singer without making it sound like I’m desperately trying to become a pop-star.  I was into acting, though I primarily did musicals.  I played Dungeons and Dragons (I FEEL NO SHAME).  I was learning how to cook.  I had a slight lisp, which matched my overly friendly personality.  I had more women friends than male friends and thought that the television show ‘Everwood’ was the pinnacle of modern media.  

To summarize:  NOT SO MANLY. 

I was like this, but less catholic.  Also, less frills.  But you get the idea.

So, while I grew up, I was primarily surrounded by a few male friends, and choirs full of women and occasionally gay guys. I built myself a niche in the world that included taking pride in knowing the difference between a mezzo and traditional soprano voice, instead of a world that took pride in physical strength.

This is a surprisingly fun way to spend your early pubescent years.  By being a bit-player in various musicals or plays, I learned how to kiss.  I spent long evenings surrounded primarily by women, hanging out and relaxing.  I learned to dance, or at least tried to.  I’d claim I had two left feet, except that I didn’t possess even ONE proper foot when it came to dancing.  I was taught card games to pass the time, and learned how to gamble using candy instead of cash.  I learned all the lessons that a choir boy can learn, and I enjoyed it.
And, of course, I had a pretty enough voice that some women swooned, some women swayed, and almost all of them at least afforded me a sheepish smile, and mild blush.

But being adorable had its own issues. 

I was bullied.  I was beaten up badly enough that at age 13 I got called into the principal’s office to effectively have a police line-up of bullies, since I was beaten up by more than one.  My twin brother, who began to hit his own stride, joined the bullying train and mocked me for playing cello, singing in multiple choirs, but being unable to grow facial hair.  He learned to shave the same week I got my first solo in the non-school related choir…a woman’s solo, but one that fit my voice perfectly. At Boy Scout camp, I got kicked off the canoeing team for being a ‘wimp’, and while the rest of the guys learned about hiking and fires, I went to the ecology lodge to learn about fish health and conservation with the few similarly nerdy friends I had. 

One particular instance of my teasing comes to mind when I remember being a singer:  Let’s call him Gary. 

Gary was not a very nice guy.  His dad was rich, his mother was a hypochondriac, and Gary took out his first-world frustrations on the smallest kids he could find.  So, one day after school while I was leaving a play-practice, where I was learning the role of ‘King’ for the musical Cinderella, Gary caught me walking home and beat the crap out of me.  I probably, to a degree, deserved it.  He had intended to just mock me, and called me slurs like ‘gay’, ‘retard’, ‘queer’, etc.  I responded that I couldn’t be gay, because of how pleased his mother was whenever she saw me…it was a dumb response, since I didn’t REALLY know what I was saying, but I knew that television called that a perfect response to gay-insults, and I knew that Gary was defensive about his somewhat loopy mom.  So, he threw me in a ditch, stole my backpack, and gave me a fat lip.  I had a few tiny bruises and a hurt pride, but it was enough to get the teachers involved and make a big scene.  I was given the punishment of spending 2 weeks of recess inside in a study room and writing an apology letter.  Gary was given the same punishment, and was forced to take a 2 week break from extra-curricular programs. 

Gary’s letter said he was sorry for calling me gay, but that he just assumed because I was a singer with a lisp and few male friends.

The event passed into memory, like so many others, and I moved on for another 2-3 years before my escape finally arrived.  The means to be EXACTLY who I already was, but face SO MUCH LESS BULLYING!

My voice changed. 

If you’re a woman, or a man with a particularly high voice, it might be hard to understand how deeply this affected my life.

I was an early teen when it happened. Women suddenly stopped giving me sheepish sarcastic smiles and gave me sincere sheepish smiles.  My skill with massage suddenly became a serious point in my corner, because I was no longer a little kid, I seemed at least SOMETHING like a real man.  My friendly and non-aggressive personality meant that I was, despite my chubby tummy, pimpled face, and nerdy personality, somewhat cool.  In fact, people stopped assuming that silence meant I was timid, and started assuming silence meant I was deep in thought.  I had more male friends because choir became less girly when you sang in the ‘male only’ section.

My voice dropping changed my entire personality, and subsequently changed what I had the confidence to do.

I took up Tae-Kwon-Do, grew a scraggly beard the minute I had enough facial hair to do so, and danced less awkwardly.  I joined multiple new choirs, took voice lessons, took more advanced courses, came to school an hour earlier and left four hours later.  I was, effectively, becoming something much more impressive than the little kid with the cute voice.    

This, readers, is what made me into ME.  In the 8-9 years since that early high-school period, I’ve spent less than 6 months of that time clean-shaven, and even then it was for shows, or to impress a girl.  

I performed, in costumes like this for weeks...without being bullied or beaten up.  SERIOUSLY.
EVEN I WANT TO BEAT MYSELF UP DRESSED LIKE THAT!

I’m still into singing, though in college I ended up majoring in English Writing and Biology with a Philosophy minor instead of sticking to music.  I still enjoy being known for my good massage skills, and I’m regularly caught up watching old plays, or listening to show-tunes. 

But because of my size, voice, and beard, that’s all OK.   You see, people don’t define you by your actions, but by how your actions meld into your total persona. 

Somewhere in the hazy zone between child and teen, and then teen and adult, I gained the three things that I treasure most in the world: 
1) A deep sonorous voice.
2) A sarcastically dry wit.

3) Most important, I gained my multicolored bushy beard.

If every story is supposed to carry a message, then take away this simple fact that a lifetime of singing and bullying has taught me:
If you can’t be a true and gritty tough guy, looking and sounding like one is more than enough.