I Manage Not to Faint

Wednesday, when I was on vacation, my music minister called and asked me to sing a solo for Sunday night. That is kind of late notice (and he apologized for that), but we decided on a song that I had sung a long time ago, before I lived in Nashville, even, and he would accompany me on his guitar.

That song is called "He Redeemed Me," by the way, and it is a great song, and I plan on talking about it another time when I am not interested in talking about myself. That may be a while.

So here's the deal: in addition to my other crippling fears, I also have stage fright. Well, that is nothing out of the ordinary, and actually it has come in handy, because in my speech classes we do have a chapter about facing stage fright, and I am able to share my personal experiences with my students and they feel better about themselves when they hear the story of how I fell off a stage.

I'm not telling that one yet.

Fortunately, as I have gotten older and had more experience with speaking/singing/performing in public, my stage fright has become less of a hindrance. That doesn't mean it has gone away, though.

Typically, my stage fright manifests itself in four ways:

1. I can't breathe.
This happens to just about everybody. I remember giving a speech in my 11th grade American History class that began like this: "Ladies and gentlemen , I would like to ...." and so on. What's really bad is when you do those wheezing gasps where everyone can hear them and it sounds like you're having an asthma attack.

2. I shake.
Like the leaves on a tree in a huge summer storm. One time I sang a song while my legs--not just my knees--but my entire LEGS were trembling. Because I have the shakes, I always hold a microphone with both hands. This not only keeps the mic steady, but it also provides a "life raft," of sorts, to cling to. Here is what my dad said to me after my first public performance: "Did you kill the microphone?" I had a white-knuckled two-fisted grip on that thing, people; it was going NOWHERE. He said it looked like I was trying to pop the top of it right off. Tonight, ten years later, guess what--I two-handed the microphone.

3. I forget things.
This is actually not JUST something that happens when I get on a stage, actually. However, I do always have that moment of panic right beforehand when I cannot remember ANYTHING, even my own name. That is why I always have a cheat sheet in my hand. I never cheated on tests in schools, so I came to the cheat sheet later in life. It comes in really handy. Like, tonight, I was just fixing to get up to sing, and I did not remember the verses of my song. So I looked at my cheat sheet, and I remembered all the words.

4. I can't remember anything afterwards.
I think, sometimes, that I have a little epileptic fit--the kind Silas Marner had, not the shaky kinds, but the ones where you just stare into space for a while. Because I cannot recall what I've done when I'm done singing or performing or speaking; I figure I AM done, if everyone's clapping or whatever, but I usually have only a couple of snippets of memory of ever having been onstage. From tonight's song, I remember smiling at the minister of music, seeing this one girl in the audience that I haven't seen in several months, the note I hit on the last chorus and being relieved it wasn't flat, and ... the end. That's actually more than I usually remember. I describe it to my students like this: "I lose consciousness a little, and then it's over."

In spite of having stage fright, I do enjoy getting up in front of people. It helps that I am a teacher, and have to do that for a living now, but I think that as I've gotten older, I've also gotten more confident, and that helps A LOT.

Still, I do give myself a pep talk sometimes. It goes like this: "Mei Flower, you are THIRTY YEARS OLD. Now quit your whining and stop acting like a baby and JUST DO IT, for crying out loud." My pep talks tend not to be so peppy, somehow.

Anyway, I made it through the song, and I did it the best I could, and I think it went well. My parents said it was good, but that doesn't count. Some teenager told me it was good, and actually, that DOES count, because teenagers don't like anything.

The most important thing is that my slip wasn't showing, my voice didn't crack, and I didn't fall off the stage, so I call that a success.