VOICE: The First Pillar of VITL✨

“Let’s go surfing now, everybody’s learning how, come on a safari with meeeeee”. I was probably about seven years old, and in my own little Beach Boys world in the backseat of the family car. I relished in the daydream of becoming a surfer girl one day. We were on our customary 4 hour road trip up to Massachusetts from New Jersey to visit our cousins. My big brother teased, “Shut uuuup! Stop singing!!!” In his defense, it was probably the fourth time I had flipped the tape on my trusty Walkman and I had undoubtedly sang every single song on the Endless Summer album multiple times, so who can blame him.

If I wasn’t cramped in the car on a road trip, then I was down in my basement with my garage sale microphone in hand simultaneously making up choreography to the likes of Motown’s Greatest Hits, or pretending I was Jasmine flying on a magic carpet with Aladdin and belting out a A Whole New World. I absolutely loved to sing and dance.

For a while, in my pre-pubescent glory, I didn’t really care what anyone thought. I sang my heart out and moved by body because it felt like home to me. There was no inhibition or fear. It simply didn’t dawn on me to feel it. Over the years though, as adolescence kicked in and insecurity seeped through, small seemingly innocuous comments imprinted themselves in my subconscious. “Too bad you didn’t get a beautiful singing voice”, “you are too loud”, or “stop being so sensitive” started to fester in subvert ways. My previously impenetrable wall of confidence was infiltrated, and my voice was dampened. I learned it was easier to stay quiet than to rock the boat with my truth. I assumed my voice wasn’t worth hearing. I stopped going to dance class. I gave up on performing in plays, and I forgot all about the little Alana who just loved to be seen and heard.

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