Loud and proud

I miss singing. A lot. I have this crazy Dutch lady living in the apartment beneath me and she calls our landlord to complain about the noise we’re making… at three in the afternoon when we’re all at work. We had to put carpet all throughout our apartment because our high heels in the morning before we go to work bother her.

I’ve never gone so long without singing. I sing every day. I have since I was a little girl. Even when I’ve been in hours of rehearsal and I think my vocal chords hate me and they’re going to shrivel up and die just to spite me, I catch myself singing along the radio in the car or humming Vaughn Williams as I do my homework.

I can’t sing in my apartment, so I tried to find an alternate location. I tried the beach. But it’s so windy and cold that it hurts my throat and I can barely hear myself over the surf.

Then, I looked to the Dutch. They sing in the most peculiarly public places. Shopping? Random Dutch lady browsing the racks and singing along the EuroPop on the radio. Grocers? There too. On their bicycles as they bike to work/school/a bar/everywhere? Oh, yes. All the time. It’s like they make their own little car radio on their bikes. They even sing duets with random other cyclists in the bike lane. My neighbor is in her garden, outside my back window, singing, or shouting, incredibly loud, to a song that was popular in the 90’s. Little kids on the street. The ex-military security squad at my job. The waitresses at cafes. I don’t know why I never noticed this growing up, but I know it’s not just a figment of my imagination. The Dutch are constantly singing.

The great thing about this is that they have no shame. They don’t do that whole thing I do wherein when someone catches me singing I trail off and slink away as quickly as possible, avoiding eye contact and pretending it never happened. They look you in the eye as they belt it out, loud and proud and off tune (I’m not exaggerating when I say that in the past three weeks I haven’t heard a Dutch person sing in tune). None of them have been good singers. None of them really know the words. They were all really, really loud. But they are totally open about singing, wherever they are. And if you look at them like they’re crazy, they stare right back as if to say you, my friend, are the crazy one.

I really wish I was more like the Dutch and less my shrinking self, some days.