Mandala

It’s Tuesday night at the Sammons Center for the Arts. I’m on the back row of the bass section, popping up like a meerkat to take attendance.

Many many many many mennn! we sing to open up our head voice and resonate in the mask. I keep warming up as I check to see who’s here. There’s Fred Mischnick, serving face, even during warm-ups. There’s Bill Forbes and Michael Raines, wincing because the speaker’s too loud. They wave to Jess who flies across the back of the room toward the soundboard with an endearing and exasperated look on his face. There’s Michael Sullivan, holding court in the back of the bass section. There’s Steve Westcott, a few minutes late as usual, but who can be mad at that face?—precious angel with a mischievous twinkle and a snarky comment locked and loaded one hundred percent of the time.

Across the room, the tenor ones are cutting up. Dustin Svatek and Brian Dixon add choreography to the warm-up. They shimmy and vogue in unison, and I can’t stop laughing. I elbow Rusty and Stephen, so they won’t miss it. “What rich lives we lead,” Rusty says. I squeeze his knee and he looks at me like, Don’t make me cry.

Sean hunches over the piano for the warm-up, plunking out the notes. Beep beep beep beep, bep bep bep bep, bope bope bope bope, booooo… This is Martise’s warm-up. You can always hear him add a playful little clap-clap to punctuate the lines. He bops back and forth, his smile—pure light. It spreads across the baritone section and soon, even though the day was rough, we’re laughing.

The Turtle Creek Chorale is my church. True, we don’t all think and believe the same things, but in a way, that’s what makes it so holy. The one thing we can all agree on is the power of music and a commitment to love. We are a beautiful, messy family that loves and sings and mourns together.

There is Michael Brown with a funny t-shirt. He moves his wizard beard to the side, so I can read it. There is Tri selling t-shirts at a table in the back. We make eye contact across the room, and he gives me his trademark “sup?” nod and a sassy wink. Mack Campbell serves glitter poncho realness and bright-eyed vowels at the edge of the baritone section.

And there is the empty chair where Randy Culbreth used to sit on the front row of the basses next to Pat McCann. This Christmas, onstage, behind Sean’s podium, there will be a poinsettia for Randy. We will remember him and sing for him as we do for the two-hundred and twenty-four members who have passed on. They rise up among us—memorialized in a giant Christmas tree of red poinsettia leaves. Always in our midst.  Someday I will be a poinsettia, too. Someday, a new member will read my name out loud at the fall retreat, and at the bonfire afterward, learn about Lisa Condo’s unruly frizz, ribbons, and can-do attitude.

But for now, I’m still here with my brothers. Sean starts rehearsal with a quote from Brené Brown and a pithy observation from his therapist. Mike Dilbeck shushes the chatty Cathys around him and finally says “GUYS” loud enough for everyone to quiet down.

Sean blinks a little when he’s thinking. I’ll never forget when we held the 24-hour sing-in for our trans brothers and sisters. Sean sat at the piano in the Peace Chapel in a Harry Potter onesie. We had been up all night singing, getting delirious, holding vigil with the Trans Chorus of LA, sharing stories and music. Now Sean sat at the piano in the morning light, and as the song came to a close, we all had tears in our eyes. Sean rocked back and forth on the piano bench, blinking at the sheet music with a contented smile. It was fitting for him to be dressed as a magical hero. His powers are not flight, invisibility, or super strength. What he offers us every week is a brave, vulnerable heart that knows it’s not about him. Like Scott Ayers says, it’s the synergy. It’s Larry Carter and his nacho cheese machine every week at break. It’s Gwen and Melissa setting up snacks and giving hugs. It’s Michael Messmer sweeping up after rehearsal, Chuck Gibson pulling the cover over the piano and rolling it to its place against the back wall. It’s Ben Doan-Stevens, his knack for humor and drama, his eyes sparkling when it clicks. All of our voices and minds and talents come together over the days and weeks and years. Each concert is a mandala, lovingly designed and imbued with hours of care and attention. It all comes together for a moment before it is swept away.

Showtime happens like this: I’m standing on stage in my tux, shoulders back, chest up, my hands hanging by my side. The sound of undulating piano washes over us—my brothers and me—shoulder to shoulder. Stage lights obscure the audience in gold and blue. I’m counting, breathing, rounding the vowels in my head a few measures before our entrance. Sean stirs the air with his baton; intense focus sparks in his face; his eyebrows arch. Scott Ayers on the piano—translating mystery—leaning into the moment. And this is when it happens. Two hundred men inhale in unison—neurons crackling and synchronizing across the stage—and a wall of sound rolls into the hall.

There is a palpable sense that here all of our histories converge. Each of our disparate lives manifest uniquely in one moment in time—never to be repeated. It feels like waking up. When we perform together, something happens. Time collapses and rearranges—the past and future are brought close—we are visited by loved ones lost—memory blooms, and hope unfurls.

Katrina’s violin soars and floats among us as melody and harmony dive, dip, and ascend, and it feels like the entire hall might lift off the ground. Sean brings his baton in close, drawing us to a whisper. The stage lights shift to blue moonlight. All is still and nearly quiet—a thousand layers of swirling consciousness come to rest in a single unison note, so gentle you can barely hear it. Then silence. Sean looks at us wide-eyed, wow spreading across his face as the audience breaks into applause.

As we take a bow, sweet relief popping our vertebrae, I can hear my parents whooping and hollering from their seats. They live their lives as a standing ovation. I know they’ll be waiting in the lobby to hug as many of us as possible. This is their family, too—the adopted mom and dad of the Turtle Creek Chorale.

Remember this, I say to myself. Another mandala created and swept away. All that remains is love.