This weekend I went to a jazz club with a friend. Most jazz performances I’ve been to have been just instrumental, so it was a fun change of pace to have a singer for this set. And she ROCKED. (Jazzed??) She had a deep, sultry voice, and her body moved with the tempo of the other musicians on stage.
A few songs into the set, she took a seat and casually shared that it’s hard for her to be on her feet for too long these days, as she’s been on her feet since she was 15, singing for the past 70 years.
OUR SINGER WAS 85 YEARS OLD!!!
We all cheered and whooped for her because you would never know it to look at her or hear her voice. She was up there like she was born and raised on that stage. As comfortable as if she were in her own living room.
Setting aside our collective amazement at the hearty and robust 85-year-old in front of us, I was most taken aback thinking about the amount of her life she spent doing the thing she loves the most; the thing she is, in her words, more comfortable doing than even being in a 1:1 conversation.
How beautiful to think she found her spot all those years ago, and has ridden that train almost all her life.
Most of us don’t hit it on the head that early. We try things, we learn what we like or don’t like, we try more things, we learn more and so on.
Seeing her up there reminded me that, as Mary Oliver says, we only have “this one wild and precious life”. And while I may not get to rack up 70 years doing the thing I love the very most, I feel that much more compelled to keep trying and learning, to find it, and ride it all the way to the end…
Just another night on stage…