Contemplating life while my 6-year-old belts 'Into the Unknown'
Feb. 4—My attempt to find a moment of quiet reflection while washing the mountain of food-crusted dinnerware squeezed into nearly every square inch of our tiny kitchen wasn't going so well.
Like most efforts to snatch a few moments of solitude in our household, my chore was repeatedly interrupted by our small, demanding child.
"What song should I sing, Daddy?" the 6-year-old wanted to know as I used my thumbnail to scrape the dried remnants of Blue Bonnet and Lord knows what else from the flat of a butter knife.
"Like, right now?" I said.
"No, Daddy. For my tryouts."
That would be in reference to the then-upcoming tryouts for Pied Piper Players' production of Disney's "Descendants." As part of said tryouts, members of the would-be cast were required to sing a song. Any song.
I told Arlie this while simultaneously attempting to extricate the aged mayo embedded deep into one corner of a sectioned plastic plate.
"So, any song I'd like?"
"Yes, Arlie," I said, finally giving up the task and hoping no one would notice.
Arlie cast her eyes skyward and tapped an index finger against her chin in a gesture pop culture has told me is indicative of deep thought, although I can't for the life of me tell you why.
"Do you think they'll want to know how long I can hold a note?"
"I'm not sure, Arlie," I said, studying a tumbler that, for reasons unknown, wreaked of both bourbon and Cheetos.
"I bet they'll want to know how long I can hold a note," Arlie said, nodding her head as if that were the last word on the matter. Which, of course, it wasn't. It never is.
"Hey, Daddy," she said, followed by a few dozen more repetitions of the same phrase until I finally stopped removing the sopping bits of napkin and food scraps from the soap-water and acknowledged her.
"Watch how long I can hold a note," she said.
"Arlie, I don't really need to hear ..."
Our tiny child pulled her shoulders back, hefted her chest upward as she sucked in as much air as her still-developing lungs could hold, and then belted at the top of her voice, "Into the unknooooooooooooooooooooo ....."
"Very good, Arlie," I said after a few seconds, trying and failing to both speak over the growing volume of her off-key note and remove the stain of spaghetti sauce from the inside of a clear plastic container.
"...oooooooOOOOOOooooOOOOoooO ..."
"Yeah, you can really hold that note out, can't you?"
... OOOooooooooooooOOOOOoooooooO ..."
As the droning note endured, wavering in pitch but surprisingly strong, my eyes glazed and my mind slipped from the task at hand to thoughts of how life had turned out. Forty-one years old and buried in a sea of soapy dishwater and soiled cutlery, my wife desperately trying to shoehorn in a brief exercise session before we had to turn our focus to getting Arlie into bed, then foraging for a slapdash meal before finally passing out in the living room as we watch YouTube videos of people leading much more interesting lives than our own. The ceaseless drone of Arlie's note was reminiscent of the never-ending grind of the day-to-day, the drive to just keep going and going for as long as possible until eventually our bodies collapse. The deep breath of air we took in our 20s, our futures so expansive, finally running out, our vision narrowing and the world growing dim as the oxygen drains from us. "What do we do now?" we ask ourselves. Do we keep holding the note, even as we asphyxiate? Or do we let go? Gasp for a while until we can finally breathe again, then fill our lungs with fresh air before singing the next note? Whatever it may sound like.
"What next?" I whispered to the dripping sponge as Arlie's voice finally waned.
"... oooo .... ooOOo ... o ...o ... OOOOOOwn!"
The note ended. Arlie placed her hands on her knees and took some deep breaths. I watched her, up to my forearms in filthy water, until she stood up straight again and grinned.
"Did you hear that, Daddy?"
" I did."
She nodded, satisfied with her performance.
"Was it life-changing?" she wanted to know.
I grinned back.
"It kind of was."
ADAM ARMOUR is the news editor for the Daily Journal and former general manager of The Itawamba County Times. You may reach him via his Twitter handle, @admarmr.
