stage fright

Yesterday at the school Christmas Market - second last in a long series of end-of-the-year events - there was a microphone and amp set up under a tree. Various of the older kids with various degrees of talent got up and played guitars and sang songs to a straggly, relaxed audience of school friends, siblings  and parents. A couple of these kids we know well for their impressive voices and song-writing abilities. One girl  sounds uncannily like Missy Higgins. 

Across the lawn parents and kids were pottering at market stalls selling candles and coloured felt Christmas decorations, chatting, queuing up for home made icecreams. F was climbing a tree with one of his mates. I wasn’t paying much attention to the performers until one girl got up - she looked about twelve or thirteen -  and played a couple of introductory bars on the keyboard.

Then she froze. Like rabbit in a spotlight. Paralysed. Her mouth moved but nothing came out. She just stood there, immobilized, in her striped shirt and denim shorts. D was sitting next to me. He’s suffered from his share of performance anxiety in the past and I could see it was excruciating for him. Still, the girl stood there. For an eternity she stood there. 

Then her friends started to chant her name, and call out encouragement. People, including the school music teacher shuffled in closer as if to hold her in their semi-circlur embrace. Still she stood there, head down, mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. Hand hovering over the keyboard. I expected her to bolt any moment. 

Then she played those introductory bars again, and finally her voice came out of her mouth. A clear, pretty voice, not even shaky. And finally she looked up, and her friends - and all of us - whistled and clapped, and D said, “Gee, she’s pretty good isn’t she?” And she was good. I don’t remember a word of her song, but I remember her shining face. 

At the end of her song, her friends surrounded her as she burst into tears. I nearly cried myself.