King's Daughter's Kitchen

Imagine life in the world of the “Talkie” movie The Jazz Singer with only script, no orchestra, ever. Life and everything around stays black and white forever. No Beatles, so no Birthday when I am born. No one sings child songs or Baby Shark. Barney of the Flintstones is never a purple dinosaur. I do not dance (dance, what is that?) on my Daddy’s feet to The Rolling Stones or Bob Dylan. I can’t learn about my mother in her younger years listening to her talk about Elvis and Loretta Lynn.

As a teenager, I don’t get my first crush on Barry Gibb or want to grow my hair like Crystal Gayle or have a body like Dolly Parton.

There is no Soul Train or MTV. Whip It is a Jello product, not a Bevo song. Michael Jackson doesn’t make me interested in people of other races, cultures, or beliefs. I likely dismiss the one boy of color in our high school instead of becoming his friend and hanging out with him and his family. There is no marching band. Football is yelling and cracking helmets. So, I rarely go. Graduation has no theme song, and I’m off to college. My Grandma dies. At her celebration of life there’s no Hank Williams Jr, David Allen Coe, Roger Miller, or Red Sovine. Someone reads a poem by Merritt Malloy called Epitaph. Then, we have a picnic.

I fall in love without the Afters When You’re With Me and walk down the aisle in silence with my sister reading Proverbs 31. Then, most shocking, soon there’s a baby without ever having heard Barry White. I never Vogue, or do the Macarena, or the Electric Slide, or the Twist. I don’t break my ankle roller skating or go bowling because both look silly in silence.

I do worship, and it is great. However, it is without physically participating. There are no Bebe and Cece Wynans, no choir, and no praise in sock feet with dancing in my kitchen. When I die, there’s another picnic, not a backyard barbeque with music and praise and a hallelujah homegoing party because no one has invented that yet. What would my life be like without music… sad and disconnected, like a talkie with no soundtrack.