You know those moments when everything comes together unexpectedly and suddenly you’re smiling at the fact that, somehow, the fates really do have a sense of humor? P.S. this isn’t (supposed to be) a melodramatic question, cause what I’m about to tell you sure isn’t.

Anyhow, something like this happened to me this weekend, and it was, perhaps, the best thing that’s happened to me in the past month.

My university choir performed our last recital of the year this weekend, so we had our major rehearsal on Thursday night at the church where we would be singing. It was a tiny little place with fabulous acoustics that (for the night) we were sharing with a bunch of adorable six and seven-year old children who had a violin recital for that evening as well. They had one room and we had the other, and the two were separated by a glass wall that, while it did block quite a bit of the sound, could not hinder either group from being able to hear the other.

Got that? Good, it’s kind of important later.

After finishing a good portion of our rehearsal, our conductor sat us down to have a chat, rest our feet, hang loose; however you want to describe it. We’ll call him Dr. Merlin.

So, Dr. Merlin is known for having a talk at the end of every semester at which time he commends the Seniors who are graduating, thanks them for the service(s) to the program, and tries to reinforce the idea in our young minds that life is shorter than we think, and that these are the moments we should be latching on to. (Oh, and me describing it like this is not me trying to belittle what he said, because he actually has a very impressive way of getting these ideas across. He’s a good public speaker!)

The point is: the speech was quite heartfelt, dramatic, metaphorical, and not at all hard to listen to until…

Wait, wait, wait…is that what I think it is? Are those little kids playing…

So-o-o-o-o-ome whe-e-e-e-e-e-re over the eeeeeeeeekkkkkkkkk… rainbo-o-o-o-w, way up hi– eeeeeeekkkkkkkk. Oh, yep, those were the little kids playing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” on their violins… a land that I’ve heard of eeeeeeeeekkkkkkk… once in a lullaby…

About every tenth note or so ended in an unsavory squeak that kind of made your ears feel like they were bleeding, but also couldn’t staunch the eruption of laughter that enveloped my entire body as the irony of the situation began to set in. There was Dr. Merlin giving a sincere, heartfelt speech as the notes of the Wizard of Oz song swelled up behind him in time with his voice. It was literally like the kids were attempting to give dramatic emphasis to everything he was saying. As his voice and intonation grew louder, so did the music, and as he softened, so did they.

I. Almost. Died.

Really, though, how could you not laugh?! Anyone who can appreciate irony would have been in the same boat I was.

Not everyone in my choir (100+ members) knew what was happening at the time because they were either not paying attention, or were overly-focused on Dr. Merlin, but those of us who did could hardly manage to keep ourselves together. Let alone prevent ourselves from offending our professor who probably thought we were losing our minds.

It really made me think that someone somewhere was really vying for this moment to happen, because it was just way too perfect to be coincidence. In that spirit, I just knew I had to share this with you guys. It was just too fabulous not to mention!

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I think This is a Book is finally getting back on track after our hiatus, so keep that in mind as you’re exploring the site. The link is in the box at the top of this page/website entitled–can you guess it?–This is a Book. Check it out!

Write to you soon(ish). Maybe,

Mel