Covert Mom: We’ll Walk Hand in Hand

By Mariah Mottley

There were no parking spots near the First Presbyterian Church of Ulysses. None at St. James the Apostle, either. None in front of the Ulysses Philomathic Library, or in front of Little Venice. Everything was full. I accelerated through turns while my daughter peered out the window. We were there to hear the Trumansburg Community Chorus perform their spring concert, but my anxiety level was disproportionate to the threat of being tardy, approximating a house fire instead. I was disoriented, the spring evening wet and leafy.

Postpartum anxiety, it turns out, is a permanent affliction, and a reasonable one, when you think about it. When my daughter was born I was paralyzed with the knowledge that the only sure thing she would do in her life was die. The particulars plagued my sleepless nights and tortured my daydreams. Nothing seemed safe. I struggled and succeeded in getting ahold of myself back then, but am still periodically hit with waves of generalized dread that leave me unable to tell an emergency from a parking snafu.

My reptilian brain, the one that judges threats and manages my cortisol levels, can’t distinguish between the headlines and clickbait on my phone and the slipperiness of the road ahead of me; between digital threats and whether I left the gate open for the horses to escape. It doesn’t care that the ‘baby’ is almost 12, that she knows how to use the weedwacker, carries 50-pound feed bags, does pull ups and is interested in valence electrons. My reptilian brain is just as terrified as when I used to hold her while she slept, worried that the roof would collapse on us if I dozed off. It also wanted a parking space, and a cookie.

I found a spot, blocks away. We raced into the church, found seats in separate pews. The place was packed. I hadn’t known that the Trumansburg Community Chorus commanded such an audience.

Alice Ploss, the choral director, explained that she chose the concert program right after the inauguration, and wanted an antidote to the negativity, anxiety and helplessness that Trump’s agenda invokes. Pleased, I understood that she took all her anxiety and turned it into a beautiful group activity. I was in the right place.

The program was diverse. There were songs not just in English, but Estonian, German, and Haitian Creole. More than anything, I was shocked at the power of the combined voices, how organized and precise they were. ‘Prayer for the Children’ was written by composer Kurt Bestor, in frustration over the ethnic cleansing that occurred in the former Yugoslavia, and was particularly moving.

I peeked at my daughter, in the pew behind me. She sat, hands in her lap, her paper program folded into a neat accordion. She is a kid you can take places, and my gratitude for having her in my life rose with the voices in front of us. We are lucky to be a part of this talented community. Some people in the chorus have been professionally trained, and some are amateurs. They all sang together and with joy.

As they performed, some in solo performances and small groups, I felt the systemic dread slipping away, replaced by gratitude and an idle curiosity about what kind of cookies were to be served at the reception. Anxiety is a kind of chaos, and the organized energy of music banned it.

Driving home, I remembered what I’d been forgetting these past few weeks. The only way out of the anxiety trap is to connect with people. Watching the chorus blend their voices oriented me to time and place in a way I hadn’t been before. Now I was a mile away, then two miles, from the concert. Things were back in perspective.

I called Alice Ploss to thank her for the uplifting experience. She said that the events of the election had made many people feel powerless. Singing together helped turn that feeling around. She had been stunned by the turnout for the performance and realized that “not only was it important to sing, it was important for people to listen.”

Agreed. It is important to listen.
The Trumansburg Community Chorus will start up again in September, with a concert planned in December. I’ll be in the audience. Membership is open to anyone who wants to sing. You can sign up or make a donation at TburgChorus.com.
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Originally from Manhattan, Mariah was educated in Massachusetts, Montana and Texas, often by failure. She lives with her husband and three children in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. Mariah can be reached at mariah@mariahmottley.com.