Mid-December doings
Low Bar Chorale is my happy place
This time last week I was preparing to step onstage. Every year in the middle of December, my beloved Portland pub choir, Low Bar Chorale, presents a two-day holiday concert and singalong called Snow Bar Chorale. (Not gonna lie: I came up with that name and I’m chuffed it has stuck.)
Snow Bar is a larger-scale, more extravagant version of LBC’s regular pub sings: bigger band, longer set list, special musical guests—and each night, a different guest storyteller. One of whom was me!
This was my second time telling a story at Snow Bar (third if you count the Valentines show), and I have to say these performances are some of the most fun I’ve ever had. There’s nothing, nothing, like the feeling of hearing an audience roar with laughter over jokes you wrote. I told the story of my exasperating quest to buy Scott his first guitar, back when we were newlyweds expecting our first baby. It’s a story about Christmas in New York City, one of those complicated days that are maddening to live through but become funnier as the years pass. Guitar stories go over big with the Low Bar crowd.
I went back the next night for the second show, because I can never get enough of that incredible band and the joyful vibe of a Low Bar singalong. The day after that was my birthday, which means family shenanigans. (One of my daughters gave me a stack of coupons for help with household projects, including several cards promising to “stand next to you while you look for something.” She knows me well. I’ve been known to text her at work to ask where I put the thing (whatever the thing may be)—and this is a kid who doesn’t even live at home anymore.)
Now suddenly it’s Friday again and I’m baffled. I might need to text my daughter to ask where I mislaid an entire week.
In 2020, Low Bar Chorale became a virtual chorus for a while. People from all over the world contributed to videos that Ben Landsverk and Jay Cosnett compiled into giant virtual singalongs. Here’s one from December of that year. It always makes me smile.
This is so great! Are any of your story tellings on YT? What a beautiful group to be a part of! I wish I had something like it near me. I’m a homeschooler and long-time listener of the Brave Writer podcast, and have enjoyed recently reading you here as well. The format of the BW show since you joined makes it my #1 listen!
Plus today, hearing this *particular* song was so meaningful for me. Thank you for sharing! “God Only Knows” was my mom and dad’s song, he died almost 27 years ago, and I recently wrote a pretty raw story about him on my Substack (part of a memoir in progress) that has stirred up some family *tenderness,* shall we say. I have held back writing my story for years because of that muddy water, but feel guided to keep moving forward. That is not a common song to just stumble upon, so I wanted to share how your post about LBC impacted me in such an unexpected way on Christmas day when I will be seeing family. 💜
This gives me All The Feels. We're thinking about moving to Portland--coming to visit in early January and I was SO EXCITED to see LBC will be happening while we're there! I've been wanting to experience this since the first time I read something you wrote about it many years ago.