So it has almost been 1 month since the first post on my blog…[crickets]…and I decided to publish this guest post from my lover and best friend.  ENJOY!
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Carol’s “Why not” post that launched her blog brought to mind the beginning of our relationship, when I joined the choir that she had said  “Why not” to.  At that point we had a relationship, but if I had stayed behind after the first practice and said “why don’t we get coffee, you and me, sometime?” our relationship might not have gone much further than that.  No, the “relationship” at that point was that I concentrated on exactly what those beautiful hands were telling me to do (musically) and I worked on learning the choreography.  We spent half an hour doing a basic choir choreography the very first night (I joined when the season was well in progress).  Believe me, I was a fish-out-of-water just trying to fit in, in this brave new world.  I had no headspace for romantic ideas about the choir director.

A year later and what had I learned about Carol, the director?  I had learned that she was extremely competent, even though she was still a rookie gospel choir director at that point.  She gave a spiritual direction to the choir as the songs called out to be understood, not just sung as oblique religious clichés.  Basically, she was Superwoman in her red choir robe.  I’d say that I definitely looked up to her even though literally, Carol stood on the floor and looked up at us, her somewhat less brilliant tenors (and altos and sopranos) in the choir stalls.

If some seer or prophet in a word of revelation had told me that I was about to enter into a relationship with someone in this choir that I had been with now for one year and that this relationship would re-define the rest of my years, I’m sure I would not have guessed who that woman might be.  How did we get to that first date, and then, eventually to having a romantic relationship?  I went out on a limb and asked Carol out and Carol decided that we could be friends.

And it was very good.

Ted Dettweiler.