The Blog

I remember it well.

I was in 5th grade, standing at the front of my school’s church and in front of my entire elementary school, singing my heart out as I auditioned for the top solo in the school’s Christmas pageant. I remember the depth of passion and beauty I felt as I sang, and I recall my teachers crying. When I was done, I was met with thunderous applause from my schoolmates. I felt so happy.

A few minutes later, a third grade girl got up and sang her audition, and then the two of us waited until after school was over in the 5th grade classroom for someone to come and tell us who got the part.

I’ll never forget that moment because when they came in to tell us she got the part because she sounded more angelic and I sounded more like Annie, something in my heart closed down.

The disappointment was intense beyond belief.

I came home from school and sat in my mom’s lap in her rocking chair. She rocked and rocked me while I grieved buckets of tears into her arms.

I kept singing in my life, but this freedom to sing my heart out in the presence of others from the depths of myself, with all of my emotion, and with zero self-consciousness …well, I’ve yet to be able to fully recapture that, despite tons of personal growth and transformational work.

I did choir (which was great, as I felt more free to sing in groups) and I sang in school musicals, but a veneer of performance covered the soul of my voice. The soft authentic truth of the passion in my singing voice remained hidden, terrified as I was of another devastating rejection.

There was, however, a bright light – an angel in my life – that appeared sometime during my early high school years.

I went on a school trip with my choir to sing at a state competition.

Hundreds of people were in the audience, and I was up on stage in the soprano section singing with a large group.

After we were done and we came down in the main auditorium, a woman came up to me and told me that she watched me the entire performance and felt so much coming from me. She told me I had presence, and to never stop singing, no matter what.

In all the years since, as I harbored this deep love of singing and yet would only do it privately because of all the embarrassment, shame and self-doubt I felt around it, her words continued to echo inside me.

Even if only done alone and in private, I kept singing.

Later, in my twenties, after I left my iBanking job and went traveling, I came back to San Fran for a brief stint. It was a time of feeling so much anxiety and loneliness in my life.

One day I was overcome by the loneliness.

I found myself – guided by some kind of inner knowing – walking out the front door of my Bernal Heights house. In the blustery wind and fog, I just started singing. I walked all the way up to the top of Bernal Hill, and sang and sang and sang.

In that moment, I realized that when I sing, I connect to some kind of invisible force of love and presence. That was when I discovered that my singing is my deepest form of prayer.

Years went on, and I continued to sing alone in nature, and often.

And then, one day, I found out I was pregnant.

The love absolutely devoured me.

I would walk and walk and walk in nature, holding my belly, singing to my child.

My son became the only person who had ever experienced this part of me.

There was no need or impetus to perform. There was only me – loving him – and expressing it through song. Simple, honest and real.

The intimacy and freedom that that opened up for me in my life is beyond description.

I began to sing. All the time. I sang to him before he was born, during his birth (I OMed most of the way through my labor) and on countless walks with him in my Ergo baby carrier, and later in the stroller.

A friend from Sedona, Jen Sisoian, who helped us out around the house during those early days after my baby was born, heard me singing around the house to Connor. One day she said to me, “You have a great voice for children’s music!”

Suddenly, a desire implanted itself in my heart.

I would LOVE to create an album of children’s music for Connor!

So, I began to record my songs on my iphone. I had already captured a few nuggets of other songs, but I decided to really dedicate myself to this.

And that was no easy thing.

As soon as I pressed the record button, that experience of resistance, doubt and feeling so totally like a loser would come up. It completely interfered with the pure channel of love that was coming through in song. I make it sound kind of light, but there was real suffering in that for me.

I tried all kinds of things to work around it, so that I didn’t go into performance mode and lose that authentic river of inspired music that so easily flowed through me otherwise.

Eventually, I just had to pray. I would pray: “Please let me be a clear channel for my soul’s song and help me to feel free to record it.”

Sometimes it worked.

I captured some true gems.

And I made my desire to create this album of music for Connor known.

On my 37th birthday, David and a whole bunch of friends and family members gifted me with voice lessons and time in a recording studio to professionally record this album.

I spent the next many months in the deeply healing space of Näthan Gangadean’s recording studio in Sedona.

Nathan is a gorgeous human being and an incredibly talented musician.

We quickly developed a fun and playful friendship developing these songs and recording the album.

I brought to him my self-doubts and fears, and in his presence, they all just fell away. I will always be so grateful to him for not only helping me create a really sweet album, but also for helping me find greater freedom in sharing my voice.

Long story short – it’s done.

I have made my first album of children’s music, Baby of Mine.

All along the way, whenever that fear or self-doubt would come up, I would keep reminding myself of who this is for: my son. I would think about my deep prayer for him to feel so totally free to be himself, and that the best way for him to support him in accessing that in himself is for me to be truly free to be fully myself.

That love and devotion drove me deep, way deeper, than that barrage of self-doubt, and left me free to be able to create something for him that is an authentic expression of who I am and of my love for him.

I still feel like there is way more in me to bring out in my singing, but I’m no longer hiding and I’m honoring my gift of song. That is a massive milestone for me, and just writing that statement makes my head spin in awe.

One last note:

I had the crazy idea to make an animated children’s music album out of one of my favorite songs on the album, Would You Like to Eat Some Dinner With Me?

So, I hired a team of animators, shared my vision with them, and over many months and many iterations, we have produced something pretty darn great.

It’s no Pixar or Disney, but it’s super cute and fun.

Check it out here:

If you have kids or know people who do, I’d love for you to share this with them.

And if you’d like to listen to the songs on the album and buy it off of iTunes or CDBaby, come on over here.

One of the songs on the album is a song we sang to Connor before every bedtime and every nap for over 2 years! He now will not let us sing it to him anymore. Ha! So much for memorializing that for him in a recording! While he may not appreciate it now, perhaps he will later, and my prayer is that he knows in every cell of his being how loved and wanted he is.

Lots of love and joy in this album.

But beware – the last song is for parents’ ears only! And if you are a parent (or have spent a lot of time with a baby) – I think you’ll get a kick out of it.

Thank you for hearing my story.

I hope that if you have some deep creative gift inside that’s longing to come out, and you are feeling held back by self-doubt and fear, that you’ll remember that what will set you free is dedicating that gift to what you love intensely, and then give all you can to bring it out in devotion and service to that. There is tremendous freedom in that.

All my love,
KC

PS-

Here is the link again to my animated children’s music video:

And to hear the other songs on the album, here is the link to listen and download Baby of Mine:

https://kcbaker.hearnow.com/

Feel free to share, and thank you in advance for doing so!

Xo
K