A few weeks ago I had dream in which I was onstage, getting ready to sing. Maybe a little nervous, maybe not, I launched into a song. I surprised myself at how good I sounded.

This is not my ego speaking. It’s my unconscious playing with me. Yes, I love to sing (who doesn’t?). But being able to carry a tune is not going to turn me into Mariah Carey, never mind Adele. I love to dance, too. And in my dream, I could feel the bodily sensation of belting out a song. Good for the heart. Good for the soul.

Then I wake up and see the metaphor for what it is. Writing requires skill and attention to detail, but isn’t it that thing called voice that makes our words resonate?

“If I had been robbed of my voice earlier, I doubt that I could ever have achieved much on the page,” notes Christopher Hitchens in a Vanity Fair piece he wrote during his “year of living dyingly.” Moving, and filled with Hitchens-style intelligence and wit, “Unspoken Truths” gives voice to a newfound awareness re: the connection between what is said and what is written. Among other things and people he touches on is Leonard Cohen singing “If It Be Your Will,” a song he acknowledges should not be listened to late at night and one he cannot imagine anyone else bringing what LC brings to it.

Leonard Cohen would be among the last singers I’d listen to for a good torch song, all of which makes his cover of Always something to smile about.

Speaking of torch songs, I’m in my car (otherwise known as my mobile sound machine), an easy listening moment, a voice as inimitable as it gets, with or without the distinctive quaver.

Even before the song comes to an end, Billie Holiday pops into my head. Sirius Radio is reading my mind. The ache in her voice brings tears to my eyes.

From there the playlist is less torch song, more soulful. Joe Simon has me Drowning in the Sea of Love though Peaches & Herb bring me right back, slow dancing/make-out music at its best. The sound is tinny, a reminder of transistor radio days on the beach, or better yet, those 45s stacked on my record player, one by one dropping to the turntable, with a click, as I cry myself to sleep with longing or heartbreak, sometimes both.

Leonard Cohen says there ain’t no cure for love.  Eddie Cochran says there ain’t no cure for the summertime blues. Bob Dylan tells me summer days, summer nights are gone.

Here’s what I say: Take a walk, let the chorus of birds or that single one trilling a song surprise you with their reminder that nothing keeps them from coming back. Yesterday brought the added joy of watching a Duck Tolling Retriever climb up the steps of a playground slide, then run down the slide itself. All to retrieve a ball. It’s summertime, after all, and the living may (or may not be) easy but it’s easier than winter. Barbecues. Long days. Outdoor concerts. Emmylou Harris will be in my neck of the woods this summer. And Rhiannon Giddens. Last year it was Cecile McLorin Salvant. If you’ve been lucky enough to hear/see her even once (twice for me), you’d be hard put not to agree with Wynton Marsalis: “You get a singer like this once in a generation or two.” To learn that becoming a singer wasn’t even what she set out to do is beside the point. This is an artist who does more than interpret songs. Trust me when I say you’ll never hear a cover of Wives and Lovers like hers.