Back to the Beginning

One perk of being a freelance musician is exploring different parts of Louisiana and the interesting architecture of the spaces where I am invited to play.

Friday night I received a last-minute request to cantor for a funeral at a church I hadn’t set foot in for more than 20 years.

The next morning, I bundled up for the frigid (but thankfully dry) weather and made the 45-minute drive to my hometown of Ponchatoula.

I grew up singing in this sacred space.

• Cantored for Christmas Eve masses at the lectern.
• Learned the Hallelujah Chorus with the choir in the loft.
• Used the stairs (carpeted then) mostly as chairs because our family was almost always late to 8:30am mass…

The parish closed this building soon after I left for college and built a larger church nearby.

Since then, each time I passed the “old church” on visits home, I’d wonder what it looked like inside.

Yesterday, I finally got my answer.

It’s both strange and familiar to go back to your beginnings—for me, this was where I first learned to sing in public (you could barely hear me even WITH a microphone. lol).

It looks the same in many ways, though half the pews have been taken out.

The iconic pendant lights still hang from the ceiling.

Dark wooden beams still hold up the roof.

Mustard-colored light still filters through the yellow-tinted windows.

They recently re-opened it as a chapel, but it makes me laugh to think of this building as “quaint.”

It seemed so big when I was a kid.

The small town of Ponchatoula has grown a lot since then.

We all start at the beginning, but we don’t stay there.

Every once in a while, life brings us back—not to repeat the past, but to honor it and remind us how far we’ve come.

I still need a microphone to sing, but now with it, I CAN project my voice over the old organ!

With gratitude,

Ashley