When I was in grade one I had a music teacher named Mrs. Holmes. She asked me to stand in the back row of the choir and “mouth” the words. She told me in a very authoritative, confident and matter-of-fact way, that my voice was “not good” and that I would ruin the music for everybody if I tried to sing. I was five. I remember feeling deeply embarrassed, ashamed and very alone. I thought this meant I was broken, faulty as a human...