The doctor advised singing lessons, not as a treatment but as a workout to strengthen the vocal cords.
I enrolled in an online class with a Ukrainian vocal teacher, and we met twice a week: it was like a gym for my voice.
During our sessions, I learned that the body could be compared to a musical instrument, a vessel that contains and shapes the voice.
However, very few people know how their voices sound, and even fewer care to develop them to their full potential.
In my case, learning about my voice was a truly positive side-effect of what began as a health exercise.
As our sessions progressed, my muscles strengthened, and I learned to use my body in the service of my voice.
It was then that my trainer told me my voice was deeper than I had thought. It was not that it was completely different, but it was definitely more multifaceted and multidimensional, more layered, and with more texture than I had previously experienced.
It was easier to access this stronger voice after our sessions. A stronger voice had been there all along, waiting to be found.
What I witnessed there was a similar phenomenon: New Zealand searching for a deeper dimension of its own voice on the world stage, a search driven by the simple fact that the world has changed.
What is the voice? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the physical voice is the sound produced by the vocal folds as exhaled air is resonated.
But voice is also a faculty of power and a medium of expression — of ourselves, or rather, the medium of our self-expression.
Just as our physical body is the instrument through which our voice flows, the body of a country can be seen as a vessel for the voices of its citizens. New Zealand's voice is unique and polyphonic.
What I witnessed at the conference was a beautiful phenomenon: an exercise in finding New Zealand's contemporary voice in an ever-changing global political environment.
New Zealand is not silent in the international arena but it is seeking a deeper dimension to its own voice on the world stage.
The conference was, in the truest sense, a workout for New Zealand's vocal cords.
I left with a sense of something emerging. Not something new — something deeper.
Grounded, yet aspirational. A fuller dimension of contemporary New Zealand's voice in the world.
Dunedin, where all the world's seasons seem to converge, struck me as the perfect place for exactly this kind of exercise.
It would be wonderful to see more such conversations take place here.
• Olena Grubb is the honorary consul of Ukraine in the South Island of New Zealand.
