in Nothing Personal, James Baldwin lamented, “I have not heard anyone singing in the streets of New York for more than twenty years. By singing, I mean singing for joy, for the hell of it. I don't mean the drunken, lonely, 4-AM keening which is simply the sound of some poor soul trying to vomit up his anguish and gagging on it. Where the people can sing, the poet can live-and it is worth saying it the other way around, too: where the poet can sing, the people can live.”
i felt this as i heard people singing live, off key, in the nashville airport on the way back from a conference yesterday. why are they singing, i thought. how sad.
i also got to go to a talent show at said conference. i was wary at first. my inner middle school boy was crawling up the wall. to tell you the truth i still cringe at the vulnerability of sincerity even as it’s what i know i crave. we agree that showing pain is vulnerable, but so is showing joy—singing for the hell of it. it’s brave.
so there we were. a lot of us, in the dimly lit meeting room. chairs assembled in audience shape. i looked around. i balked. and i eventually warmed up.
one of the acts was a duet cover ‘for good’ from wicked. singing. one of my friends and i looked at each other because we both felt how we could almost cry.
i always thought at the beginning of this song they were singing ‘unlimited.’ but they are singing ‘i’m limited.’
then they sing, “i’ve heard it said/ that people come into our lives for a reason/bringing something we must learn/ and we are led / to those who help us most to grow/ if we let them”
standing in the company of people who i’ve recently come to love, people who want me to grow—beyond extraction, wealth hoarding, and violence—this song really hit. standing in the dark and thinking about all the people who have been led into my life to help me grow when i let them. ugh.
remembering how much we all change each other all the time. telling them. singing. giving our breath back.