I had a plan.  Since the beginning of Pandemic Times, I have not managed to sit down and write at all.  On a good day, maybe I have strung together a few thoughts on Instagram to go with the photography practice that has helped me maintain a slight hold on the thread of life, but words?  This many?  No.  This has not been possible.

A few weeks ago, though, having survived my first video choral project, feeling like there might be some music left in this tossed and tumbled old soul, I thought to myself, I’ll begin a series of essays.  I’ll write about different pieces of music that I’ve recorded, music I love to perform, music that has changed me, that has formed me.  Writing about some of my work that is out there will let me talk about other issues that mean a lot to me, changes that have come in response to isolation and vision clearing, the dual sides of pandemic and politics in the year of our Lord 2020.  Writing about music will force me to reflect on so many things.

And I thought, I will start with something seasonal, something…fall appropropriate. Which led me, ultimately to a song that is one of my most often played tracks on Spotify and Apple Music, and one that is often sung at this season of Thanksgiving:  Let us Break Bread Together, the traditional African-American spiritual.

So I got up, and I went for me walk. I played the song over and over again as I walked, I thought, I reflected, I considered this and then that.  And then, I hit a wall.  I got stuck on a word.  I got stuck on a word in the very first line, a word that is in the title and in every verse of this well known music:  together.  Not a very 2020 word, is it?  What does “together” even mean in a COVID-19 world anyway? Is it an outmoded way of being, or just a temporarily-on-hold word that simply has no relevant meaning?  And what did it mean when so many of us sang these words before COVID, before George Floyd, before #BlackLivesMatter Plaza?  What can it possibly mean when so many have been othered and shunned and certainly not invited into any kind of human togetherness throughout the history of humanity?  My plan was about to be completely derailed by one word that I could not walk past.

The entire text is written around the idea of “together” — breaking bread, drinking wine, praising God, singing. And so, I set out to understand the true meaning of the word.

I am completely my mother’s daughter, and so, in my confusion, my first stop for meaning was the Oxford Dictionary (Household Rule No. 1:  when in doubt, look it up).  You see, over the years, I have come to understand that just because you think that you understand the meaning of a word does not mean that you do. And in fact, there is hope to be found in the dictionary meaning.  The word “together” does not require physical proximity to accomplish its meaning, but it does require some things for which the world hungers.  So while touching can be part of being together, a more important fulfillment of the meaning is also “being in agreement or unity.” My personal favorite was the definition “at the same time,” and “without interruption or continuously.”  In fact, pandemic living does not, after all, make being “together” impossible; it reshapes it.  Learning to live in a different way than that formed by white supremacy and prejudice, a new understanding of what it means to be together  might just invite us all to elevate the idea of togetherness to some other place and sense of embrace than that which we have understood in the past.  A change in definition might just be the first step to the kind of change we all need.

The song, the original reason for this writing, never says anything about place or time or proximity.  And music is such a subversive art form, operating on our human spirit at so many levels.  There are the words that speak to our heads and the rhythm and tune which often speak to the rest of us — all combined to create a mysterious force which can rush past our fears and our opinions so carefully constructed to “protect” us.  This song which we sing over and again in worship as a communion hymn speaks about so much more than the taking of the bread and wine.

Today is the beginning of Advent for those who follow that particular spiritual practice (which I do, by the way).  But…I don’t seem to be able to move on from my thoughts about the holiday we just, well, observed.  Let’s say observed rather than celebrated because, after all, this is 2020.