Feeling like work doesn’t even matter right now? Read this.

One Thing That Will Help If You’re Feeling Defeated In America

I’ve tried and failed several times to write this email, which is now four days overdue. Let’s try another doorway and see if it works. 

Maybe it starts with my brother. 

Nine months ago I lost my brother Quentin, who was one of the best people you could’ve met. I know people say stuff like that all the time about dead people, but in this case it’s true. It was an unfathomable loss.

Laying on my living room floor one afternoon, sinking toward the very bottom of my grief, a song came to me through the magic of Spotify’s algorithm. The words reached all the way to the marrow of my bones, and shone a light on every blood vessel in my body. I listened to it three or four times a day for weeks, and eventually traveled to New York to sing with the person who wrote it, Alexandra Blakely. 

This was the beginning of my apprenticeship with song. 

I heard an unmistakable call to sing in community, to lead others in song, and to see where it goes. Someone spoke the word “song carrier” and it was like hearing the sounds of my own name for the first time. If you’ve ever experienced that level of clarity, then you already know it is one of the greatest drugs on earth.

I sent a text to my friend and former mentor Kate Northrup, with a short clip of me leading Community Singing at another event. “I think this would be great at your event,” I told her. On faith alone, Kate flew me to Nashville to lead a song circle at her two hundred person event. 

The assignment was so clear. Songs came to me in dreams, asking to be sung. One title, Joy In Resistance, floated into my dreamscape days before the event, announcing itself as the song that would be needed. I had to look it up. I wasn’t even sure it was a real song. But I learned it, and continued to text my co-facilitators, Kendra Hoffman and Sofia Dugas with program changes every couple of hours, as the song list revealed itself.

Crossing the border felt sort of like leaving a storm shelter in the middle of a tornado, let me tell you. Many Canadians are choosing not to travel to the U.S., and I get that. But I’m also a U.S. citizen. My ancestors settled in Georgia before the American Revolution. My great grandfather fought in the Union Army. Even if that were not the case, America is my neighbour. Her struggles are my struggles. 

I crossed the border with my drum in a giant plastic Marshall’s bag, praying that song would see me safely across the border to sing with those who needed it. And did they ever need it. People are carrying so much right now. Rage, fear, confusion, pain and did I mention fear? It’s not just some of us. The Minnesotans sat in the middle of the circle and cried the whole time. But there was also joy! The songs flowed from their mouths effortlessly, even the complicated ones I wasn’t sure they’d be able to learn. We started off at, “Okay, you got me I’ll sing along,” and made it all the way to, “I now remember the oneness of the universe and I am never ever going to stop singing again.” In sixty minutes!

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to us, Minneapolis was rising up in song. A whole new canon of songs were coming through to meet this moment, songs urging ICE agents to lay down their weapons, songs to remind people that we are in this together and that we are not alone, that we belong to each other, that our liberation is bound up with one another. You can watch the movement unfolding in real time by following Singing Resistance Twin Cities.

Holy God, I love humans. We can do so many amazing things when we work together.  And Minneapolis is showing us how it’s done – standing watch outside of schools and daycares to make sure students and staff are safe, bundled in the thick  down jackets singing in the cold so that Black and Brown neighbours know they are not alone, literally walking each other home.

Hours after stepping off the plane I attended “ICE OUT SING-IN” with Resistance Revival Chorus, to learn these new songs that are coming through, and commit them to memory so I can pass them on. I’ve been singing them every day. I sent my kids back to their dad’s house today singing anthems of resistance. 

These songs are all over Instagram, and you can learn them too, and sing them in your cities. If you hear someone singing one, you can join in. If you need evidence that love can win, try this video of two thousand people singing an olive branch in front of a hotel where ICE agents are known to be staying. 

If you need just one song to make you feel better today, try this song. 

And if you have one to send back my way, I’m all ears.

‘Till next week when I promise I’ll start writing about business again. 

Tarzan

Tarzan Kalryzian [she/they]
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