What My Grandmother Taught the Choir

She didn't teach pitch. She taught arrival.“Said: you don't sing a note, you arrive at it,“the way you arrive at a truth you already suspected.“Said: a choir isn't forty voices agreeing.“It's forty voices disagreeing, beautifully, on purpose,“until the disagreement becomes the harmony.“

I used to think she was talking about music.“

I was twenty-six, grieving badly, barely speaking,“when I finally heard what she meant —“that you let the people around you carry“whatever part of the note you can't currently hold,“and you call that arriving together,“and you call that, if you're lucky, family,“and you call that, if you're luckier still,“a song.“