Finding a Way to Sing Together in Quarantine

Who saw the moon two nights ago?

My friend Ruth and I did.

We kept our distance, but puttered up the stone pink dirt path, up the hill, where we sat on a stone ledge to watch it rise.

At first it was a little pin-prick of apricot colored light but then it grew bigger till it was half a grapefruit until finally, it was a full tangerine moon.

No, not tangerine. Really it’s the color of fire, something out of a fantasy novel.

It seemed like the moon deserved a moment of respectful silence, so Ruth and I paused our chatting to watch her.

“It feels like we should sing to her.” I finally say.

“How about Moon River?” Ruth says, and she begins to sing in the softest, lowest most beautiful voice imaginable, like having Diana Krall sing you a lullaby.

“OK!” says Ruth. “ Now you.”

“Hmmm…. Dvorak Song to The Moon?”

I start singing the czech words mesicku na nebi hluboken…..untill I forget how the song goes, and realize I am randomly singing a passage from Forza Del Destino instead. We burst out laughing.

“How did the Verdi creep in there?” Ruth laughs.

Nobody knows, Verdi evidently just really wanted to be a part of this moon watching.

We then decide that we should sing something in two-part harmony.

Both of us agree that the moon will likely not be offended if it is not moon-themed so we decide on Amazing Grace.

I take the lower harmony, and Ruth takes the melody.

And there we sit, keeping our distance, under that massive firey tangerine moon in a navy blue pink sky, singing Amazing Grace into the fields and suddenly we realize the neighbors are coming up the path slowly.

The neighbors are Jacques other humans—Grandma, Mom and grand-daughters. Grandma starts humming along. Daughter, who is also a bit tipsy, bursts into tears.

“Again!” they cry when we are finished, so Ruth and I shrug and do Amazing Grace twice.

(The young ones come a little close for comfort, we remind them gently about keeping the distance.)

“Could we have a little Aleluia?” asks the adult daughter.

I start humming Mozart’s Alleluia.

“Mais non, not that one….this one.”

And the daughter puts on Jeff Buckley’s version of Leonard Cohens ‘Hallelujah’.

She holds her phone up to the moon like John Cusack held that Boombox in ‘Say Anything’ and none of us knew the words but we all came barreling in on the Hallelujah part anyway.

And then eight women are half-humming half-singing Leonard’s Hallelujah to the Provence sky.

And it occurs to me as we howl out our Hallelujahs that this precious moment would never have happened without this bloody virus.

I would probably have been pre-occupied with my to-do list, Ruth busy with her life, the neighbors would have kept to themselves.

I likely would not have made time for the moon.

Or the neighbors may have heard us singing, but felt like their Netflix was more compelling.

Instead, this gathering, this night, this moon, these songs.

Instead, this group of six women of four different generations, all sharing time, space, on this beautiful, savage, hideously and breathtakingly tender, fragile and hearty, spinning planet.

And it is good.

We might not be able to sing in a theatre for a long time but we can still do this.