The night after the election, instead of doing my regular piano practicing, I sat down with Rise Up Singing and played John Lennon’s Imagine. It’s become my anthem. Then I went through the entire book, and played a whole bunch of songs that give voice to hope–even if hope is so wispy right now, it’s hard to find enough to lift myself out of bed every morning.

Photo: D. Dina Friedman

I played Let it Be, Love Call Me Home, The Rose, If We Only Had Love, and How Can I Keep from Singing.

And I sang along.

I’ve been struggling with vocal issues during the past couple of years, which has made singing difficult. But I’m now taking voice lessons and it has been thrilling to start recovering my singing voice. When I can sing without losing my breath or croaking into raspy-ness, I feel giddy with power.

And these things feel like what I need right now–giddiness, and, at least, a flicker of power.

In the writing world we talk a lot about finding or accessing one’s own writing voice. It can often take months or years before we find our “groove,” a way of expression that feels uniquely our own.

And in writing, our voice can change over the years as we experiment with new and different approaches. As in singing, we might at times lose our voice (writers’ block) for a while before we find it again.

Let’s trust that even in this very difficult and scary time we will find our voices and use them to speak our truths.

And let’s keep holding onto the vision of Imagine.

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