Distance used to separate us entirely. Historically, a tract of three thousand miles was once a wall that only the thoughts of our minds could cross. Our bodies, it’s true, are still restricted by our geography, but our hearts, minds and melodies have been set free enough to sing in harmony.
Last night Steffe, Shaun Candice and I returned from the John Lennon’s memorial, the Imagine Peace Tower (Friðarsúlan in Icelandic) a, “tower of light” created and commissioned by his still artistically active wife, Yoko Ono. Every year on Viðey Island off the coast of Reykjavik, she is present on the anniversary of Lennon’s birthday as the remembrance that remains in the sky from his birthday on October 9th until the anniversary of his death on December 8th, is lit.
As Lennon’s light loomed above Reykjavik last night, my own light came in the form of an email from home: my brother Tyler on the guitar he just painted with my self imposed life command: Travel, Write, Sing, sent me a jam that he was working on.
I took out the guitar that’s traveling with me, Sara, and for the first time since we’d been together in July, my brother and I were singing across the distances that no longer separate us, across three thousand miles of distance, he, via my computer screen was present musically in the room.
I sent him my playing with him recorded over his initial track. Sometimes words are inadequate for how much we miss someone. The melody I played over his song was meant to express both my love for him, and how difficult it is to be apart from him, from everyone in this wide-open world.
If you can read these words, then you too can sing across the distances that no longer divide us. Songs are sung sometimes in the form of postcards, Skype conversation, FB pokes, emails, or in our case, music the closes the gap. We have the Internet and each other. On John Lennon’s Imagine Peace tower there are the words Imagine Peace written in 24 languages—appropriate in a country that chooses not to have a military.
We are living in a world that’s braver than anyone ever imagined it could be, how will our generation choose to use it? We can send messages of peace to the people of countries our government calls our enemies? We can use it to divide or unite. The stakes have never been higher, but the prospects of peace never more promising.
There were slips of paper for people to writer wishes on and hang from a tree. Instead of a wish, I wrote a promise to John Lennon, a promise that we would still carry on his song. That we, a pronoun I meant to include us all, will carry on his song.
