Your Land and Mine

As I sat with face mask on, waiting for the flight attendants to finish their mandatory briefing and for everyone to switch into airplane mode and the plane to push back, this song came on. So much angst is hanging in the air these days. Everywhere are anxiety-ridden looks, posts, articles, warnings. As a person who is typically able to bounce things off my back and forge ahead, tod

ay I felt like crawling into a warm cozy cocoon for a long winter’s nap. Mental and emotional exhaustion can hit in an instant, and with little preparation you can find yourself wallowing in a confused and fragile haze. Effective decision-making is out the window and you give in to mindless surfing, flipping endlessly through social media, getting nothing but more of the same and worse.

So the song that was playing continued to grab my ear. It was written by Woody Guthrie in 1940. No matter your thoughts on any alternative motive or his intent when he wrote it, when you read the lyrics it makes perfect sense how this song did indeed come to be a secondary national theme. He captures the essence of what America was at the time through his experiences as a traveler, and some of the verses address the pains of the country. Our pains are still present today, just in a different format.

I suppose when times are such as they are today, it might be easy to slip into a despondent mood with a song such as this. The inherent familiarity of this tune is instantly recognizable and captivating. The profundity is also apparent, aside from the melancholy that it might induce. As it played, I tuned out all else and just breathed it in as the hum of flight preparation buzzed around me. I wonder what Guthrie’s lyrics would say if he were alive today and could translate sentiment into song…something equally as powerful I’m sure.

I won’t transcribe the entire song for you here, but one verse stood out to me today as a bit of hope. At some time in the future, the fog will lift. We will stroll once more and see the sun shining. We will travel to see wheat fields and dust clouds and more, because this land will still be here for you and me.

When the sun comes shining, then I was strolling,

With the wheat fields waving, the dust clouds rolling,

The voice came a-chanting, and the fog was lifting.

This land was made for you and me.