-^-for posterity-^-

i started to whistle a song today at the end of class. my literature class was finishing up group work an i just started to quietly whistle. i don’t know what the song was doing in my head.

the students asked me to sing it for them. i brushed the request off and told them to keep working. i couldn’t make out what song i was singing.

then it all clicked. memories of a different life. memories of bluegrass music and dark brown wooden benches and the blue book. memories of sitting on hard pews on a sunny sunday morning singing with everything i had and listening to all of the voices blend.

i was whistling ‘nearer, my god, to thee.’ i started to grin a bit and kept patrolling the classroom. i played the harmonica in a bluegrass band when i was younger. they would do an unaccompanied version of this song. i could still see them huddling around microphones. i remember singing the song in church; everyone making the zipping noise with their hymnal as they pulled it out of the wooden slot. i remember following the loud tenors and getting chills when there was dissonance. i stood in my class and remembered.

the bell rang and it was time to leave but some of the girls still wanted me to sing. i sang, all the while having chills run throughout my body as if the memories of that song finally awoke after a year lying dormant. they were stretching their legs. i ended the song and was actually misty-eyed. what a random, beautiful moment.

nearer, my god, to thee, nearer to thee.
even though it be a cross that raiseth me,
still all my song shall be, nearer, my god, to thee.
nearer, my god, to thee. nearer to thee.

thought like the wanderer, the sun gone down,
darkness be over me, my rest a stone.
yet in my dreams i’d be nearer, my god, to thee.
nearer, my god, to thee. nearer to thee.

or, if on joyful wing cleaving the sky,
sun, moon and stars forgot, upward i’ll fly.
still all my song shall be, nearer, my god, to thee.
nearer, my god, to thee. nearer to thee.