Life is not a Garden (SATB)

I am not always pleased when life veers in an unforeseen direction.

The high school chorus at Community of Peace Academy had struggled for several weeks to come up with a concept for a piece of music I was writing for them. They’d shared concerns about injustice, poverty, war and prejudice. They’d affirmed strongly held beliefs about family, community, and acceptance. I had just unveiled a somewhat promising first draft based on one of their brainstorming ideas. It had an upbeat tune and a more or less positive message:

There are flowers, there are weeds.
All have blossoms, all have needs,
And a lifetime worth of seeds.
This is our garden. This is our home.

“It’s not bad or anything,” a skinny young man was saying, trying to be tactful, “but it’s just not what I would sing about, personally.”

Another student was more direct. “The people in my life always be fighting, disrespecting, judging you. But this song is like ‘be happy ‘cause everything’s fine,’ and that’s not real life.”

I tried not to think about how little time I had to finish writing this song. It’s about the process, I told myself. If the process has integrity, so will the finished product.

“I hear what you’re saying,” I said. “But if the garden metaphor won’t work, what will? What is life like for you?”

“It’s not like anything,” came an impatient reply from the back. “Life is just life.”

This was not going well. After another ten minutes of faltering communication, I threw my hands into the air. “Okay, I gave this my best shot, and it looks like I got it wrong. You’re going to have to help me out here.”

“I don’t know,” sighed one girl. “But life is not a garden, sunny and bright.”

“Okay,” I said slowly, “So what else is life NOT like?”

Suddenly there was a question they could answer. We ended the hour with a chalkboard full of ideas, and two days later I showed up with a very different draft. Hard-edged. Blues-inflected.

As I sang the new chorus something in the room woke up. Hands were raised from the back of the room, and students who’d never spoken during brainstorming now put in their two cents. On the way out a student gave me a thumbs up along with the ultimate high school compliment: “You rock.”

The new song was much harder to write than the one I’d originally envisioned! It opened with disillusionment and wandered through anger and betrayal, which meant that I had to pass through those places, too. I was often reminded how slim hope can feel. But by insisting on a darker, more complex view of the world, these young people took me to a multi-layered place I would not have gone had I been left to my own devices. Not only that, but when they premiered Life is Not a Garden, they sang it like they meant it.

-Elizabeth Alexander