Together, together

Pliiiiiis

My clever little two-year-old has learned to be as cute as possible when asking for something. So he says “please” (sometimes), and then tilts his head sideways, almost parallel to the floor, really stretching out the vowel sound, because though he doesn’t know all that much about the world (who does?), he knows how to weaponize his cuteness.

Lately, he employs this adorable tactic while gesturing toward the television, an anxiety-inducing scenario for any parent who’s wary of screentime (and yet so eager for our own once the minors in the household are asleep). To add to the cuteness, he’s usually holding my wife’s ukulele, his fingers confidently over the frets, the strap adjusted to fit around his neck. This request would more commonly be met by a decisive “nice try, pal” if it was a general desire to watch television. But there’s one specific thing he wants to watch, and that’s Raffi playing music.

During my upbringing in Mexico, I was exposed to plenty of American culture. It’s true that to this day I can’t watch The Simpsons in English without feeling that it’s somehow off, but my cartoon consumption likely mirrored that of many American children. Rugrats, Doug, The Angry Beavers, Animaniacs, Dexter’s Laboratory, and so on and so on. But every now and then I discover a gap in my knowledge, some classically 90s thing that I managed to avoid.

Which brings us to Raffi.

It makes sense that if I missed him in childhood I wouldn’t have come across him until parenthood. Like any self-respecting millenial, I’ve gone down plenty of Youtube rabbit holes, but no way would the algorithm have delivered Raffi my way unless my browser history had signaled to our corporate overlords that I was now ripe for songs about whales and sunshine.

The more we get together, together, together
The happier we’ll be.

If the algorithm hasn’t sent Raffi your way, or if life hasn’t had you cross paths for whatever reason (you’re not American, you didn’t have access to American television in the 90s, there are no toddlers in your life, etc.), here’s a nice 1:36 video introduction.

Or this 1:26 opener from a concert Raffi gave in 1984. I’ve always had a soft spot for lyrics that on their face feel treacle, cheesy, almost, but when delivered by the right singer, the right level of earnestness, they feel like the most profound thing that could be uttered.

When this is what cuteness is weaponized for, how do you dare say no?

Now, I’ve always been a bit of a sentimentalist. You know that if you’ve read my work before, or hung out with me long enough to get me to open up in any real way (it’s often longer than I’d like). But Raffi strikes such a chord with me that when my toddler requests to watch these bygone concerts it’s as if he’s renewing my own childhood. He’s striking nostalgia for an innocence that I never quite experienced. But it’s also the exact kind of messaging I want him to grow up with. It’s the kind of art that I want imbued into everyone around me, not just my child. It is sentiment that could make the world a better place.

Raffi is wholesome, silly, environmentally conscious before it became both cool and divisive (SOMEHOW), earnest, caring, goofy, and human. In a time when what it means to be human feels fraught, Raffi reminds us quite simply. And he sends the message along to my very impressionable, somewhat manipulative little human.

Life with a toddler has these moments of introspection, of discovering art from the 80s and 90s and thinking how its shaping a young person. It sends you deeper into the immediate community of your family, in a way that both tests and strengthens that community. But it also threatens to pull you away from more community. And maybe it’s because I’ve heard “The more we get together, together, the happier we’ll be” a million times in the last month, but I’ve found myself lately quite hungry for exactly what Raffi endorses: the company of others, community.

As a bookish person, that’s led to googling for book clubs near me. Coincidentally, the two books I’ve read since seeking these out have had themes that I believe Raffi would wholeheartedly cosign.

“I’m only trying to suggest that as we find ourselves in this particularly unfortunate, misconstrued, ungodly juncture of civilization, let’s not lose sight of the nobler manifestations of man and of the greater half of his character, which consists not of taglines and bottom lines but of love, heroism, reciprocity, ecstasy, kindness and truth.”

-Then We Came to the End, Joshua Ferris

I found myself in a room full of strangers, breaking the ice with stories of work or of the sea (what do I know of either, except what books have taught me?). We discussed I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger, an unsettling and beautiful book about a near-future that feels all too possible. One brought about by the climate havoc we have invited into our world, and by people who, it seems clear to me have never listened to a goddamn beautiful word that Raffi sings.

It is a book that through its horrors and grief focuses on the power we have as human beings to cheerfully refuse to give into despair. Human beings who have the choice, always, to refuse destruction. Who have the choice to tilt our heads sideways and smile and say, please. Please, the more we get together, together, the happier we’ll be.

It is why I love Raffi, though I’ve heard his music with borderline-maddening frequency in the last month or so: he guides people—be they very young or not— toward the kinder elements of humanity. That’s what literature, my favorite kind of literature, anyway, guides us toward. It directs those of us willing to listen (and if we are willing to pick up a book, or sing along with Raffi, we are the listening type) toward these nobler manifestations of mankind.

We are living in times where the prevaling news, and the prevaling actions of people in power, are all about tearing people apart. About ignoring what the earth has been so simply telling us for years, even in Raffi’s days. The world feels like a doomed place dominated by bottom lines and taglines, by people tearing others down, tearing the world down. And it is. It absolutely is. We have listened to the maddening, angry songs of those who want to blame. And denigrate, and destroy. Those who wouldn’t be able to tastefully incorporate a kazoo into a song about a peanut butter sandwich if their lives depended on it.

But we can still read books. We can listen to Raffi, and be driven not to destroy, not to take, not to punish, but to come together. To help our communities, nourish them with food and love and silly little songs about whales and sandwiches. To be thankful for the sun, and to wish these blessings onto others.

Can you really blame me if find myself (almost) always wanting to give into my son’s weaponization of his cuteness?

The more we get together, together, the happier we’ll be.