“We all have holes in our lives”

“We all have holes in our lives” is a remembered line from an unidentified song that Yolandi Von Riesen hears in a Toronto park. The phrase becomes more than a fragment of music: set against Yolandi’s unsuccessful attempts to talk to strangers about loneliness, the group’s quiet singing shows her a communal way of recognizing pain without forcing an intimate disclosure.

The remembered line

Yolandi tells Elfrieda Von Riesen about an encounter with a man playing guitar in a park. People who happen to be there join him, singing softly together. When Elfrieda asks what the song was, Yolandi cannot identify it; she can recall only a line, first uncertainly phrased as “we all have holes in our hearts” and then as “we all have holes in our lives.” The uncertainty matters: what stays with her is not a title or a complete song, but a short recognition that can be repeated by a group.

A public form for private pain

The park scene gives the line its force. The singers do not explain their individual histories to one another. Instead, they repeat a shared sentence, and Yolandi hears the repetition as an acknowledgment of pain and loneliness offered with gentleness, acceptance, and even joy. The gathering is spontaneous rather than formally organized, yet its song gives feeling a shape that strangers can participate in without having to expose themselves directly.

Yolandi’s recognition

Yolandi connects the scene to her own habit of trying to begin conversations with strangers on the street or in grocery stores. She has thought that people want to talk about pain and loneliness, but realizes that her direct attempts make others nervous: they may experience her openness as exposing those feelings in the wrong way. The singing offers a contrast—not a denial of loneliness, but a form in which it can be acknowledged together. After describing this realization, Yolandi accepts Elfrieda’s suggestion that she may stop approaching random strangers.

Music and communication

The phrase thus links vulnerability with the form through which it is expressed. Yolandi does not conclude that pain should remain unspoken; the park choir has just made it audible. Rather, the scene distinguishes an uninvited, one-to-one disclosure from a shared expression whose repetition lets people recognize a common condition. Yolandi ends by telling Elfrieda that she is lucky to have her piano, placing music beside the choir as another possible means of expression. The exchange leaves the song unidentified, while preserving the line’s practical importance: it helps Yolandi understand why the same loneliness that unsettles a stranger in conversation can be met gently when voiced together.