I once sat at a table in the southland when a woman spoke a word that felt like a sudden embrace, though I had done nothing to earn it. “What can I get y’all?” Y’all. I knew the word from television. I did not know it could HOLD people. My friends ordered. I sat there, freshly contained, working out what I had just been counted into. In Japan, inclusion is earned slowly. Years of shared seasons before a group says “we” and means you. This woman did it in one syllable, between refills, without checking my paperwork. “You good, hon?” she asked. “You included me.” “In what?” “In y’all.” She looked at my friends. My friends looked at the table. “He’s from Japan,” one offered, as if that explained it, because it did. “Well,” she said, “y’all want biscuits or not?” TWICE. Contained twice in one minute. The biscuits arrived and I ate them as a member. I have since studied the grammar. Y’all: two or more souls, bound. All y’all: an entire room, gathered into one word like rice into one bowl. There are scholars who say “all y’all” is excessive. Those scholars have never needed a word big enough for everyone they love. “Y’all come back now,” she said when we left. We. I am a we, in Tennessee. A word does not ask permission to include you. It opens like a door, and you are already inside. I am practicing saying it. My accent makes it formal, “you all”, which my friends say defeats the purpose. The purpose survives. The purpose is everyone.