What the Light Would Do, Part II
Bedroom, Evening
As the sun would fade from the sky at the end of the day, I would sometimes look out my upstairs bedroom windows to the east. Our street and the several parallel streets adjacent to it ended in a big woods with a deep ravine and stream running through it. Looking out that east window in the evening, I could see past the woods, some half mile down the street, to the lights of the greater metropolitan area beyond. They sparkled in the distance. I knew, of course, what lay in the immediate vicinity in our suburb and our part of the county. I knew also what lay beyond: the big cosmopolitan cities of the east, foremost among them New York, and beyond that, the ocean and Europe. (They danced in my imagination like the magical city of F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise.) I would feel so small and inadequate looking out that window, so unequal to the task of meeting head on what lay out there to the east, my future. I somehow knew or felt in my bones that those big cities out there along the Atlantic coast were the places where futures were regularly made or broken. How did Dickens put it? “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life…” That’s what I wondered as I looked to the east. Would I ever win the riches and glory that I knew could be had out there? Was I up to the task? How was one to begin trying? Would I even know what the real rewards of a life well lived were when I saw them? Looking back, I seemed convinced that these wonderful things lay to the east, but now I wonder if I only felt that way because that happened to be the view on which my windows opened. Would I have invested Canada with the keys to the mystery of my future had my windows faced north?
Through happenstance, I came to live in Washington DC, the capital of the free world, and live there now. I have spent a respectable amount of time in New York, and have successfully conducted business there. I am at an age where in any generation prior to my own, my best years would be said to be behind me. While I know that this magical place where the riches of life can be mine is within me, yet somehow I feel I never made it to that east of my childhood. Maybe that’s because by the time I got to where I thought I wanted to go, I had changed so completely that the me who wanted to go there no longer existed to realize she had arrived. Or maybe the end point keeps moving. Or maybe because that magical place is inside, those things I hoped to achieve there, and the recognition I hoped to gain, are not and cannot be bestowed or claimed in any externally visible or measurable way.
It would be nice to be able to stand over the shoulder of that girl looking out that window and tell her simply to enjoy the journey, that there’s nothing to fear and nothing to “achieve” that she did not already possess. I wonder if she would have done anything differently. I doubt it.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
Moving
My office will be moving at the end of next week. Since I began working at this place over 16 years ago, this will be the fifth space we’ve inhabited, and even if I’ve liked the space I’m in, as I do now, I always look forward getting a new work space. It feels like a new beginning, and even though I’ll be doing the same job and working on the same projects, it’s a nice time to say to myself, here is an opportunity to start fresh and approach my work with new resolve. We have already been given the keys to our new offices, and today, a relatively quiet Friday, I began moving some of my stuff to the floor below, into my new office. It’s nice to envision how productive I’ll be in the new space, and how clean and neat I’ll always keep it. I plan on softening the look of my office by adding a textile wall hanging and some trailing plants, like maybe a pothos near the window, which I envision growing with great lush profusion. Even though the new office is smaller and less sunny, I can’t wait for the new chapter in my work life to begin.
It’s a little sad, though, because I will never again spend my days sitting in that other office, where I so often talked to my mother on the phone, and so often talked to the health care providers who took care of her in her final months. Leaving that space means leaving that time, and moving further into the future and away from when I last saw and spent time with her. It makes me recall when I was living in a rented apartment on A Street, and my cat Libby died. Only a week or so later, my refrigerator konked out and could not be fixed, and instead of paying my rent that month, I went out and bought a brand new refrigerator. It was empowering, because my landlord was cheap, and normally obtained his appliances from some shady fellow who “reconditioned” old discarded ones and placed them in his rental units, often complete with a portable infestation of cockroaches. But that month, instead of sending him a rent check, I sent him the receipt for the fridge—and never heard a peep of protest from him. It should have felt great. Instead, it highlighted for me the fact that I could not hold back time, that I would be experiencing that brand new refrigerator without Libby, and thus would be beginning the part of my life that would go on without her.
Maybe it’s weird to compare the loss of my mother to the loss of my cat, but I think you know what I’m getting at. I kind of understand the impulse of those people you hear about who, after the loss of a loved one, never touch a thing in that person’s bedroom again. It doesn’t bring them back, though, and life does go on. What it says to me is that every day we are leaving the past behind and every day we can embrace fresh new beginnings—but perhaps we only really notice it when a goodbye and a hello happen at around the same time.
Even though my new office is smaller, it is configured differently, and is yielding up new places to hang pictures and place small decorative items designed to delight me as I move through my work day. I’ve thought about some of the photos of my mother as a beautiful young woman, and some even older archival items from my grandparents, that are among my mother’s effects, and I’m thinking maybe I’ll frame some of them. They’d look great next to that poster I have, circa 1917, exhorting new Clevelanders to come to the public schools and learn the language of America. Having those images in my office will remind me of who I come from, will make me smile, and will strengthen and nurture me. Even if I will never have spoken to my mother on the phone in my new office, I can bring her with me there, in those photos and in the heart of who I am every day.
It’s a little sad, though, because I will never again spend my days sitting in that other office, where I so often talked to my mother on the phone, and so often talked to the health care providers who took care of her in her final months. Leaving that space means leaving that time, and moving further into the future and away from when I last saw and spent time with her. It makes me recall when I was living in a rented apartment on A Street, and my cat Libby died. Only a week or so later, my refrigerator konked out and could not be fixed, and instead of paying my rent that month, I went out and bought a brand new refrigerator. It was empowering, because my landlord was cheap, and normally obtained his appliances from some shady fellow who “reconditioned” old discarded ones and placed them in his rental units, often complete with a portable infestation of cockroaches. But that month, instead of sending him a rent check, I sent him the receipt for the fridge—and never heard a peep of protest from him. It should have felt great. Instead, it highlighted for me the fact that I could not hold back time, that I would be experiencing that brand new refrigerator without Libby, and thus would be beginning the part of my life that would go on without her.
Maybe it’s weird to compare the loss of my mother to the loss of my cat, but I think you know what I’m getting at. I kind of understand the impulse of those people you hear about who, after the loss of a loved one, never touch a thing in that person’s bedroom again. It doesn’t bring them back, though, and life does go on. What it says to me is that every day we are leaving the past behind and every day we can embrace fresh new beginnings—but perhaps we only really notice it when a goodbye and a hello happen at around the same time.
Even though my new office is smaller, it is configured differently, and is yielding up new places to hang pictures and place small decorative items designed to delight me as I move through my work day. I’ve thought about some of the photos of my mother as a beautiful young woman, and some even older archival items from my grandparents, that are among my mother’s effects, and I’m thinking maybe I’ll frame some of them. They’d look great next to that poster I have, circa 1917, exhorting new Clevelanders to come to the public schools and learn the language of America. Having those images in my office will remind me of who I come from, will make me smile, and will strengthen and nurture me. Even if I will never have spoken to my mother on the phone in my new office, I can bring her with me there, in those photos and in the heart of who I am every day.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Simple Gifts
A friend of my mother’s sent her a CD for Christmas. Lord knows where she got it—it has no production information, no songwriting or performing credits, and is in a simple bifold card stock sleeve with a generic hazy photo of something green and uplifting on the cover. On the Sunday after Christmas, I had spent the entire day with my mother, and was ready to be on my way, but she wanted to listen to her new CD. I looked at it, and it seemed suspiciously “Christian” to me, in the way that is meant by the phrase “contemporary Christian” when used in reference to pop music. We had had a full day, with an outing at the movies and dinner afterwards, but something told me I should stay a bit longer and play it for her. I put it on the CD player and sat next to my mother on the sofa. We just sat and listened, saying nothing, just being together. It was pretty, really pretty, and not sappy. The arrangements for solo piano were simple and the song selections a combination of the familiar and the (to me) unknown. Even Wondrous Love was on it.
Around that time I was very mindful that on some level we were getting close to the end of the road, even though she had not yet taken that final fall, the one that changed everything. I was capable when I wanted to of being in the here and now with her, being present and in the moment even when other obligations and pressures pulled me in a different direction. Nevertheless, that evening I didn’t play the whole album, just five or six tracks. I just couldn’t (or couldn’t allow myself to) sit through the whole thing. I told her I had to get up early the next day for work, which felt a little like a betrayal even if it was true. I asked Mom if I could borrow her new CD to put on my iPod, and she agreed without hesitation. When I left, she walked me to the door, and we agreed that the day had been marvelous. As she thanked me and told me how much she had enjoyed herself, her face glowed with gratitude.
Two days later she took the fall that shattered her elbow and her life. By that time I had already loaded the CD onto my iPod, and I had it with me in the hospital on New Year’s Eve, the day she had her first surgery. I put the earbuds on her as she waited to be taken to the OR and played it for her. Over the ensuing months I played that CD for my mother on many stressful and scary occasions, up until days before she died.
I took the CD with me to Cleveland for the funeral and asked for it to be played as background music during the wake. When I listen to it now, it makes me feel sad, but also takes me to my mother’s sofa on the Sunday after Christmas, as we sat quietly and listened to it together. I am so thankful that I chose to stay and listen to those five or six tracks with her, instead of promising we'd do it the next time I visited. I don’t know whether my mom’s friend had heard it and loved it before she sent it, or saw it on a rack at Marc’s for $1.99 and thought it looked like a nice little something extra to throw into the Christmas card she was sending to her friend Vicki, but it has come to mean a great deal to me. Maybe that’s the best kind of gift. You cast your bread upon the waters, and it may come back to you, but then again someone you don’t know may pick it up off the shore and find it a source of great nourishment.
Around that time I was very mindful that on some level we were getting close to the end of the road, even though she had not yet taken that final fall, the one that changed everything. I was capable when I wanted to of being in the here and now with her, being present and in the moment even when other obligations and pressures pulled me in a different direction. Nevertheless, that evening I didn’t play the whole album, just five or six tracks. I just couldn’t (or couldn’t allow myself to) sit through the whole thing. I told her I had to get up early the next day for work, which felt a little like a betrayal even if it was true. I asked Mom if I could borrow her new CD to put on my iPod, and she agreed without hesitation. When I left, she walked me to the door, and we agreed that the day had been marvelous. As she thanked me and told me how much she had enjoyed herself, her face glowed with gratitude.
Two days later she took the fall that shattered her elbow and her life. By that time I had already loaded the CD onto my iPod, and I had it with me in the hospital on New Year’s Eve, the day she had her first surgery. I put the earbuds on her as she waited to be taken to the OR and played it for her. Over the ensuing months I played that CD for my mother on many stressful and scary occasions, up until days before she died.
I took the CD with me to Cleveland for the funeral and asked for it to be played as background music during the wake. When I listen to it now, it makes me feel sad, but also takes me to my mother’s sofa on the Sunday after Christmas, as we sat quietly and listened to it together. I am so thankful that I chose to stay and listen to those five or six tracks with her, instead of promising we'd do it the next time I visited. I don’t know whether my mom’s friend had heard it and loved it before she sent it, or saw it on a rack at Marc’s for $1.99 and thought it looked like a nice little something extra to throw into the Christmas card she was sending to her friend Vicki, but it has come to mean a great deal to me. Maybe that’s the best kind of gift. You cast your bread upon the waters, and it may come back to you, but then again someone you don’t know may pick it up off the shore and find it a source of great nourishment.
Saturday Morning
I returned to Saturday morning t’ai chi in the park yesterday for the first time in months. All the old familiar faces were there. It felt good to do the form, and it’s the jump start I need to get myself back in the habit of doing the form every morning (it’s one of the many self-caring habits that fell by the wayside in the past six months). I was even able to pretend for a while that nothing in my life had changed since the last time I stood in that lovely green place, slowly shifting my weight and sinking my ch’i into my tan t’ien.
At the end of the session, as I walked across the space toward my car, I saw Jeremy, a distinguished, reserved and very serious gentleman in his early 70s who is one of the t’ai chi regulars, and is an advanced practitioner of other martial arts as well. He’s a retired journalist, and I’ve always felt a little intimidated by him. He greeted me warmly, and as we said hello, we spontaneously took each other’s hand and squeezed. Our greeting was almost affectionate. I’ve known this man for six years, and there is no precedent for such a manifestation of warmth between us-- we've certainly never touched--, yet somehow it felt very natural, and not the least awkward. Perhaps it was the spirit of my mother, who was always far more socially adept and outgoing than I, expressing itself through the medium of her daughter. Or perhaps it was because I felt so aware this morning of how wonderful it is to be able to drive to Northern Virginia on any given Saturday morning, and there they’ll be, an earnest and focused group of people whose only reason for getting up and out that early is to be in touch with their essential life energy in the presence of nature and like-minded others. Whatever it was, Jeremy felt it too. It made my day.
At the end of the session, as I walked across the space toward my car, I saw Jeremy, a distinguished, reserved and very serious gentleman in his early 70s who is one of the t’ai chi regulars, and is an advanced practitioner of other martial arts as well. He’s a retired journalist, and I’ve always felt a little intimidated by him. He greeted me warmly, and as we said hello, we spontaneously took each other’s hand and squeezed. Our greeting was almost affectionate. I’ve known this man for six years, and there is no precedent for such a manifestation of warmth between us-- we've certainly never touched--, yet somehow it felt very natural, and not the least awkward. Perhaps it was the spirit of my mother, who was always far more socially adept and outgoing than I, expressing itself through the medium of her daughter. Or perhaps it was because I felt so aware this morning of how wonderful it is to be able to drive to Northern Virginia on any given Saturday morning, and there they’ll be, an earnest and focused group of people whose only reason for getting up and out that early is to be in touch with their essential life energy in the presence of nature and like-minded others. Whatever it was, Jeremy felt it too. It made my day.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
The Gift of DTV
I have six rooms in my house, not counting the bathroom. And I shouldn’t admit this, but I have televisions in five of them. It’s not because I love TVs so much. My sweetheart is electronically inclined, and broken TVs that are really not broken rain down on him like water. Three of them have ended up in my house. Consequently, I have the TV on a lot in the evening. It’s always PBS, and it’s usually because I have watched the news during dinner and just kept it on for whatever informative thing is coming on next. I don’t have cable. I think the network offerings are awful, and the only reality show I’ve ever tuned in to, even once, is The Biggest Loser (cringe, but there, I’ve admitted it). But even if it’s The American Experience or Frontline, it is television.
Thanks goodness for the advent of DTV. The big switch is supposed to happen tomorrow, but I’ve had the boxes installed for several months, and spent weeks buying and exchanging antennas afterwards trying to get some sort of reception in my various locations, with any sort of success in only one place in the house. The gift in this is that the signal with DTV is bad, so bad that it’s not really watchable. You can’t just listen and ignore the snow, as you could with analog, because DTV doesn’t work that way. If the signal is weak, the picture freezes and pixillates, and the sound goes off altogether. So when they discontinue the analog signal I may have the TV on less in the evening. I may not have it on at all some evenings, even to watch the news. I might listen to the Newshour on the radio, instead of watching it on TV, since the local NPR affiliate carries it—or I may wean myself of my news addiction altogether. It may evolve that there is only one place in my house that I have TV reception, and if I want to watch something, I have to go there and one-pointedly sit and watch the thing. I may get rid of two or three or four of the televisions. All the things that I envision myself doing during my free time in the evening when I’m not at work and my time is my own—sitting and reading a novel, meditating before bed, taking a walk, doing tai chi-- may actually happen. I may even clean my house, write, or go to bed early enough to get eight hours sleep. What I am most looking forward to is the gift of consciousness, the awareness that I’m alive, that comes with being in silence. It would’ve been nice if I had had the strength of character to do this more often without the help of DTV, but I’ll take it any way I can get it.
Thanks goodness for the advent of DTV. The big switch is supposed to happen tomorrow, but I’ve had the boxes installed for several months, and spent weeks buying and exchanging antennas afterwards trying to get some sort of reception in my various locations, with any sort of success in only one place in the house. The gift in this is that the signal with DTV is bad, so bad that it’s not really watchable. You can’t just listen and ignore the snow, as you could with analog, because DTV doesn’t work that way. If the signal is weak, the picture freezes and pixillates, and the sound goes off altogether. So when they discontinue the analog signal I may have the TV on less in the evening. I may not have it on at all some evenings, even to watch the news. I might listen to the Newshour on the radio, instead of watching it on TV, since the local NPR affiliate carries it—or I may wean myself of my news addiction altogether. It may evolve that there is only one place in my house that I have TV reception, and if I want to watch something, I have to go there and one-pointedly sit and watch the thing. I may get rid of two or three or four of the televisions. All the things that I envision myself doing during my free time in the evening when I’m not at work and my time is my own—sitting and reading a novel, meditating before bed, taking a walk, doing tai chi-- may actually happen. I may even clean my house, write, or go to bed early enough to get eight hours sleep. What I am most looking forward to is the gift of consciousness, the awareness that I’m alive, that comes with being in silence. It would’ve been nice if I had had the strength of character to do this more often without the help of DTV, but I’ll take it any way I can get it.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Seven Morels
There was about a year in my youth when I lived with my sister and her husband in a big tent in the woods in Southern Ohio. Why? Too complicated to explain, really, and I’m not sure I understand it myself. It was a period in my life when I did not know what I wanted to do next and was incapable of moving forward. Looking back on it, I was depressed, certainly. For me, this was only partly an experiment in living off the land, as I had a day job as a licensed practical nurse in town, and my primary contribution to the common weal was financial. Oh, I cooked sometime, I helped keep the site clean, but the real mover and shaker in the whole endeavor was my sister. I was a fifth wheel, a hanger-on, and felt like one when I was in touch with myself enough to feel anything at all. From childhood, I was used to riding in my energetic sister’s wake, but doing so at this point, at the age of 21, wasn’t helping me any, to be sure. I was more than happy to cede the high ground to her in almost everything. She and her husband had aspirations of really making a go of this back-to-the-land thing, and eventually they did buy a piece of property and raise goats.
So this whole thing was kind of a practice run for them, and as if earning scouting badges, we—mostly they—enthusiastically practiced the arts associated with living off the land. We had a Bradford Angier guide to wild edibles, and one day my sister declared with conviction, as she is wont to do, that now was the perfect time of year in which to find morels. In the early 70s, the option to purchase them dried at a gourmet store did not exist. Mushrooming lore had it that they were difficult to find, and those who were skilled or lucky enough to do so guarded their favorite morel tips, tricks and locations as if the little fungi were made of gold.
Off we trekked into the woods. We meandered aimlessly, each of us seeking his or her own path as intuition or happenstance dictated. I wandered about, keeping my eyes to the ground, seeing nothing but dried leaves till before long, I spotted one! Couldn’t believe it, but there it was. What a feeling! I wandered some more, and then spotted another one! Then two more, and before I knew it, I had gathered seven. Each one was growing by itself, so this was seven separate discoveries, seven different gifts from the gods deigning to reveal themselves to me.
I don’t know how long we searched, but we agreed to reconvene at some point, and when we came back together I shared my find. Neither my sister nor her husband found any. I never chopped and stacked our firewood, like my brother-in-law. I never made any life-improving design innovations to our living space, like my sister. If worthiness was measurable by the degree of commitment and contribution we brought to our common life, I was seemingly unworthy. Yet I was the one, the only one, who found the morels, and I found seven of them.
We took them back to our campsite and gently sautéed them in a little butter, then sat there relishing them unadorned, in all their fungal glory. None of us had ever tasted them before. Perhaps my palate was not very well trained, but from a culinary point of view, I couldn’t tell what all the fuss was about. Nevertheless, they were the best mushrooms I have ever tasted.
I had forgotten about them for a long time, but recently have found myself thinking about them quite a bit. They make me feel abundant, proud, loved by God.
So this whole thing was kind of a practice run for them, and as if earning scouting badges, we—mostly they—enthusiastically practiced the arts associated with living off the land. We had a Bradford Angier guide to wild edibles, and one day my sister declared with conviction, as she is wont to do, that now was the perfect time of year in which to find morels. In the early 70s, the option to purchase them dried at a gourmet store did not exist. Mushrooming lore had it that they were difficult to find, and those who were skilled or lucky enough to do so guarded their favorite morel tips, tricks and locations as if the little fungi were made of gold.
Off we trekked into the woods. We meandered aimlessly, each of us seeking his or her own path as intuition or happenstance dictated. I wandered about, keeping my eyes to the ground, seeing nothing but dried leaves till before long, I spotted one! Couldn’t believe it, but there it was. What a feeling! I wandered some more, and then spotted another one! Then two more, and before I knew it, I had gathered seven. Each one was growing by itself, so this was seven separate discoveries, seven different gifts from the gods deigning to reveal themselves to me.
I don’t know how long we searched, but we agreed to reconvene at some point, and when we came back together I shared my find. Neither my sister nor her husband found any. I never chopped and stacked our firewood, like my brother-in-law. I never made any life-improving design innovations to our living space, like my sister. If worthiness was measurable by the degree of commitment and contribution we brought to our common life, I was seemingly unworthy. Yet I was the one, the only one, who found the morels, and I found seven of them.
We took them back to our campsite and gently sautéed them in a little butter, then sat there relishing them unadorned, in all their fungal glory. None of us had ever tasted them before. Perhaps my palate was not very well trained, but from a culinary point of view, I couldn’t tell what all the fuss was about. Nevertheless, they were the best mushrooms I have ever tasted.
I had forgotten about them for a long time, but recently have found myself thinking about them quite a bit. They make me feel abundant, proud, loved by God.
Friday, June 5, 2009
3326
I grew up in a story-and-a-half bungalow built in the mid-50s, and here it is, 3326, in all its majesty. When my parents’ postwar generation moved from the city to the modest inner-ring suburbs like the one I grew up in, it must have seemed like paradise, with its big yards, driveways between the houses, sunny treeless atmosphere, and freely circulating air. I myself moved to a charming but dark circa 1850 house in the city over 10 years ago, and although my current house, because of its location, is worth probably five times what 3326 is, and despite years of boomeresque disdain for the suburbs, I’ve come to appreciate all the fine qualities of my childhood home, and remember keenly what it was like living there.
Its most striking quality is the light. It has windows on all four sides, and its picture window and front door face south. The kitchen, in the back, has north and west light. The window at the top of the stairs and another small window in the living room also face west. My bedroom upstairs faces east. At different times of day, and with different combinations of drapes, curtains and doors open and closed, the house would take on vastly different qualities. To me, 3326 is and was alive, as alive and multifaceted and complex as any person I know. And with its lawn, driveway, backyard, and sky, with its views up the hill and down the street to the woods, that little piece of paradise in Parma, Ohio is as full of meaning to me as John Ford’s Monument Valley, or the National Mall in Washington DC.
What the Light Would Do, Part I
Early Morning, Kitchen
Sometimes you’d wake up before anyone else. The first place you’d go in that house, always, would be the kitchen. There, the first thing you’d do is open the café curtains, especially the ones on the window facing the back yard, to the north. On a quiet morning, with no one else up, no lights on and nothing stirring, the kitchen would be suffused with a soft, almost bluish light—especially if it was winter and the back yard was covered with a thick layer of pristine snow. Light from the living room, so powerful most of the time, would not be a factor, because the drapes and door would still be closed. The pale gentle majesty of the morning kitchen reigned. You might go to the side door and get the paper, but if so, you’d do it quietly, because this interregnum between night and day would not last long, and you wanted to relish the feeling of knowing a world of possibilities was before you, and you were the first one to be there for whatever was going to happen. For now, you’d leave the overhead light off, because the cool north light was the house, being itself, the way it was when it knew none of its inhabitants were around. In fact, you had the feeling it had been awake for a while, waiting for you.
You’d take the seat you knew you wanted at the kitchen table. Gradually, the rest of the family and the world would wake up around you, and things would be turned on, pastry would be broken out or eggs scrambled, coffee would be made, orange juice poured, and sections of the paper traded. The coolness and quietude would fade as the kitchen filled with people and the day progressed, but for a while the still, pregnant and eternal magic of the morning kitchen would stay with you, and you’d cherish it.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
On Singing the Mozart Requiem
I’ve been a member of my church choir for fifteen years. I joined almost immediately upon joining the church. I had a lot of lost singing time to make up, since I had not attended any church at all for the previous 27 years, and had not sung in a choir since high school. This week, my beloved choir director said his goodbyes for greater vocational challenges elsewhere. It’s been difficult to see him go, so soon after that other more permanent goodbye. We sang a choral Evensong last Sunday, and it’s caused me to remember the moment when I stopped fearing death.
We used to have an annual concert in which we performed a major work from the choral repertoire. Generally, I’ve always liked to stand front and center when we sing, because I love watching Keith, my director, and want to be where the action is. During concerts, though, he would generally tell us where he wanted us to be, and the year we sang the Mozart Requiem I was standing only one person removed from the columbarium.
It was the afternoon prior to the concert, and we were rehearsing. Most of the lights in the nave were off, but there was light coming through the stained glass windows, and there was some activity out there in the nave while we rehearsed, as people prepared the seating and post-concert reception area. I don’t remember which movement we were rehearsing, but I began to feel the presence of the columbarium near me, pulling my attention to it as Keith worked with the choir and the bustle of life continued around me. It came into my consciousness that yes, those were the remains of dead people right over there next to me, people who had once been alive and moving around this space, talking and laughing and singing, just as we were doing now, maybe even gossiping or bitching about each other, activities that too enjoy much current popularity.
I realized I was singing for them, because they had no voice, and what I was singing was written centuries ago by someone who was also dead and had no voice, written expressly for singing by us, the living, for them, the dead. And I knew in that moment that some day, I’d be dead and this piece would be sung again, for me, because I would have no voice, by people who might not yet live, but whether they knew it or not, or knew of my existence on this earth, they’d be singing it for me. At that moment the dividing line between life and death fell away, the past and the future and indeed time itself fell away, and there was no difference between me and the people whose remains were in the columbarium. At that moment, there was nothing at all left to fear in life or death.
I retained that feeling through the concert later that afternoon. I can call it up when I need and want to, though I’m sorry to report that it did not make me always and forever fearless—I’m still working on that. The music these past fifteen years has been a priceless gift, but that epiphany is probably the one I was seeking when I first stumbled into St. Mark’s.
We used to have an annual concert in which we performed a major work from the choral repertoire. Generally, I’ve always liked to stand front and center when we sing, because I love watching Keith, my director, and want to be where the action is. During concerts, though, he would generally tell us where he wanted us to be, and the year we sang the Mozart Requiem I was standing only one person removed from the columbarium.
It was the afternoon prior to the concert, and we were rehearsing. Most of the lights in the nave were off, but there was light coming through the stained glass windows, and there was some activity out there in the nave while we rehearsed, as people prepared the seating and post-concert reception area. I don’t remember which movement we were rehearsing, but I began to feel the presence of the columbarium near me, pulling my attention to it as Keith worked with the choir and the bustle of life continued around me. It came into my consciousness that yes, those were the remains of dead people right over there next to me, people who had once been alive and moving around this space, talking and laughing and singing, just as we were doing now, maybe even gossiping or bitching about each other, activities that too enjoy much current popularity.
I realized I was singing for them, because they had no voice, and what I was singing was written centuries ago by someone who was also dead and had no voice, written expressly for singing by us, the living, for them, the dead. And I knew in that moment that some day, I’d be dead and this piece would be sung again, for me, because I would have no voice, by people who might not yet live, but whether they knew it or not, or knew of my existence on this earth, they’d be singing it for me. At that moment the dividing line between life and death fell away, the past and the future and indeed time itself fell away, and there was no difference between me and the people whose remains were in the columbarium. At that moment, there was nothing at all left to fear in life or death.
I retained that feeling through the concert later that afternoon. I can call it up when I need and want to, though I’m sorry to report that it did not make me always and forever fearless—I’m still working on that. The music these past fifteen years has been a priceless gift, but that epiphany is probably the one I was seeking when I first stumbled into St. Mark’s.
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