A WordPress Site

Category: Celebrations

Five Things on a Beautiful May Friday

This week has gotten away from me a bit, and the challenge for today is to see if I can get this "five things" post written and posted before the day is done, and maybe still get a post up tomorrow. It may be wishful thinking, but I've always liked a challenge.

1. I bought a bike. I spent last Saturday trying to ride my old bike and keep air in the tires, neither very successfully. I fell repeatedly and at one point wondered if should even be trying, but I also realized three things: 1). The bike was old and probably not rideable. 2). The gears were stuck somewhere around 8th or 9th gear and I couldn't unstick them enough to get myself up the hill in my driveway. 3). My old, circa 1980 racing style touring bike was probably not the best bike for me to be riding at this particular point in my relearning process. I took the old bike into a shop to see if it could be repaired and came out with a new bike. I realized that my insistence on riding the old bike was actually hampering my progress. The new bike is exactly what I need right now. I've been riding it. At first, I didn't even make it around the block. Apparently riding a bike uses muscles I've neglected for a decade or two. I was terrified of speed because I was still terrified of falling, I couldn't quite figure out the gears so that I was in control of the bike instead of the bike being in control of me, and I wobbled all over the place. At the same time, I was exhilarated and thrilled. I can't remember being so excited about any new project in such a long time. I was out on the bike twice a day every day at the beginning of the week. I didn't go far, but I came home exhausted and happy. As I'd stagger up the steps into my house I was already dreaming of my next ride. Each morning I would go for my normal walk of a couple of miles in length, then get on the bike, mostly because I learned I couldn't walk after riding the bike. This morning however, I went for a whole loop, roughly 2 miles, my first real excursion that I can actually call a ride. I had to get off a couple of time when my legs refused to go further up a hill, and I had to walk the bike up the final stretch of one steeper hill (but still not very steep) after I misjudged my gear shift, lost my footing, and fell into a forced dismount. But I did it. I was terrified coming down the steep hill after the final turn toward my house and I had to fight the urge to ride the breaks, terrified I would have to stop and not be able to, terrified I would kill myself. I can happily report I returned home safely. I climbed the stairs to my office and this computer. I can't wait to ride again tomorrow.

I want to keep riding. I want to fix the old bike and when I get steadier see if I can ride it, see if I want to tackle longer rides. When I was young I thought nothing of going 20 or 30 miles on my bike. I may or may not ever be there again, but I am looking forward to the adventure. Oh, and now that I know I can actually ride even a short loop, perhaps it is time to start alternating walking and riding days.

2. The pink camellia behind the house is doing beautifully since I had the river birch taken down. It bloomed but looked rather sad and I suspected that it was in too much shade. This spring, with the long period of cool weather and the increased sun it has filled out and grown phenomenally. You can see it behind the irises in the photo above. Unfortunately it is right next to the deck, meaning it is right in the middle of the proposed construction site. Finding it a new home, either permanent or temporary, for any plants in this area I want to save (irises and camellias etc) is now becoming a priority.

3. I posted a photo of the Cora Louise peony on Instagram earlier this week. I took another photo this morning, where I thought I captured the color just a little more clearly.

4. Breakfast this morning, or brunch I suppose since it was after 11 by the time I stopped to eat. Avocado, and egg salad topped with hot-smoked salmon on a small, salad sized plate.

5. I went to see the musical Beautiful: The Carole King Story, with a friend last Sunday afternoon and I had an absolutely marvelous time. I love the sets, the colors, the acting, the music, absolutely everything. It was a happy event that made me want to sing and dance and smile for the rest of the day. The show was like sping, something joyous and hopeful and inspiring, just what I needed on a Sunday afternoon. Carole King's album Tapestry came out just before I entered high school, but I didn't really discover her until I was in college, where many of my friends had all her albums. It was a period of great musical discovery for me: Carole King, bluegrass, rock, Talking Heads, King Crimson, early punk, jazz, swing dances, Hindemith and Phillip Glass, and although the musical was about King and her music, not my other explorations, it still reminded me of that time, of that sense of the joy of song of music and the idea that music itself could change the world.

But I also admit that I also struggled afterwards with the fact that I enjoyed Beautiful more than I enjoyed Aida, and in simply writing the above paragraph I have written more about the musical than I did about the opera. I recognize that this struggle reflects some kind of acquired parental, societal, and cultural bias that I don't actually believe has any basis in reality, but which still occasionally raises its ugly head in my consciousness. I did enjoy Aida, but I admittedly didn't love it. I'm not convinced that is the fault of the performance. As I said, the Choral Society gave the best performance I have heard, and the soloists were good as well, but they occasionally were quashed by the poor acoustics of the hall, well all of them except the baritone perhaps. In retrospect it was that problem with acoustics that hampered my experience. I understand why the performance was held in the Civic Auditorium — they needed the space on stage. And I'm not certain my experience of the sound was shared by those around me, as many of my near neighbors seemed very happy with the performance. I felt the performance often sounded muddied, which is more the fault of the venue than the artists themselves, enough so that I am not eager to go to another opera performance in that particular venue. I'd rather hear sparkling sound at the Tennessee Theater than muddied sound waves at the Civic Auditorium. But then again, I know this is my own bias, the same bias that showed up in the early days of my marriage when I was the one that was constantly turning off the radio when static would invade the airwaves. It never bothered George, but it ruined the sound for me, rendering the musical completely unlistenable. Mea culpa

I have no music scheduled this weekend, but the sun is shining and I shall see friends, spend time in the garden and on my bicycle. Grand adventure always awaits. What delights will your weekend bring?

May 11, 2018
Musica Sacra

I was in Lincoln, Nebraska earlier this week, listening to the music of Phillip Glass. Tuesday night was the world premiere of a new piano quintet, Annunciation, and I was thrilled to be present, thrilled to be invited my my friend Liana, who was involved in the commission. Well, actually, I seem to recollect that I invited myself, and Liana graciously agreed. But the experience also found me questioning myself, refining my thoughts both on why I find one piece brilliant and another not so much, but also in terms of reminding myself that all of these thoughts are subjective and personal, and finding balance is key.

Late Monday afternoon we went to the rehearsal, and I was immediately entranced, enmeshed in this stunningly beautiful work, based on the the communion hymn of the Annunciation from the Greek Orthodox service, a hymn that is itself based on Psalm 133. At the rehearsal, the pianist, Paul Barnes, and others first sang the hymn for us, to help us to hear and understand the references, and then the piece began. Powerfully soaring opening chords drew me into the music, opening a space for the introduction of the chant as it develops into a repetitive, shared theme that is at time meditative, at times brooding, simultaneously expansive and inclusive, ending that reminded me of hearts and arms thrown open.

As I sat in that room, listening and absorbing, present with a work, a performance I felt to be brilliant, my focus was also on the previous week’s symphony performance. I was still struggling with the last blog post, and listening to this new work helped focus my attention both on what I love about music, and about my own uneasy feelings about writing when I was not thrilled with a performance. Of course one cannot be thrilled with everything, and, aside from technical matters, everything is subjective. The trick is in understanding my own biases and preferences, and in finding words that communicate something that is, in effect ephemeral and experiential. It like so much of everything else of value in life, seems to be an ongoing process of learning and expanding horizons.

I felt incredibly fortunate to be in Lincoln, to listen to the musicians and the composer review and refine the details of actually translating the notes from paper to sound, to hear adjustments and changes as they evolved, in some ways refining my own experience of the piece as the performance itself was refined. Not really being a musician myself, merely an avid listener, I nonetheless found the process fascinating and enlightening.

I felt equally fortunate to attend a dinner that evening with Phillip Glass, Paul Barnes, the Chiara Quartet, and other Artists and sponsors of the event. It was an honor to meet Phillip Glass, although I was neither charming, nor witty, with nothing creative to say, awed and tongue-tied at meeting a composer whose work I have followed since my early 20’s, a composer who inspired me to trek to New York City and take the subway to Brooklyn, where I had never been, by myself, just to hear Einstein on the Beach at BAM. Looking back on it now I see how shy and naive I was then, my older self bemused that I thought going to Brooklyn was an adventure. And yet that memory also makes me smile because it was the beginning of a newly found adventurousness in music, a first-step, one of many, toward becoming who I am today. Still, I was thrilled to shake his hand, to sit at the table with him to watch the interactions around me. To converse with musicians and artists, and just be present in a creative space.

God, that makes me sound far mor voyeuristic than I think I am.

Tuesday night was the world premier of the work at the Lied Center in Lincoln. The difference in the space, from the small room where the rehearsal was heard to the large space of the concert hall amazed me. It was almost as if I was hearing two different works, except that they weren’t different. I remembered the music and I knew intellectually I was hearing the same thing, but the emotional resonance was different. Perhaps it was just that, having heard the piece before, I was able to focus more on the complexities of the music itself. In the small hall the opening chords where strong and enveloping, drawing you immediately into its own space, and the conclusion a bright transfiguration. In the concert hall the opening bars felt more meditative and softly seductive. The patterns of the Byzantine chant more evident to this listener, and yet still welcoming and inclusive, One still felt drawn into the music, the space felt transformed, and the ending a transcendent release, a brightly ephemeral scattering of light into the space.

But the quintent was not the entirety of the concert, although the concert was mostly devoted to the music of Glass. And of course I have quibbles. The concert opened with members of Cappella Romana singing selections from the Greek Orthodox Mass, ending with the communion hymn for the Annunciation, in two versions, the piece which inspired the Piano Quintet. The singers were fabulous, and I loved the pacing and cadence of the Byzantine chant. But I was also somewhat familiar with the style because George had long been a lover of Orthodox Christian music, and although his specific love was for the Russian Orthodox, and I had not heard the Greek before, there were enough similarities that I felt comfortable, and calmed, in the listening.

The singing was followed by a short, unpublished, work by Glass, Pendulum for Violin and Piano, performed by Barnes and Hyeyung Yoon. It was a lovely work, but in retrospect I the positioning was off, and it distracted from the opening of the piano quintet. I would have opened the concert with this short Glass work, to whet the appetite of the audience for that which was to come, then gone into the chant, and followed the chant immediately with the Piano Quintet, to highlight the progression of the theme. But as I said above, this is a minor quibble.

The second half of the program began with a short choral piece from Hydrogen Jukebox called the Father Death Blues. Based on a poem by Alan Ginsberg, written after the death of his father, the song was gently mournful, and the performance was truly lovely and beautifully performed. I find Glass's choral works richly rewarding, and a surprise sometimes, to friends who know only his instrumental pieces.

The concert closed with the Piano Concerto No. 2 “After Louis and Clark”. I am sure this work was chosen because it was also commissioned by Barnes and premiered in Nebraska, but it seemed to me to be a good counterpoint to the new work, as to my ears at least, although both works at obviously by Glass, they are not at all alike. The Quintet is lushly spiritual and spaciously uplifting and enfolding, whereas the second piano concerto is full of movement in an entirely different way — a driving, exploring movement with a spacious, outward reaching sense of movement that feels more horizontal as compared to the vertical movement of the Piano Quintet. It was a lovely performance. I admit I have a recording of the piano concerto, also played by Barnes, and it was fabulous to see and hear him perform live. He made the music dance, and seem effortless, allowed it to occupy the space. Even that part of the first movement that increasingly amazes me each time I hear it, where the pianist is playing in two different tempos simultaneously, bridging and uniting the orchestra in a rather complex polymetric rhythm, playing in one meter with the right hand, in concert with the violins, while the left hand is simultaneously playing a slower tempo with the violas and cellos, felt like a natural progression of the music, flowing part and then together again, as a natural course of events, the piano dynamically and yet calmly holding the center.

Much as I enjoyed the performance however, The orchestra, which is an excellent student orchestra, did not quite master the subtleties and nuance in the repetitive themes that I have heard in the recorded version of this piece. In such a performance it is easy to forget that Glass’s music involves a layering of repetitive themes that are not at all simple, but complexly layered. The layering is essential, as the apparent simplicity of beauty is a veil. To build multifaceted layers that appear simple is genius. The lack of subtlety in the playing lent a sense of “sameness” to the piece, a sameness that does nothing to help me convince my many friends that Glass does not write the same theme over and over. The performance was beautiful but could have been more.

As to hearing Barnes play, and meeting him, that was also one of the highlights of my trip. I have a couple of Barnes’ recordings, but had never heard him play live. The fact that the first time I heard him live was in the intimate space of the rehearsal was amazing. I’ve long admired his playing, at least on recordings, but in watching him in a small space, playing as part of a chamber group I was impressed by the warmth and inclusiveness of his playing, his movements and expressions, his interactions with the quartet. Everything seemed to be part and parcel about a conversation with the music, and expansive conversation that stemmed outward from the music and drew the musicians and the listener in. In fact he reminded me of one of my all favorite pianists, Menahem Pressler, a pianist I used to seek out in performance whenever I could. It turns out that Barnes studied under Pressler, although I'm sure many others did as well, but few musicians express that sense of the performance and the music as a living conversation with such beauty..

April 19, 2018
Brief Update

I stayed up late knitting, and I finished the back of the red sweater. You can see it below, not quite finished, but close enough that you get the sense of the thing, and why it was difficult to photograph in process. I will block it today, a quality control check, to be certain that I maintained gauge, that my calculations were correct, as I rewrote the pattern somewhat. Better to know now, before proceeding. I have not been as consistent in my knitting as I had hoped, but even so, it is a good start. When I am knitting I want to do nothing but knit. When I am working on something else, my focus shifts, which is, as I suppose how it should be, living in and enjoying each moment and each task.

It was cold in the house this morning. The weather has been warm, unseasonably warm, and I had turned off the heat. Luckily I hadn't yet put away the alpaca blanket I knitted some years ago, although I had, in fact considered it. The blanket needs to be disassembled, washed, and repaired. But it was still at the foot of the bed, just in case.

So I S was snug and warm, surrounded in delicious softness and I was reluctant to venture out. The house was cold. When I finally pulled myself upright I learned that it was 59º in the house. I turned up the heat, let Tikka and Moisés out for their morning romp, and made a pot of coffee, my first pot of coffee with my new coffee grinder. The old grinder died over the weekend, accompanied by screeching noises and billowing smoke, and the new grinder arrived yesterday.

As I write these few words, I am drinking a cup of wonderful coffee, far better coffee than I made with my old grinder. It warms my hands, and frankly discourages me from being eager to run out to my morning meeting at Panera, not because I am not eager to see a friend, but because I am not eager to give up my superior coffee. Friends trump coffee however, and off I shall go.

When I return the house will be warmer; but for now I am enjoying that sense of warm air drifting through the rooms, the deliciousness of warm air meeting cold, a feeling akin to holding a cup of warm coffee in cold hands, except felt with the entire body. There is nothing quite like it, and it is good to be reminded of the blessing of warmth, the luxury of my life, When the house is always the same temperature I can forget what a joy shelter and warmth and yes, good coffee, truly is. I feel the warm air meeting the cold, I see the sunlight creeping across the branches outside my window, the glistening of the dew on the twigs, the rise of steam from my furnace, the whisps of fog. And I know how luckily I am and how perfect small moments can be.

February 27, 2018
Five Things Friday

I arrived home yesterday afternoon to find the Amaryllis bulb that I had been given for Christmas had finally taken off, growing long and leggy during the five days of my absence. With the cold that followed Christmas in Knoxville, it had been frozen in a state of what felt like permanent waiting. Of course I could have turned the heat up in my house, up into the 70s, but frankly I am rarely all that cold, and I relished he idea of actually wearing my wool sweaters. I am now excited to see this Lenten Amaryllis indoors at a time when the yard is rich with lenten roses and I see the tender leaves of bulbs massing everywhere around: daffodils, hyacinths, tulips, irises, the occasional daylily. The bulbs are not so much in my yard, as I haven't really planted bulbs yet, trying mightily to stick to my one year moratorium on new plants, but the neighborhood is flush with new growth.

This morning I carted my coffee upstairs to my desk in one of the silver coffeepots I have inherited from various grandparents and aunts. This one is silver-plate, and I am using it simply because it is the first one that I pulled out of the cupboard. I've been using it for my morning coffee for a couple of weeks now. Surprisingly, it makes me happy, and has made me realize that I should really pull those silver services out of the cupboard and consider using them, perhaps even make a decision about which services and sizes and shapes would be useful in my life. It does not keep the coffee warm for hours, like the stainless carafe that is in the kitchen, but I don't really need hours, and I am thinking that a similar pot, perhaps combined with the silver samovar, which has a burner, could even be used for entertaining. Well, idle thoughts anyway.

While my mind is revolving around food and kitchens, I thought I'd also post this photo I took at French Ranges when I was in New York. One of the things I did, since I was in a city with a large selection of showrooms, was look at options for kitchens and baths, both appliances and hardware and hard surfaces. The LaCanche is my dream stove, and although this is not my model of choice, this is my color. it is still early, and there are still options and budgets, and compromises to be considered, but I think the LaCanche will remain the centerpiece of my new kitchen, however that will evolve.

After a morning talking stoves, and wandering around showrooms at 200 Lex we were tired and ready for a rest. We found our way down to Union Square Cafe, where we snagged a table at the bar and settled in for a cocktail and a leisurely lunch. I had scallop crudo and a tuna burger, ending with an espresso, although Liana, brave soul the she is, tried the new dessert on the menu. I've realized that although I love good food and nice restaurants, it was George who was more the white tablecloth, formal presentation person. I'm usually happy in the bar, where everything feels more casual but the food is just as good.

And finally, Tuesday night we went to Jacob Scharfman's recital at Juilliard. Jacob is George's cousin twice-removed, and his father, Dan, was a dear friend, whom I had been happy to get to know in our younger days, even though we had not seen each other often enough as the years passed. Jacob sang one of George's favorite songs, and I am certain he and Dan were both smiling down on this concert. which was incredible. With each work, especially the operatic selections, but also for the broadway song, I felt bereft that I couldn't hear the entire work right then, with this brilliant young man singing. I think Jacob is a young man to follow and I wish him great success. After the concert, Liana and I went for a late bite at Bar Boulud, heads and hearts still swimming with the music. Photo above courtesy of Liana Sandin.

February 16, 2018
On the Third Day of Christmas

On the third day of Christmas

My True Love Gave to Me

Three French Hens

…

It is still Christmas at my house, and I've been humming that Christmas carol that many find annoying, The Twelve Days of Christmas, but which I have always found full of joy and silliness, and therefore particularly appropriate. The first written appearance of the song appears in the late 18th century but the song itself probably dates to the 16th century, or earlier, in France, and was probably just a light, silly, memory device. That is certainly how I remembered it as a child, and I loved struggling over the verses and trying to keep everything in the right order. It was so much more fun than most of the memorization exercises we had in school, back in the day when children still had to memorize things in school, at any rate.

Anyway, as a student of medieval and Tudor literature, my studies also included a great deal of medieval culture and religious observance, which is perhaps a part of why I still maintain the traditional 12-day Christmas season even though I live in a culture that most definitely does not. Of course the fact that I am Episcopalian, and Episcopalians know there is a Christmas season helps, as do the memories of Twelfth night, the Twelfth Night parade in Madrid the Christmas that I was seven, and the memories of the Three Wise Men bringing gifts to fill our shoes. I remember my father explaining to me that Santa knew we had moved to Spain, and that he had passed our lists on to his good friends, the Three Wise Men, so that we could get our gifts on the same day as the Spanish children, something I appreciate even more today as an early lesson in multi-cultural appreciation. I remember maintaining a twelfth night tradition once we returned home, although back in Texas Santa was the main event, and we usually got grapefruit and chocolate from the Wise Men. I even remember taking little twelfth-night gifts to my friends at school those first couple of years in elementary school, when I was still oblivious to the requirements for being cool.

Traditionally, December 26th was St. Stephen's day. St. Stephen was one of the earliest Deacon's in the new church and was known for his generosity to the poor. St. Stephen's day is the day one gives one's excess to those who are less fortunate, and it is commemorated in the Christmas Carol, Good King Wenceslas. It was still celebrated when I was a child, when Christmas in the United States, was still more of a religious observance with Santa, than the Santa-fest of too muchness it has become. Whether or not Boxing Day has anything to do with St. Stephen or not is beyond my ken. Today is the feast of St. John the Evangelist, who is, culturally at least, accepted to be the only one of the disciples who was not martyred and the author of the Gospel of John, the one who wrote "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" and only a little later "And the Word became flesh and lived among us".

And I think that is what I want to remember this season. The idea of the word becoming flesh and living among us, or hope. In my medieval studies, I learned that there was an entire holiday season, extending from all-hallows eve (halloween) until epiphany, and that although there were times of serious religious observance, there were also times of silliness. Granted many observations, and many sillinesses arose out of remnants from other cultural observations, and the official church eventually got to taking itself too seriously and stamping such excesses out, but that is not my point either. We get too hung up on what is authentic or "true" or where something came from. All human experiences are mashed together, are adaptive, are learned and observed from those around us. It doesn't matter if one tradition absorbed another, but what matters is that we find the truth, which is usually some simple thing lurking beneath everything else. Hope is waiting for us to find it. Even the ancient Hebrews took greenery into their homes at the time of the winter solstice, to remind themselves that the darkness would indeed end eventually.

At this time, just after the winter solstice, near the darkest time of year, but at the same time, a time in which light is slowly returning, we are celebrating hope and the birth of hope in the darkness. The "Word became flesh" and went from some highfalutin abstract ideal and became like us, filled with pain and despair, and by doing so, brought healing and hope. The story of Jesus is the story of a savior who was born into a poor family from a town so poor and bedraggled that no one believed anything good could come from there. Mary and Joseph couldn't find room at the inn because they had no money, and no resources. If Mary and Jesus were to appear in Knoxville, or New York, or Los Angeles today, they would probably look like some homeless family, and we would drive by them shaking our heads in disgust rather than reaching out to them in kindness.

That, precisely, is the story of Christmas, and it is worth celebrating over and over and over again. Hope comes from the darkness, from where you least expect it. It exists always in us and in the world, but we get so blinded by our comforts and excesses that we lose sight of it, until some cold dark night, some time of pain, when we have no barriers left to keep out the cold, and it springs up like a new leaf growing in a barren land. That is what this season is about, the celebration of hope and faith and love, the understanding that you cannot have one without the other two, and that they are always here, if only we allow ourselves to see.

When you are exhausted from the excesses of Christmas present, and presents, and the trash has been hauled away, and the decorations down, and you are promising yourself that next year will be simpler, remember this: it is precisely now, in the depths of darkness and doubt that hope is born. In the last sentence of his book, The Courage to Be, the Christian theologian Paul Tillich wrote "The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt." Christmas and the Christmas season, the season in which we celebrate transformation, of hope and faith and love, and the knowledge that these things alone have the power to turn us upside down and inside out, and make the world a brighter place. Hope is born when we let go of all the things we are told we are supposed to believe and we let the light in, let the light transform us. Hope needs no name. And the God who appears when God has disappeared is the God who loves us each unconditionally, and sees us in our entirety for who we really are, the God who has no need of names or titles, or even religions. And this, this hope is worth celebrating, and worth remembrance. Again, and again, and again.

December 27, 2017
What Is Your Favorite Holiday Music?

"Holiday" music came out this week. But which Holiday?

Tuesday evening I went to see The Meshuga Nutcracker, a film of the Channukah Musical. It was cute and funny, in parts, and in others a bit strained. I think it would have worked brilliantly as an actual musical on stage, but needed some help being translated to film. It was a little bit too "Look here we are making a film and pretending it is a play" to really work. Or maybe they really were just filming the play, and there was something I didn't get. I enjoyed it, but it could have been fabulous.

It wasn't well attended, and that could just be a Tennessee thing, although I'd like to think it was also because the actual ballet, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Ballet, was being performed downtown, although I am probably fooling myself it I believe that was all that was involved. I would have liked to have done both, but even I knew that was never going to work.

I came out of the movie theater with the latke song roiling about in my head, and I knew I needed to make a batch of latkes, although it could wait as it was late and I had already eaten. When I was young and naive, and probably a bit arrogant as well, I couldn't imagine that anyone would need a recipe for latkes. That was before I ever had a bad latke, or potato pancake, as my non-Jewish family and friends referred to them, or before I realized the way the term "traditional" is loaded: Tradition is whatever your grandmother made, and someone else's grandma is always wrong. Now I am old enough to know that tradition is really a mixed bag, as is the idea of authenticity.

Yesterday, however, I made latkes. I also listened to holiday music. I started the day with a new CD I had purchased this year, Veni Domine by the Sistine Chapel Choir. I purchased it because it said music for Advent and Christmas in the title, and I like Advent, and Advent music. It is not Christmas yet, after all, and Christmas lasts for 12 days. I am too much a child of the Anglican Tradition, a child whose mind remains entranced by the 12th night parade in Madrid and waiting for the wise men to come and fill my shoes with gifts. The Veni Domine CD was also a bit of a change for me, simply due to its more general nature as an assortment of songs and carols. I do listen to choral music: I listen to Handel's Messiah every year on Christmas Day, and usually also listen to Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ at least once during the season, but George was the one who could listen to choirs singing carols for hours on end.

By the time evening rolled around and I was actually making latkes, I was no longer listening to carols. It seemed time for celebrating another holiday, and, even though Channukah is already over, I listened to Itzhak Perlman's collection, Holiday Tradition, a compilation of traditional Israeli and Eastern European music. I can't actually say that I've listened to this as a Holiday album all that much, Jewish Holidays, yes, and Channukah is a Jewish Holiday, but it was not one George particularly observed. A lot of the music is seasonally appropriate however, and it is relaxing and joyous music.

I made my latkes with a combination of shredded and finely grated potatoes, and I don't use flour, but the potato starch that accumulates in the bottom of the bowl after soaking the grated potatoes, a trick I learned from George's Aunt Hilda. And I served my latkes with pork chops, definitely not kosher, and roasted mushrooms, including some lovely black chanterelles. I didn't eat half of that food. But the leftovers went into a lovely hash, some of which I had this morning for breakfast.

I can't say that I only listen to classical music at Christmas, or that I don't like Christmas carols either, although I get tired of hearing them everywhere I go, especially now that many places start playing them before Thanksgiving. Nor can I say that my holiday music choices are particularly profound. I've listened to my favorite Christmas album, A Charlie Brown Christmas, several times already and it always makes me smile and feel generous and happy and filled with joy. Charlie Brown is part of my lifetime Christmas lexicon.

In these photo montages are my favorite Christmas season albums. I have more of a collection than I realized, and now I've added two more, the new Veni Domine album, plus the Itzhak Perlman album I've had a while, but which I never particularly associated with the December holidays. I don't use digital playlists yet, mostly because I haven't acquired speakers for my iPad or computer, or set up a way to connect them to my stereo system, something I need to look into next year.

My question to you is this: What is your favorite Holiday music? Do you listen to albums? If so do you have favorites? Do you listen to playlists? If so what are your favorite things to listen to this time of year? Do you listen to holiday music at all? Or do you come home, happy to get away from the world of "Jingle Bells" at every turn, and retreat into silence or play something else entirely?

December 21, 2017
A House Filled With Music

Take a deep breath. Inhale. Breathe out, slowly, letting worries escape on the drifting waves of air. Inhale again, and with a deep sigh release all that needs release.

The happy corner: Light and Music, a happy collaboration, and a lifetime's worth of collected joys.

I decorated the tree last Wednesday. In 2016 there was no tree, no decorations. I planned to go away for the holiday, but instead I got sick and bought a house. The three years before that, after my back surgery, I had a decorator do the tree, do the house, at first because I wasn't certain I could do the twisting and reaching necessary, and later because my heart wasn't in it. I just wanted Christmas to appear, as if by magic. It doesn't really work that way of course. The magic is in the making. This year this house, this corner especially, is the both the least decorated and the most magical Christmas in a long time. I sit and breathe and relax, listening to the music, looking at the glistening lights, the reflections of light and color, and my heart is at peace.

A friend helped me drag the tree up from the basement last Tuesday, for which I am quite grateful. I hauled out the stereo and set it up, flipped and fluffed and assembled the tree, and started sorting and filing CDs and LPs, which were still in slight disarray from the move. The stereo had been waiting for the cabinet ,which arrived just before Thanksgiving, but set-up was further delayed while I waited for a call from the man with the drill. I could wait no longer, so the stereo went up top, my old Talking Heads albums came out, with perhaps a brief interruption from the Ramones, and I was dancing around the house, filing, sorting, cleaning, and reconnecting with my 20-year old self, dancing around my first apartment, hanging my first ornament on my first tree, an ornament I still have by the way. Silliness reigned, and silliness is a powerful force.

Wednesday was calmer as the decorations came out. All my ornaments are on that tree. That never happened on a decorator tree, and much as I love decorator trees in other people's homes, here, I love my tree best, a mishmash accumulated over decades, rustic items mixed with glistening Radko glass, all dubbed "whimsical" by the decorator. Whimsical isn't really my term, but I have grown into it along with the implied imperfection. I love my tree, and as I decorated I listened to a mismatched clutter of music as well, my choices constrained only by the letters D and E in my sorting and cataloging project, and my varying moods and peripatetic thoughts. I danced and decorated to a mixed bag primarily consisting of soothing piano music by Debussy, the cheerful infectious pop of Raghu Dixit, the moody blues-rock of the Eels, and jazz by Eric Dolphy, complex, sometimes enervating, often energizing. Other bits and bobs found their way into the mix, a soupçon of Dvorak, Depeche Mode, Dylan and Eminem, as needed to soothe restless thoughts. Right now, I'm not sure I crave anything more than a reacquaintance with my music, all my music, and all the music yet to be discovered.

As I sat in the semi-dark late one evening, admiring the tree and hoping to knit but instead finding a cat and dog negotiating a detente on my lap, a glass of proseco in my hand and more Debussy filling the room, I realized how well this mish-mash suited me. It seems that as I've grown older I've grown more adventurous in my taste in music, more willing to be eclectic, to resist being pinned down. I'm not comfortable being decorated, curated, collected or defined, and I hope that never stops. I hope I can grow younger and more open as I grow older. I hope that I can always stop and enjoy the twinkling lights on a tree, the music in the early morning air as the wind blows gently through the leaves, a soft underpinning to the cawing of the crows, I hope I can be open to new things and, first and foremost, the joy of enjoying life, both in times of quiet and in times of company, and the importance of having fun.

The past week has been a mini-retreat, a letting-go of responsibilities and obligations, a release of psychic energy, an acknowledgement that I cannot fix what is not mine to fix. It has been a reminder that the solution is not to build walls to stop the waves, walls which will inevitably come crashing down, but to find my own center of calm, to bend, to float, and to allow the current to swirl around me on its own path, releasing it to its own destinations while simultaneously freeing myself from the burden of obligations that cannot be fulfilled. I dance, not because I am oblivious, but because I do indeed care. I dance because joy, like creativity, is a precious gift, a delicate commodity to be protected and safeguarded. Joy isn't our weakness but our strength; it doesn't stem from the absence of pain and suffering, but through it, a light in the darkness, a spark to be protected lest it be snuffed out.

December 19, 2017
Three Things Thursday

1. I was wandering around in the garden this morning, looking at all the weeds I need to pull and admiring the ways the flowers continue to bloom and thrive despite benign neglect. I've not been the best gardener of late, being somewhat preoccupied with other things, although I have to admit that summer heat has never been my friend.

Mostly I was feeling a little tired and faded, willing to sit back and just look at the weeds, pulling a few here and there, reminding myself that I'm about ready to return to the garden, but not today. Sometimes it is best to just sit back and let things be. I was drawn to the glorious color of these roses from across the yard, but when I got close I could see how they were a bit tired and faded along the edges.

The roses look exactly how I feel, a little floppy and droopy, but still hanging in there, and generally pretty happy.

2. Our church installed our new rector on Tuesday night. The ceremony was beautiful, and I got a chance to see some dear people I hadn't seen in a long time. Following the service was a celebratory dinner, held outside. It was a glorious evening, perfect for a joyous event. We had set up for 300, but there were a few empty seats so it is possible we only had 280 or 290. Either that or not everyone was seated at the same time, which is also quite likely.

I chaired the dinner committee, but if ever a project took a village, it was this one and I am so thankful for all the people who donated their time, money, or other miscellaneous items to make this truly a community celebration. I am also honored to have been a part of such a fabulous team of creative, dedicated, hard-working people. The team had been out in the heat Monday afternoon, with the advanced prep work required for setting up tiki torches and assembling items for the tables, and then again for most of the day on Tuesday getting everything set and ready.

3. This morning I was up early, having finally caught up on sleep, and fluids, and perhaps some quiet, meditative, time as well. I was up in the sewing room before dawn, disassembling this dress I bought in Florida in June, and re-sewing the side seams, whacking off about and inch and a half at the bust, and three inches at the hips. Granted it was about an inch too big in the hips when I bought it, but it still feels good to be able to wear the dress, and to knock one simple project of the to-do list. As you can see from the photo, I still have stuff piled up in the guest room, stuff that needs to go back to the master bedroom now that the floors are finished. The big boxes actually contain new light fixtures waiting for the electricians to return, or are they waiting for me call the electricians now that my schedule is once-again free? Heaven forbid I should have nothing to do…

September 1, 2016
Naptime: on the last day of my 58th year

Happy Birthday to me. I was born on July 5th 1958, and here, devoid of pretense or artifice, is what 58 looks like..

July 5, 2016
Happy July Fourth!

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

Many of us who grew up in the United States know this song. It is America the Beautiful, and this is the first verse. It is a song that often makes me cry, and I sang silently to myself along with the choir before the church service.

I love that first verse. It seems to hold so much promise and hope: The beauty of the earth, a yearning for grace, and a hope for brotherhood throughout all the land and all peoples, the same spirit of hope that is evident in the opening of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

But that first verse does not stand alone. It is the combination of the promise in that first verse, with the verse I learned as the last verse that always makes me cry, combining as the two do together the beauty and majesty of the world we live in with toil and effort of our struggle to live up to this glory in brotherhood and peace.

O beautiful for pilgrims feet,
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till paths be wrought through
wilds of thought
By pilgrim foot and knee!

Or at least I remember it as the last verse. Looking it up yesterday, I found that it is a variation on the second verse of the actual poem written by Katherine Lee Bates, which starts with pilgrim feet but ends differently. In some versions of the song, the second verse of the poem is the second verse of the song, and the version above is the sixth verse. Other versions have eight verses. In the 1982 Hymnal used by the Episcopal Church there are only three verses, and the pilgrim feet have been excised. It is somewhat intriguing to realize the way the things we learn as children and hold to be true prove to be just another tangled web in a world of tangled thoughts and messages. But that makes the intent no less true.

I still think it is a shame that this verse is not in the hymnal; to me it seems to be the most relevant to the mission of the church. Perhaps the problem lies in the usage, which is strange to modern ears. And yet it speaks so eloquently of the efforts of many people, working over many generations, people working through strife and opposition, often through stressful times, with passion to bring freedom to all. Wildernesses come in many forms, as do wild and tangled thoughts, but the hope and promise of a better tomorrow, and the struggle to achieve it despite our shortcomings, is always worth celebrating.

Fourth of July Fireworks at the Washington Monument, Washington, District of Columbia, USA.

Photo by By Camera Operator: SSGT. LONO KOLLARS -[public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, here.

July 4, 2016