This may seem to be an odd post, even contradictory to a few things I have written recently. But this weekend gave me a few opportunities to feel genuine appreciation for the old paradigm, even as we are leaving it and I feel such eager anticipation for the new one.
It was the first time since returning to the Capital District that I experienced multiple synchronicities and memories involving my childhood. I guess having come back on the cusp of winter, and not having a car, I just wasn't out and about much until now. On Saturday, I was driven right by the house I grew up in from birth to age eight -- a small, 1930's era cottage on what was then a country road, and is now a rather major suburban artery. When my parents owned it, it was painted white and seemed delicate, and far from the road, but I think the road gained a lane in the intervening 70 years, and the house is currently painted brown, so the whole thing looks (and feels) quite different, heavy and crammed close to the road. I went to an estate sale in a home filled to the gills with early American antiques, the kind that would be unlikely to show up in Duluth. The house was literally steeped in history, and oddly stifling, made worse by the torrential rains outside. It was literally (and figuratively) an atmosphere I couldn't wait to leave after purchasing a box of colored pencils and an old fabric change purse. In true Liz style, I had also eyed a beautiful circle pin with white and blue stones which I assumed was costume jewelry (given the fact that it had no price tag on it)...but it ended up being the real deal, and many hundreds of dollars. Yes, I had to pass it up. There are moments when I wish just once in this unusual lifetime of mine I could own a "real deal", and wear it in that beautiful Sargent-esque oil portrait I also dream of! (The old paradigm isn't done with me yet!)
Then, as the weekend progressed, I serendipitously bumped into one old friend, and was on an online call with some others. I feel more appreciative than I have for a long time of my life up through college, while at the same time, embracing how different my subsequent life has been from those of most of my acquaintances. Finally, I can say with certainty that I wouldn't have wanted anyone else's life.
One more appreciation this morning. I was listening to classical public radio, and a piece by Edward Elgar was followed by one by Gustav Holst. Even when these pieces aren't identified, I know they are the music at the core of me, and a wave of appreciation swept over me for just the phenomenon I said the other day that I have moved beyond: history as a succession of great men. It's almost as if my body could see and feel the tide that started with Thomas Tallis, and moved on to Byrd, Gibbons, Purcell, Parry, Stanford, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Holst, Howells, Britten...a wave of incredible beauty, passion, and expressiveness. How to embrace the fact that a paradigm capable of wars, violence and hatred can also create such immense beauty? It's a hard one. How does one almost literally say good-bye to an entire thousands-of-years-old era knowing that so much beauty may be lost -- or utterly transformed?
I guess that's the key, to listen to certain music and imagine music ten times more melodious, omnipresent and nurturing. To look at natural beauty and imagine even more astonishing beauty emerging from the chaos. To look with the eyes of an artist at all the events happening in our world. To imagine more love-filled institutions emerging from our current reality.
Appreciation of the best parts of the old paradigm may make the coming Transition gentler and more navigable. But no matter what, when I am in appreciation, it's good to fully feel it.
