Smouldering

There was a terrible deja vu about turning on the news Monday night, to see the Cathedral of Notre Dame ablaze. It's hard to believe it has been almost eighteen years since New York's twin towers, but it came back as if it were yesterday, and frankly, for this lover of gothic cathedrals, watching this fire was emotionally much harder. Putting aside religion, even spirituality, these buildings do seem to be unique places of amplification, transporting human yearning and human music out beyond space and time. When a cathedral burns (and it happened a lot in the Middle Ages, evidently, and even York Minster had a serious fire in the 1980s), I wonder if the sounds of conflagration are also amplified. There was no real audio in the news images I saw, and for much of the time, even the observing crowds were silent, stunned.


You cannot help but kind of scan your own personal connections to a place. I visited Notre Dame on a school trip to France when I was 15...I remember being overwhelmed by its scale and beauty, although my "thing" about cathedrals hadn't quite taken hold yet. Monday night, a BBC interview with a prominent musicologist underscored Notre Dame's importance to western music. Many innovations in Christian chant and the development of organum and early polyphony took place there, with the specific acoustics of the building in mind. My own MMus thesis was about a piece of 12th century music that was written in Aquitaine, in Aquitanian neumes. I doubt that it was ever sung at Notre Dame, but I was fortunate enough to see the original manuscript in 1981 in Paris's Bibliotheque Nationale. And my other tenuous link is having met Notre Dame's current organist out at Helena, Montana's Catholic cathedral, when he gave a spectacular recital a few years ago. Notre Dame's was one of the largest organs in the world; organists are in shock.


The impulse to rebuild just as it was before is understandable, although to me, kind of foreign. I've had to drag myself out of the smouldering ashes of so many aspects of my life and focus on the future so many times, I have rarely wanted to return to how things were. But then, I seem to be an unusually "post-" everything kind of person. My life seems to have largely taken place beyond the structures and strictures of the present. Still, I hold all of us in my heart, as we try to decide what of the past to keep or rebuild, what to incorporate or re-purpose for the present, and what to walk away from. If this event is a symbol for nothing else, surely it is that.

Birds and Bells

Last night, I had what I guess you would call a transcendent experience.


The local church has change ringing practice every Tuesday evening. From 7:30 to 9:00, bells peal in that distinctive manner that I only associate with England, mostly down the scale but with interesting variations. Earlier in my visit, it was too cool to open the window to hear the music clearly, but last night was warm, allowing free access for each note to strike a chord, literally, in my heart -- as did the evening birdsong. The most distinctive birdcall was also one I don't believe I have ever heard in the US -- this bird was singing the equivalent of a glorious personal solo. I sat with my eyes closed. I truly couldn't breathe properly for the half hour or so that the two complementary songs interweaved.


I look back on the dozen or so visits I have made to the UK, and it can be hard to choose the most memorable moments: the first time I attended evensong at King's, walking toward Royal Holloway dragging my big suitcase, going in to London for classes in a train going "clickety-clack, clickety clack" down the rails, walking purposefully across Waterloo Bridge through the streets of London towards the British Museum, walking across the stage at the Royal Albert Hall to receive my MMus degree. Or more recently, singing an evensong at King's, visiting Herbert Howells's childhood home and church in Lydney, auditioning for a cathedral choir, doing Howells research at the Royal College of Music, singing a week of services at Canterbury...I have been blessed with an extraordinary path paved with nuggets of musical gold.


But last night, I realized that the England moment that may always stay with me into old age, from wherever I am, will be those birds and bells. They are simply sounds that are not part of the palette of America -- and even if they were accessible in the U.S., they would not resonate with the same history, sense of place, and sense of spirit.


Despite all the writing I have done about divine love, the fact is that all too often, I access that love through my intellect. As an Aquarian, and a woman with a genius IQ, that is my default setting for just about everything. But last night, the birds and bells pierced my heart, and were an experience of joy and grace. I could feel, as well as hear and intellectually understand, the stream of love and beauty around me, and the fact that I was part of it. I am very thankful.

A certain perfection

It may not seem that way from the outside, but there is a certain perfection to my journey, a certain perfection to the way things happen. Last time, I commented on how I was beginning to feel less like a cork (or, to use a metaphor I have used in the past, a rickety boat) bobbing on the water, and more like a more powerful, permanent island in the stream or ocean. And what happens within 24 hours of that? I discover the most wonderful book, Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic. I have underlined so many passages in this book that I cannot possibly do more here than scratch the surface.


Here, essentially, is her theme: "The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them. The hunt to uncover those jewels -- that's creative living" (Page 8). I love the fact that by that standard, by fully engaging with the hunt, my life can be seen to have been successful after all.


The most thought-provoking stretch of the book for me was the beginning of the section entitled "Trust," starting on page 201. She tackles, head on, something I have touched on in one or two previous blogs, the issue of whether the thing we are passionate about is passionate about us. Basically, it has to do with how so many of us assume that the thing we want to devote our life to (her examples are nature and writing) are, in fact, indifferent to us, or worse. This is, in part, what leads to the classic artist's persona of suffering, martyrdom for one's art. We are willing to sacrifice everything to something that may well not care for us in return. Bless her, Gilbert's case is that inspiration loves us, and wants us to create and succeed -- not the opposite.


Having through the years devoted so much love to situations that seemed to be so indifferent to me, I've been a prime candidate for this kind of martyrdom in every possible area of my life. After reading this section of the book, I have decided that with the time I have left on this side of the Atlantic, I'm going to focus on discerning: does cathedral music love me in return? Does England? Even if I feel a special calling to be here and create some unique art form or spiritual oeuvre, is this an inspiration that wants to connect with me? Is there a mutuality to this? Or is my "strange jewel" actually something above and beyond place? Would it be possible for me to leave in a few weeks and finally let go?


If the latter questions should turn out to be true (and if in fact I have graduated to a whole new level of my journey), then some of the material late in the book will be as pertinent to me going forward as it is to anyone trying to discern their calling or gifts for the first time. She talks about letting simple curiosity lead you forward, potentially into a "raw new unexplored universe within yourself." At the very least, I am curious as to how to start really feeling the mutual engagement between my passionate life energy and a wonder-filled universe. I am curious about what it will feel like when the breath of inspiration moves back and forth.

The cork

In the wake of my last blog post, where I spoke of "home" being where people actually want to hear your life stories, a lot has come up.


Here's a life story. About five years ago, I made my first trip to the UK in many years. When I got back, family members scheduled a dinner meant, they said, to welcome me back. After everyone had gathered around the table, I waited for someone, anyone, to ask some meaningful question about my experience in England. When someone said, "Geez, Liz, how's the food in England these days?" I took an in breath, ready to report on the improved culinary options available, when the whole table burst into uproarious laughter and moved on to some other topic. So I did what I always did in my family, clammed up, watched, and tried to take in all the spirited conversation about politics, skiing, retirement communities, and other people's travels. At the end of the meal, I played my other usual role and cleaned up the dishes. Yes, I could have been the one to change the dynamic; I could have stood up and said, "Why did you bill this as a welcome home event for me if you had no intention of finding out how my trip went?" But then I would have been blamed for ruining a nice family dinner and as usual being the cause of friction, and after over half a century of this whole "story," I don't think I cared any more. It had been an extraordinary visit to England, thank you very much, and I guess I preferred to hold it close to my heart.


At today's rather mystical moment, where my hand is so much improved and all my energy doesn't need to be spent healing -- and where for a short time still, I am here in England -- I am finding all my life stories drifting through my consciousness like ripples on the water, yet I feel so detached from most of them. When you grew up with this kind of family dynamic and then developed a passion for a field that was completely inaccessible to you, you do rather become a cork on the wide ocean, drifting from buoy to boat to floating detritus to inlet, hoping not so much for physical safety, but to find the place you belong. You think, if so-and-so likes this place or activity, maybe I will too. If I listen carefully, maybe I'll hear a conversation that intrigues me. If I travel far and wide, perhaps a Plan B landscape will resonate inwardly with me. There have been so many such experiences, so many of these dinner table experiences (even not at the dinner table) -- in a way, it is a metaphor for my whole life! -- yet suddenly, it is as if I've climbed up to a new level and all these places and jobs and situation have almost gone down the drain, representing an old dimension that I can no longer see or feel. Of course, I don't quite know what makes up the new dimension!


But even over here, I have to be very protective of myself...just because something randomly exists in England, doesn't mean it is right for me. And just because I may hear the glorious music of a cathedral service doesn't mean my relationship to it hasn't changed radically. I haven't so much "retired" as graduated, and I don't need to go back to the old classrooms anymore for my lessons. If I had to describe myself this morning, it is not so much as a wandering, bobbing cork, but as a strong, hardy island in the midst of the turbulent water. If any lovely corks make it to my shores, we'll share stories, OK?

Another definition of Home

The other day, I watched most of an amazing documentary on BBC 2. Entitled "The Choir," it follows the staff and students of the school next to the Grenfell Tower in London (the apartment building which burned in 2017) as they create a concert/musical event to mark the re-opening of their school.


Here's what was so moving for me; teachers and staff encouraged the students to be themselves, to express as much of their emotion and talent as they could and wished to. Most of these 12- and 14-year olds were much as I was at the same age, pale and bespectacled, with frizzy hair and a school uniform. They were every bit as unselfconfident as I was in 1968. But the difference was that the teachers in this marvellous, diverse school were active in their encouragement and honest in their own emotions, their own eyes welling up with tears as the students created skits and songs about the horrors of that event. I tried to imagine such honest "presence" in my own early teachers, and couldn't. This isn't to criticize them, but it was simply another era.


Here I am, a 63-year old woman trying step-by-step to learn how to feel safe telling my own stories. I've made a commitment to moving beyond this blog to tell my story, which I have only scratched the surface of. I though this morning, maybe "home" is actually where people want to hear your stories, where your reality isn't pushed back and contradicted. Maybe home is where people say, tell me everything. Your story is safe with me, and it will enrich me to hear it. And where you feel safe in the telling.

The Micromanager

One of the most interesting things I have learned about myself in recent years is that I am a micromanager. That is, I have a tendency to try to control every little detail of what is going on around me. I did this to some extent before my fall -- I'm acutely intelligent and organized, have sharp visual and location skills, and am a good time manager -- so getting things done on the small, nearby level has never been a problem even with my rootless life. But since my fall, and in the wake of feeling my age and limitations more acutely, my tendency to scan the world for details and ways of smoothing my path (and avoiding risk) has increased. Once the initial shock receded and I became at least a little more mobile, I found that I was planning ahead, everything from the most efficient way to bring things upstairs, to how to do my errands in such a way that I carry an empty shopping bag uphill and a filled one downhill. I don't want to have to take extra trips. At times, I have been not just a little irritating, I am sure.


But I've been thinking about this as an energetic phenomenon, energy going into "x" when it could go into "y." Many of my female friends are superb managers (micro and otherwise!) And yet very few of my contemporaries made it into the higher echelons of management in any sphere, be it education, politics, finance, law, or medicine. We are women in our sixties, coming to terms with retirement from jobs or lower-level careers, our or our family's health issues, children's and grandchildren's lives, and how or when to continue with volunteer activities and earlier life goals. Are we so competent managing these facets of life because our real superpowers were not put to their best use?


I think of my grandmother Winnifred, the pioneering lawyer. She never really practiced law because in the early 1900's, once you married you were not allowed to work. She threw herself into her boys' educations, organizing her husband (probably unsuccessfully) and upper middle class household, teaching bridge and researching genealogy. But by all accounts, she became miserably unhappy, and died at about 61. Her extraordinary genius really had no outlet.


My own mom was extremely organized and competent in many spheres (from the Junior League to church), but she rarely had a job, much less a career. It was only several weeks before she died that she admitted to me that, based on the fabulous work of her hospice nurses, she finally believed that women should have careers! But the image that stays with me came from the previous summer, when she wanted to see and deal with all the boxes on the second floor of their garage. I brought a folding chair out onto the driveway in the shade under a tree, and one by one I brought down dozens of old boxes, many of which hadn't been opened in decades. Mom made decisions about all the contents, sorting things to keep, to give away, to give to the church yard sale, to sell in a family yard sale, to give to my brothers or myself, or for my dad to keep in the future. Exhausted from emphysema, she sat slumped over her knees, but she was "the decision-maker."


Even a few years ago when I lived in the YWCA in Montana, I was struck by how powerful the women were. Life had beaten them down, and their power was expressed in outrage about stolen food in the kitchen, or stolen boyfriends, or cattiness. But I just knew that if their lives had taken even one different turn, they might have been powerful members of society.


I can't speak for anyone else. I guess all I will say is that the more I micromanage, the more I wonder what my real form of management or leadership is. There is probably something bigger going on here, even now, if I let it.

The gate of self-forgiveness

Those of you who are regular readers know that I have gone through a number of symbolic gates since falling and breaking my wrist at Christmas. And at times, I am sure I repeat some information from earlier posts, now that I am nearing the five hundred mark! I won't apologize for any repetition, but just know that I realize that I am circling around the spiral and sometimes hitting old themes from a new spot.


I spoke last time about how I really accepted over the last few weeks that "trying to get myself (and other women) into the field of English cathedral music" truly was my career in this lifetime. Every major decision I have ever made had something to do with this goal.


All in all, I am an incredibly competent person. I am organized, brilliant, observant, and can get anything done when the passion is there. Yet considering most of my adult work life from the distance of this post-accident space I've been in, a lot of shame and embarrassment have arisen. I've been such an incompetent normal American person. Once I accepted that there was no chance that I and other women would ever have careers in my field, I tried to detour all my passion into other areas, hoping that some other field, some other place, some other group of people or goals would light me up. None ever did. With a resume with everything from an MMus in early Christian chant from the University of London, and Time Magazine, to waitressing, retail, and adjunct professor, I floundered. I haven't been able to sustain myself, and I'm thankful in a way I never had children because they would have suffered. My lack of even the most basic American "success" has weighed heavily on me.


But in this moment of retirement from what I was really doing on the higher level, I see that the qualities of the English cathedral scene -- glorious music, beauty, spiritual and artistic richness, majesty, ordered ritual, history and a thousand year tradition -- are simply not transferrable to America or its capitalist career world. The two careers that would have suited my intellect (law or academia) wouldn't have aligned from the standpoint of beauty. The art world doesn't have the tradition or the spiritual and music depth. And the handful of American churches and cathedrals following this tradition are in a different landscape, still have only men and boys' choirs, or have only recently added any options for girls or women. Back in the 80's, I just couldn't see any "jobs" that recreated the qualities of the milieu I loved, but I was young and hoped I could find a Plan B.


There was nothing equivalent, and in a sense what I was trying to accomplish was impossible. To the extent that I have felt ridiculous and incompetent, I think that is washing away now. I forgive myself for failing to "make it" because I have accepted that I was successful in softening the walls barring women in the world. I suspect some of the earliest women pioneers, including my own grandmother, Winifred in the field of law, had parallel experiences.


Some people talk about wanting to make the world a better place by bringing peace to the planet, housing and food. I guess my wish for the world is that no person, male or female, ever has to divert their true passions for any reason. I hope we will see a world where we recognize these passions as the voice of the divine, and cherish and encourage everyone's best gifts.