My Life on Index Cards

As promised, I am well underway writing my memoirs. I tried to do this about four years ago, but really struggled with it, and then came the shocking, unexpected death of my little brother. Quite rightly, this brought the process to a screeching halt. And many things have happened since then...

So what I have decided to do this time is write short episodes and anecdotes by hand on 4x6 lined index cards. I've bought the multicolored ones, so that the cards can be grouped by rough time period. At least as of now, I don't intend this to be a "first this happened, and then this happened" kind of chronological account. Frankly, I have lost track of the exact threads of my timeline. What old datebooks and journals I had have either been tossed, or are in storage back east, and so I'm embracing the rather dreamlike aspect of some of the narrative and working with it, I hope.

One of the things that has become clear to me this go-round is the fact that, given my passion for English cathedral music, most of my life from the age of eight on was, by necessity, a Plan B. In the sixties, young English boys with musical talent would probably find their way into a cathedral choir and accompanying school. If this continued to be an interest, they would study at Cambridge or Oxford and sing in one of the college chapel choirs, and possibly even progress to sing countertenor, tenor or bass in a cathedral choir. This not having been an option for me as a girl and as an American, quite literally most of my life choices went wide of the mark, either slightly or spectacularly. The process of writing about the colorful journey that followed is thus rather bittersweet. I love what I have experienced, and yet I feel angry too at the utter waste of human talent in a specific field. I did my best not to waste divine time (and indeed, I guess my journey to help open up the field was a good use of that time!) but at 63, I can literally feel the pain of how distant certain activities were, and still are, from my core. I realize that this may ultimately be the source of my constant longing to "go home."

The phrase came to me, "my only home is my journey." So far that's been the case anyway! Let's see how many index cards it will take to write about it.

It's Strange

I returned from the UK one week ago, and I haven't even begun to adjust. Everything seems strange, from the quality of the light to the hues of the landscape (still largely greys and browns, with green in the process of popping). I appreciate the wider streets and increased spaciousness. I appreciate the mothering lake. But the actual energy of American life -- from the crime TV shows to the malls and retail strips to the evolving downtown to the news items on a weapons cache in L.A. -- feels harsh. But then it always has, to me. Increasingly, I realize that tuning my heart so early in life to music like Howells's Gloucester Service set an impossibly high bar, one that can probably be met only in a handful of locations and situations.

Still, somewhere in this unlikely stage set is the spot from which I'll write the book that is already taking shape. I may not write as frequently over the next few months, but I promise I'll keep you posted. (Hmm...a pun in the blog era?!)

London's Gate

Regular readers know that after my injury back in late December, I went through a succession of what I called "gates," processes that involved healing and new understandings prompted by being in recovery mode.


This week, I took my first solo trip to London by train. On past visits to England, this was par for the course, but this time, I had become almost phobic about the prospect of dealing with the big city, the crowds, the tube, etc. Indeed, it took me until only about two weeks ago to take the train to a nearby small city. Once I navigated that successfully, it seemed like it was time for London.


I was surprised to find that my big city, New York genes immediately took hold, and although I move much more carefully than I used to, I didn't feel actively afraid, even heading down those mile long escalators in the tube. The day involved seeing some beloved art at the National Gallery, a bus to St. Paul's Cathedral, and then, of course, choral evensong. There were amusing encounters with an exasperated gallery guard (run ragged by people leaning over the guardrails and nearly touching the paintings, and taking close-up photographs), a bus driver light-heartedly teasing me about my not knowing how to use my day travel pass, and a lonely soul on the city bus with a sadly inadequate blond wig, but lots of spirit and knowledge, who tour-guided the way up Fleet Street. The service, although evensong, was not one where they allowed seating in the choir stalls, so it was fascinating to hear the music from the crossing, near the modern altar. As at St. John the Divine in New York, there is almost too much reverberation. Oddly, I found myself less wishing I were singing in the choir, and more wishing I could give a "sermon" in such a vast space, to hear my echoing voice speaking to the crowds.


Several years ago, I wrote about how I've often felt that my soul has actually been residing in London, and certainly my day there only underscored the feeling that I could easily replicate that experience morning after morning for the rest of my life. As I reach the end of this visit, I haven't crossed that off my bucket list. But I have reached the end of the road in terms of trying to find ways to make "permanence" work. I've run out of  the "excuses" that I always hoped would bring serendipity ("I'm going over to study for a master's, to receive my diploma, to take an art course, to write about Herbert Howells, to sing or write about evensong"...) Now I think England will have to reach over across the Atlantic, and find its own excuse to want me here. Certainly for the short term in the U.S., my goal is to write a book, and get it out into the world. It will be rather different than this blog, which has only attracted small numbers of readers, but I'm not writing it differently to attract readers, just to give this post-63 path a little seasoning.


I am thankful for this portal journey and all its gifts. My life has definitely changed, in ways that I am sure will become clearer and clearer. I'll check in when I get back stateside.

Yeah...

So I'll be returning stateside soon, and despite all my promises to myself not to count down the days or feel bittersweet, I am, of course, doing both of those things. England has always felt like home to me, felt like the place I am rooted, and since reading Sharon Blackie's If Women Rose Rooted, rootedness feels so much more important than ever. I seem to be reasonably good at getting myself over here, touching the soil (and breathing in the expanse of landscape, the sound of birds, bells and choirs), but not so good at engaging deep down into the dark earth.


Yet when I rise (literally) above it all and observe the situation compassionately from a higher self perspective, it does seem that I am taking part in a deeper mystery here. Every aspect of my life has had a shamanic "between realities" quality, and this backing and forthing has to be part of it. Right now, I am much more aware of the need to be at home within myself, first and foremost. My few months here have rooted me more in that sense. I am not so much "homeless" or "between homes" but a universal home for some values that just simply do not yet seem to be well established in the world, leaving it hard to find my place. I have made a commitment to write a book this summer, and hopefully it will provide four walls (as it were) for those values. While writing the book, I may blog even less frequently, but I'll let you know about that in a few weeks.


Before leaving? I'm giving an informal talk, attending one or two more choral evensongs, attending one more physical therapy appointment for my wrist, and generally spending most of the days having a normal "go to the shops/make meals" kind of existence. We are living in such decidedly extraordinary times, it just seems crucial to grab hold of whatever feels normal while that's possible.


Yeah...

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.