Catching Up

Warning:  This is a LONG entry.  If you are determined to wade through I suggest a laptop, a comfy chair, and a snack.  The funniest bit is at the beginning.  I will tell you about Hubby, Some Old Stuff About My Ex-Christian Baggage, and the Weekend I Spent Singing In Vermont.  In a Church!  Hubby's stitches came out yesterday.  This appointment was a lot shorter than the 5-hour marathon when he got them.  On the day of the procedure I had gone back with George for his last trip in, thinking maybe this was going to be when the doctor would talk to him about the post-surgical care.  I didn't realize that the sewing was about to begin (ewww).  In typical George fashion, he was bantering with the Doc despite his personal discomfort, his way of coping with a stressful situation. "I've had to take part of your eyebrow," says Dr. Z., "it's not going to grow back." "I'd rather you didn't transplant any butt hairs up there," quips George. Dr. Z sees George's wager and raises him one.  "You know, the two places on the body with the thinnest skin are the eyelid and the scrotum."  This by way of prefacing his comments about how careful he's going to be with what remains to be done. "Great," moans George.  "Hairy eye-balls!"  "I wasn't going to go there," surrenders Dr. Z with a snort, and he changes the subject.   I snicker.  How very George! As it turns out, Dr. Z did a great job with the sutures, and the missing bit of eyebrow is small enough that I think only hubby and I are going to notice.  The bruising has completely faded (yeah, it kinda looked like I hit him with a baseball bat for a few days there) and the swelling has almost entirely gone away.  In the meantime, I have had an interesting weekend trip to Burlington, Vermont for an obligation I promised months ago.  This friend of mine, Arby, (not his name, and mentioned before in my journal, it was about his church that I wrote the "Freak Lightning" piece posted recently) is a choir director for an Anglican congregation two towns over.  He is an amazing director/organist/singer, former director of a gay chorus, lifelong church musician - I met Arby while working with a semi-professional children's/youth chorus. A few years ago I had been moaning about wanting to improve my singing skills, wondered if he would give me some lessons.  His schedule was a bit too cramped for that, so Arby suggested (sneaky devil) I come sing in his choir. Yeah.  Right.  THAT's going to happen... was my initial attitude.  I have a severe allergy to most churches.  I'm not merely an atheist, I'm an Atheist-With-Baggage (see my profile). Much to my surprise I DID end up singing for him on and off for two seasons.  One year I sang Christmas, another year I sang Easter, and yes, it WOULD be asking too much of me to do both in the same year.  I'd probably burst into flames.  See, the thing is, I can take it for a while, but then at some point it's just too much and I can't be around it. "Around what?" you ask.  The words.  I can't take the words.  The only reason I can sing for Arby is because his congregation is so absolutely gay friendly.  The rector's son is gay - and his partner IS part of the family.  There are several couples in attendance.  Arby and his partner (Elby!) had a commitment ceremony in that church - attended by about 300.  The second Sunday I attended one of the parishioners said to me, "wherever your journey takes you, I honor that." Wow.  Where the f--- was she 25 years ago when I was going through all the shit MY church was throwing at me for coming out? ...And... I kinda fell in love with the choir members.  I really like them.  One or two were extremely understanding of my issues and especially supportive.  So it's not the people that bug me.  It isn't God that upsets me (well, that would only make sense, since IMO he/she is imaginary to begin with). It's the words. Every Sunday, because the Episcoplians are a liturgical lot, some words get frequent airplay, for example the Communion, or the Nicene Creed.  Every Sunday I have to run them through my inner translators: "what could it MEAN, what COULD it mean, WHAT could it mean that isn't the literal bullshit that was once used to teach me self-loathing and make me fear hell?" If I work at it hard enough I can boil away enough words to get to some idea I can kind of live with, like: "yeah I messed up this week, I'd like to do better next," or "gee, the universe is a big place," or "I wish you well," or "sometimes the world is scary and I need comforting." It IS a lot of work and it's tiring - and I can only keep it up for so long before I snap and say something angry and cynical to some poor unsuspecting soul. All of which is preface to -  - the weekend in Burlington, Vermont.  I'd like to state, for the record, that I did NOT burst into flames, although there was one incendiary moment that fortunately did not land on any one who was tinder-hearted and a conflagration was averted. Every other summer or so Arby takes his choir on a weekend field trip to sing at another church.  Two years ago they went to NYC.  The deal is they will sing an Evensong on Saturday (no communion or sermon) and a Sunday morning service.  As part of the Evensong Arby plays a half-hour organ recital for prelude. We sang at St. Paul's Cathedral - a modern building constructed in the early 70s as a replacement for an older building that unfortunately had burned down.  From the outside I thought it was blocky and kind of ugly (some contemporary architecture leaves me cold), but from the inside - well! The sanctuary was essentially a tall concrete cube.  The ceiling was probably about 35 feet away from the floor to accommodate a small (!) tracker pipe organ that was placed in one corner.   The wall beside the organ was a floor-to-ceiling set of gigantic windows that face Lake Champlain, the view now partially obstructed by a hotel built in front of it three years ago.  When Arby was practicing his recital pieces I stood transfixed by the window trying to take in lake and sky.  Suddenly I was back in the church where Ellen's funeral was a year and half ago... ...that Catholic church was more or less traditional in style.  The stone arches were carved and colored in such a way as to evoke fluffy-puffy clouds, to deceive the eye into forgetting that tons of stone and concrete stood in Atlas Globe-Bearing function all around you, I suppose to put you in mind of Heaven and Light... ...but here, at St. Paul's, such did not have to be evoked - because it was THERE.  It was a little like being overwhelmed by a starry night sky in the country away from city glare.  The window (which curved around at the top to meet the roof) gives one a sort of figure-ground ground conundrum - are those clouds outside or inside?  How can being indoors give one such outdoor vertigo?  This room is so much TALLER than me that the view it affords nearly induces agoraphobia... and yet, it doesn't feel like a huge place - how can a sanctuary be so Enormous and Intimate at the same time?  Acoustically the space is a singer's paradise.  It is the perfect chamber in which to make chamber music.  Indeed, this is what we must do as a choir, because the logistics of placement force it on us. Arby is facing the organ, back to all of us.  The mirror to his left allows him a view of the altar, which is in a shadow-box perpendicular to and set back behind the line of the vast Window Wall.  Behind the altar is an enormous tapestry that looks like a quilt - its multi-colored rectangle-bricks at first glance appear random.  As you look at it, however, you begin to realize that what it is, is the sunset you would be able to see if that wall wasn't there, the colors of the rectangles giving shape to the picture in the same way your computer does when you blow up an image to the point where it appears only as pixels.   Our director can't see any of us from the organ.  For the Evensong, we are seated in the center of the room in four rows, two facing the Window Wall (so we can see Arby's back) and two rows facing us. In order for the ensemble to work we have to sing to each other, listen to the aural cues for tempo, individually maintain the forward motion so we don't end up wallowing in the sound and dragging the music into torpor.  I've been watching Arby at the organ and following his gestures - and because of my quartet playing experience I'm moving with him a bit as I sing. Several of the sopranos on the other side tell me that they've been watching me for the cues and Arby tells me later that this will now be my job! A few times in rehearsal it begins to feel like the the quartet-playing experience I miss so much. We break from the morning rehearsal and have lunch.  It is a glorious, glorious, beautiful summer's day, delicious breezes blowing in off the lake.  After eating I walk the mile and a half back to the conference center dorm (owned by the Episcopal diocese) where we have been staying.  Arby and his partner are already there when I get back (they drove) and we go swimming.  Actually, THEY  go swimming and I go wading.  When I talked to George on my cell at lunch he made jokes about spotting Nessie, then decided I wasn't likely to see the Loch Ness Monster, this one would probably be called Champy. I cast about at the beach to find something to stick out of the water to photograph as Champy, but sadly don't come up with anything to amuse him with.  If only I were a proficient PhotoShopper! Ah well. It was a lovely afternoon... but by the time we went back to St. Paul's for Evensong I realize that, like an IDIOT, I have forgotten that a) I'm very fair-skinned, b) I'm bald, c) I haven't worn a hat all afternoon and d) my sunscreen is at the bottom of my suitcase.  Not only am I now a redneck, I am also truly a redhead.  Even more so than when I DID have hair! The Evensong goes fairly well.  I turn pages and pull stops for Arby during the half-hour recital prelude.  It's a little tricky because occasionally the sleeve of my choir robe hangs up on one of the stop handles, so I have to pull my clothing out of the way before I can flip the page.  The second piece that he plays is a Mendelssohn organ sonata that puts me in mind of Night on Bald Mountain.  Serendipitously, the weather has now changed from sunny summer halcyon to a Kansas Prelude to Oz, the crashing minor chords on the organ accompanied by the 32' Contra Bombarde of Rain and Thunder outside.   When he finishes I rejoin the choir.  My favorite moment is when we sing Verlieh uns Frieden, also by Mendelssohn. Sunday morning is a little more of a panic because the little details of ritual are slightly different - like the way the bulletin is printed, when the hymns and psalms are sung, which way we have to look, how the processional/recessional happens... but the beautiful thing about this service is that now that we've had a full day in the space it finally feels like we've figured out how to make it resonate without forcing our voices.  It is awe-inducing to realize how little effort it takes.  I would love to sing there again sometime. The choir went out to dinner Saturday night and then again for brunch on Sunday.  It's at the brunch when I have my moment.  We were talking about literal questions kids ask, and the peculiar fascination with crucifixion of one child in particular that made me blurt out something about my objection to "teaching those lies to children." I immediately apologized and the subject was changed...   it was sort of inevitable, though.  I thought I was going to be okay until I got home, but well, there it is. All in all, it was a positive experience, I'm glad I did it.  The music making was satisfying enough to compensate for the doctrinal angst, and I had a moment or two of verklempt.   And now, Arby is going to perform the same recital music at his church this afternoon (no other service or liturgy involved), so I need to change clothes and go turn pages for him again.  No choir robe this time so nothing to get hung up on the organ! If you've read this far and haven't fallen asleep - congratulations, you may count yourself as one of the most patient people on the planet (either that or you're horrifically bored and anything is better than one more episode of the Twilight Zone on the SciFi channel marathon). hugs,Brian