Little Things

This time of wrapping up such a huge project,

beginning to free up brain space and actual time and space,

combined with the coming of spring,

seems a perfect setup for me to be particularly attentive to little things

and how much joy they give me.

Some days I feel as if I am seeing life, really seeing it,

for the first time in a long, long time.

Like a peek into the opening of a dogwood blossom the other morning.

And the little remaining evening light falling on the chair at the piano.

And this little walkway, which, even though I know exactly where it goes, always fills me with a sense of adventure and wonder at what might lie ahead. . .

Violets that fill our yard, and these few just perfect for the tiny pitcher on the windowsill.

Also on the windowsill, there year-round,

these sweet little ones from my parents' stop in the Amsterdam airport over twenty years ago.

They are always there, but somehow recently I see them more often.

And on this evening saw their cute little shadow.

Little things are only little compared to bigger things.

And often they represent things much bigger than their physical size hints at.

I read recently that the writer Robert Brault,

about whom I know nothing,

said,

"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back

and realize they were the big things."

Whoever he is, I think he is right.

Primavera

Primavera always makes me think "first green." In Italian, "verde" is green, and a little etymological hunting seems to confirm that at least some word hunters believe the Latin words for "spring" (ver) and "green" (viride) may go back to some shared root. it would certainly make sense.

This post isn't about the first green, but the blossoms that precede the green leaves. But primavera dictionarily means "spring," and that's what this is about. The coming to life after a period of dormancy. The colors after the more "meno-chrome" winter, if I may create a new word not for  the monochrome state of having only one color, but the winter-in-the-South state of having less color.

The grass was still actually monochrome at the time I took these pictures a couple of weeks ago, except for those few little green weeds.

We always had a flowering quince in the yard when I was growing up, so I wanted to have one in our yard here. When I called the nursery, the owner didn't have the brighter, solid peachey red I was hoping for, but he suggested this one instead.

I took a chance, based on his description over the phone.

And am so glad I did! It's really beautiful, and even though it's still a young thing,

this year it had more blossoms than the two years before.

I'm beginning to feel as if my own mind, body, and heart are coming to life again after a long winter.

I started this degree in 2012, the same year my mom began having serious health problems and hospitalizations that went on throughout the next four years. So it's been a very, very unusual five years since then. I often felt I couldn't give enough to school because of the family situation. And I often felt I couldn't give enough to my family because of school.

And yet, somehow the energy kept coming, and we made it through to my mom's beautiful and victorious ending. And I recently defended my thesis project, and am very close to bringing that to an ending. Not nearly the same kind of beauty and victory, but an ending I'll be thankful for.

Since the defense (on February 27), I have struggled with an exhaustion of mind, body, and spirit. I did stay up pretty late a few nights the week before the defense, but i don't think it's just that immediate sleep deprivation. I think it's five years of tiredness finally feeling free to make itself felt. Throughout the past month, I have just not felt capable of doing anything beyond what I absolutely had to do--and occasionally have cancelled commitments because I was just too tired even for those routine activities.

It has been, I must say, a wonderful thing to experience spring this year. I always love spring, but this year especially it is like a promise. A promise that new life will return, because it always does. It doesn't depend on the flowers or the birds or the trees to make it happen. The Creator and Sustainer makes it happen, year after year after year.

And so even though I must of course do what I can to get my sleep, eat well, rest, drink water, make time for the refreshment of friends and family--it doesn't depend on me to somehow make my energy return. I can trust that it will.

And little by little, just in the past week or so, it has been happening.

A couple of mornings I've waked up and felt alive, refreshed, eager to get up and get going. Sometimes it lasts two hours, sometimes four or five. Sometimes I've taken a short nap and felt energetic again in the afternoon.

I've been remembering recipes I haven't made in 4-5 years. I've begun playing the piano more than I have in a long time. Little by little it's as if my brain is finding more space available, and even my body is remembering routines it had to temporarily forget about for a while.

And here I am, writing on my blog!

The flowering quince is all in green now, at the time I'm writing this. Only four or five blossoms remain on the plant; the rest is all filled out in green leaves. Primavera.

But it was those blossoms that gave me so much hope and joy. They are fragile but beautiful, and this year they helped me believe that as fragile and tired as I've felt, the day would come when the sap would flow more fully, the green leaves would come out, and the plant would be ready for another season of growth.

I trust that I will be ready again before too long, too.

For behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. 

The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come....

Song of Songs 2:11-12

Numbering Our Days

Teach us to number our days,

that we may get a heart of wisdom.

~Psalm 90:12

Today is the birthday of Neva Jane White, the piano teacher I've written about before. It's hard to let it go by without at least a quick sharing of a couple of memories that came to me this morning.

This is a piece I learned in my first year with her.

She was the first teacher, as I recall, that had me write numbers in each measure. It made so much sense, because once I got out of the teaching method books, measure numbers weren't marked in any way. I don't remember if an earlier teacher had marked them herself or if we just referred to "the top line on the secong page, that third measure there....."

I just remember that Mrs. White had me write in the numbers of every new piece I got, and although it took me some time at the begining, it saved a lot of time as we worked on the piece.

Obviously, measure seven here needed a little help with the left-hand fingering.

Thinking about measure numbers today made me think about the verse written above, from the psalms. Some versions actually say "teach us to measure our days," though it seems most say "number." Either way, it connected to the idea of numbering my measures.

And I just love this warning she put on the top of page three (photo below). It comes after two pages of essentially the same rhythms played out in many different harmonic combinations, then a measure of four quintuplets leading up to this completely different section with new rhythm patterns, new harmonies, a new pedaling pattern--essentially, a big change in the piece where new energy comes in and the sound brightens, leading to a climax about halfway down the page.

And here, I had a tendency to rush. Of course! All that newness, so many things to think about, and knowing that even bigger stuff lay just ahead. Adrenalin was probably building in my brain and body, if we could have measured it. I'm sure the measure of quintuplets had a way of distracting me from the original tempo, too.

So, "don't rush." I've found it's excellent advice for just about every new situation in life.

Because whether you rush or not, you are going to get to the end. (I laughed when I saw I had put an exclamation point after that 50--down in the next photo. Maybe this was the first piece she ever had me write measure numbers in?)

Self-control is highly underrated, it seems, in the society I see and hear all around me. One of the many things playing and singing music has done for me, is that is simply taught me self-control. I was a child who always loved to play piano, so I don't have the kinds of stories some would about being forced to sit and practice when they wanted to be out playing football. But even though I loved it, it still took self-control to put it before other things I loved when that was needed. And the focus required to stay on task with a new (harder) piece, rather than just playing anything and everything, took self-control. Everything about it took, and takes, self-control.

In a culture that is all about rushing into the next thing, switching focus from one distraction to another, and "following your passions," I'm thankful for a teacher and an activity that taught me to slow down, to do the same thing over and over, to really think things through (how does this measure fit with the one before it? what tempo can I sustain throughout this entire piece? how will I refrain from my tendency to start this piece too quickly? which of these two fingerings works best for me to get from this section to the next? how do I really want this to sound in the end? etc.)

Mrs. White, in all the years I knew her, never seemed to be in a hurry. Even when she was running behind schedule and putting on her makeup while I was there at her house after a lesson, she was calm and gentle and thoughtful of my presence, not letting her mind rush on to the next thing and allowing the future to take over the present.

I want to live that way. There are wonderful measures like the one below, with fortissimos and sforzandos, and they can be wonderfully passionate and exciting. But they lose their meaning without the careful tempos and fingerings that get you to that point. And if the whole piece is played fast and loud, then this kind of ending is meaningless.

The other memory that came to me this morning was when my chorus had begun working on Lauridsen's "Lux Aeterna." I took a recording of it to her house, along with the score. Just before I hit "play" on her CD player, I said, "I really think you're going to love this."

And in that first very long measure, as a single note began by the strings in octaves so far apart, barely, barely hear-able, just going on and on, she said,  very quietly and gently, "I already do."

She knew how to number measures, how to make and hear beautiful music, and she taught me how to number my days. I hope to grow into the heart of wisdom she possessed.

May light eternal shine upon her.

One Hundred Years of Blessing

Dorothy Mildred Evans Christmas, my maternal grandmother, was born a century ago plus one day, on November 7, 1915.  Yesterday would have been her hundredth birthday.

I've written about her before. In case you want to read more about her, you can look at all these posts, and you'll see what I mean when I say how beautiful she was, both from the photos and from the way she wrote letters, gave gifts, and--well, I think you can just see that she was a beautiful person. You can see some of her Christmas decorations and the candle she put on the big dining room table where we always gathered for holidays, birthdays, and other special meals. You can see her Bible and the "Power for Today" devotional booklet she kept rubber-banded together with it, which she read or had one of us read each day. You can see her sturdy old deep freeze and some of the things that came from it, and you can imagine the hospitality that made possible.  You can see a rosebush that came from the rosebush in her garden, and pictures of the garage it was near.

And more.

Yesterday, in honor of her birthday, we ate grapefruit (something I did only at her house) from the green and white bowls that were hers. And used her grapefruit knife. And grapefruit spoons, too--not pictured, but made with pointy ends, just for eating grapefruit.

And I used her spoons while measuring baking soda and cream of tartar for biscuits . . .

and we set the table with her plates for biscuits and scarmbled eggs. My mom told me these were the first dishes my grandparents had, so I guess they are themselves now about eighty years old.

It was a lovely way to start the day.

And although it wasn't done intentionally in her honor, I think she would have been happy that later in the day I took a shoe to the shoe repair shop to have some velcro replaced, rather than giving up on the shoes.

Today I was able to spend a little time looking through pictures. Since she died in 2003, pre-digital cameras, and Granddaddy died in 1989, I don't have as many pictures of them as I feel like I ought to have. But a few minutes' searching turned up some that I hadn't seen in a long time.

What I haven't mentioned, something that strikes me each year as I turn the calendar to November, is that my granddaddy died on November 6, the day before her birthday. I wonder what the odds of that happening are. It's a strange coincidence. I was living in Italy when Granddaddy died. He had been ill for some time, and it was hard knowing whether to buy an extra ticket and come back to see, or to wait a few more weeks when I already would be coming back for Christmas. I took the chance (greatly influenced by not having money for another ticket)--and I didn't see him again. I haven't written so much about him; I hope to remedy that eventually.

For today, I found this picture of Granddaddy, one I was given in a bundle of pictures from the wife of one of my second cousins. I don't know for sure when it was taken, but I am guessing it was the sixties, judging by his apparent age. And I believe this may have been taken in the room that was once a screened-in porch, but before it was redecorated. I could be completely wrong, but that is my guess.

People who knew Granddaddy mention how he liked nice clothes and liked to dress up. So it was fun to find this picture of him with a bowtie and even a handkerchief in his pocket. I wonder what the occasion was, to call for a bowtie and a photo?

Recently I was at a farmers market here in the city. I saw a stall with a lot of pansies for sale. I had not yet bought pansies and was trying to decide whether to get them then and there, or to wait and buy them at one of the large stores where they would almost certainly cost less.

The man running the stall arrived from some errand, and I asked him where his flowers came from. He replied, "Brownsville," and that settled that. Brownsville is where my grandparents lived, and I knew that Grandmother used to buy plants at the small farm there, Willow Oaks Flower Farm. The man I was talking with turned out to be David Levy, the owner, and I learned that at one time he and his wife had lived across the street from my grandparents' house. He spoke fondly of Grandmother and used the word "character" referring to Granddaddy--which fit him, as I think anyone would say. As in "he was a real character." We talked for a nice little while, and I went home with plenty of pansies.

And as pansy comes from the word for "thoughts," it was fitting that I also went home with a lot of happy thoughts  and memories to savor.

Here is a picture of Grandmother from 1998, when she was in rehab after breaking her hip. This is not how I generally remember her. She looks tired. She was in good spirits that day, I do remember that; but perhaps she was in pain, too. At any rate, I like this picture because it reminds me of what determination she had--and I think it really brings out her Cherokee and Choctaw heritage.

The next two photos are from around the same time, but I can't be sure whether they are before or after the broken hip. She broke both hips in her life, and recovered from both and returned back home to live both times. Her habit of daily walks surely had a lot to do with that.

These are photos of photos, so forgive the quality of the image. But this is how I generally remember our beautiful Grandmother. She was a serious woman who read the newspaper, had quite a lot of books in her house, and cared deeply for people. She also tended to smile easily, and smiled a lot when surrounded by her large extended family, as she was in these two settings. I think both are from Christmas holiday gatherings.

In the one below, she is holding up a large Tennessee flag someone had given her.  This is why people who didn't even know her that well will tell you she was beautiful. Those of us who knew her well know that her beauty went way below skin deep.

It's hard to believe she's been gone twelve years. And that she was born 100 years ago.

What an amazing thing it is to be alive. And to realize that your being here is completely dependent on the lives of those who went before you. As the letter to the Corinthians puts it, "what do you have that you did not receive?" I'm thankful my life is connected to the lives of Charlie and Mildred Christmas. The longer I live, the more grateful I am for what I received from them. Their blessings continue to this day.

Happy birthday, our beautiful Grandmother.

Dvadeset i Tri na Dvadeset i Treći (Twenty-Three on the Twenty-Third)

We interrupt this Lent for a special announcement . . . Twenty-three years ago today, we were married. Like today, it was a bit overcast and windy. (In fact, we have a hilarious picture of my veil blowing in the wind at one point.) Unlike today, we were twenty-three years younger and had little idea what lay ahead.

I remember hearing before I married that every wedding has something significant go wrong, that it would be bad luck if you didn't.

Well, our expectant-mother cake-maker was ordered on strict bed rest the day before the wedding. Our music director's child got chickenpox a few days before, and his wife was in cancer treatment and couldn't be exposed to it. And during the ceremony itself, one of the groomsmen fainted, nearly taking down with him all the ivy connecting the arch and flowers.

So according to the conventional wisdom, we should have been inoculated against bad luck. On the other hand, a dear woman made a wonderfully delicous cake at the last minute--and still came to the wedding despite the lack of sleep. And the music director was able to find childcare and direct the choir, which meant the world to me, since he had been my chorus director and beloved Bible teacher. And another groomsman caught the fainting one, saving the wedding from disaster; they even revived him before the end of "Lord, Make Me an Instrument" came, most people didn't even know it ever happened, as they had heads bowed and eyes closed for that prayer/song.

So, who knows, maybe all those last-minute "saves" undid our inoculation.

Of course, it wasn't "bad luck" that caused the war in former Yugoslavia. It was much more complicated than that. It may have been coincidence that we had bought our tickets to return there the very week that the war started. And it wasn't "luck" that we came from different cultures and spoke different languages; it was very much a choice we made to marry, knowing we came from different worlds. So I wouldn't say we had bad luck. But we did have a very tough start.

I've often looked back and wondered how many people choose this hymn as wedding music. Certainly today I don't hear it at weddings, and I don't know if I ever did growing up. But I knew I wanted it at ours, and Drazen agreed to it. We really were not expecting the war, but I already knew that moving so far away from home would be hard. And we knew that neither of us had "ease" or "idleness" on our list of hopes and dreams.

Father, hear the prayer we offer,
Nor for ease that prayer shall be,
But for strength, that we may ever
Live our lives courageously.

Not forever by still waters
Would we idly, quiet stay,
But would smite the living fountains
From the rocks along our way.

Be our strength in hours of weakness,
In our wand'rings be our guide;
Through endeavor, failure, danger,
Father, be thou at our side.

Twenty-three years later, by the grace of God, here we are. And it is by the grace of God.  He heard our prayer, and hears our prayers, and has given strength and guidance and many other things needed along the way.

And, I must add, I married a patient and persevering man. I don't think I'm an easy person for an engineer to live with; I know I'm not, for him. It's almost laughable to me, now a marriage therapist, to look at our scores on various personality tests. We are both extreme in most areas, and we are opposites in our extremities--except for the "intuitive" part on the Meyer-Briggs. So maybe intuitively we both knew we could make it, even with all the reasons we might not. Whatever the case, I'm thankful that he is who he is, and that he loves me as I am.

We didn't have these words at our wedding; I just noticed today that they are a part of the hymn based on St. Francis' Canticle of the Creatures--

And all ye men of tender heart,
Forgiving others, take your part.
O sing ye! Alleluia!
Ye who long pain and sorrow bear,
Praise God and on Him cast your care!

But we did have other verses sung, and thanks to God's faithfulness in all our wanderings, it seems a good way to end this writing about our anniversary.

All creatures of our God and King,
Lift up your voice and with us sing,
Alleluia! Alleluia!....

Let all things their Creator bless,
And worship him in humbleness,
O praise him! Alleluia!
O praise the Father, praise the Son,
And praise the Spirit, Three in One!
O praise Him, O praise Him!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Signs of Spring

I found my first daffodils of the year yesterday. Almost missed them, as they were tucked away in the woods, off the beaten path.

But I did see them. And my heart danced a little dance of hope. It has been a long, cold winter. Two winters in a row, really. I don't even remember the past spring. A blur of wintry storm and blazing summer heat fill my mind when I think of last year, even though I know the spring did come between the two.

In Narnia, the White Witch made winter last unnaturally long. Sometimes life is like that, and it seems the ice will never melt, the green will never come, there will be no more flowers.

But in Narnia Aslan came, and he made things right, and the ice did melt, and life resumed the way it was meant to be. The frozen came back to life.

And I've lived long enough now to trust that spring will always come. To trust that even though I may endure some very long winters (stretching me so that I come closer to understanding an eternity perspective, perhaps?), God keeps promises, and new life will always come, no matter how frozen or dark or lifeless I may feel inside.

As long as the earth endures,

    seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,

summer and winter, day and night,

    shall not cease.

~ Genesis 8:22

Let us know, let us press on to know the LORD; his appearing is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth.

~Hosea 6:3

. . . let no flower of spring pass us by.

~Wisdom 2:7

". . . and God himself will be with them;

he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more;

mourning and crying and pain will be no more,

for the first things have passed away."

And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."

~Revelation 21:3b-5

Don't Rush

 I find God never guides us into an intolerable scramble of panting feverishness.
                                                                                              --Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion.


I don't believe my piano teacher ever read Thomas Kelly, but she certainly believed these words. "Don't rush" wasn't just instruction for how to play piano well. She did not rush her life. She always had time for music, for prayer, for people--piano students, college students, her children and later grandchildren.

Recently another dear friend and mentor to my husband died. Someone shared this in the tributes, a quote from C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, about what it means to be a holy person:


Their very voices and faces are different from ours: stronger, quieter, happier, more radiant. They begin where most of us leave off. They do not draw attention to themselves. You tend to think you are being kind to them when they are really being kind to you. They love you more than other men do, but they need you less…..They will usually seem to have a lot of time: you will wonder where it comes from… I strongly suspect (but how should I know?) that they recognise one another immediately and infallibly, across every barrier of colour, sex, class, age, and even of creeds. In that way, to become holy is rather like joining a secret society. To put it at its very lowest, it must be great fun.

"They will usually seem to have a lot of time." Of course. If we believe we will live for eternity, why on earth do we get in a rush?

Whether playing piano or listening to people or planning and executing the day, I think "Don't rush" is excellent wisdom for both holiness and happiness.

To Everything There Is a Season

And apparently the season for calendar sales is getting longer and longer. Maybe it has something to do with climate change, but I'm just sure calendars did not used to appear, as these did, in the middle of August. I could hardly believe my eyes a couple of weeks ago, when it was nearly a hundred degrees outside, and 2014 calendars were not only sprouting but in full bloom at the bookstore.

 

 

Beyond my ability to believe. Positively crazy. Like a Star Trek time warp.

After my initial shock, I was determined to keep calm and trust that everything was going to be okay.

 

 

 

 

Oh, what does it say there, there in the right bottom corner? Something about "this day"?

 

 

 

 

This day will never come again. And yet we live in a time that would have us always looking ahead, rarely staying in today long enough to notice and remember it.

 

 

 

 

Of course this is about the bookstore making money, keeping themselves afloat. But the very fact that they will sell calendars in August, along with the way Walgreen's has Halloween fare out as soon as July 4 has passed, has to do with more than just making money. It tells us something that our culture will allow this to happen. It says that making money is more important than living sanely with and in time.

 

 

 

 

"Saving the Season," a book out on a nearby display, seemed to clash with the ushering in of a whole new year just across the aisle.

 

 

 

 

It was especially thought-provoking because as you can see, this wasn't one display case of calendars. I believe there were six double units like this. I could not help feeling a bit overwhelmed.

 

 

 

 

At least Thanksgiving Day is only a little over three months past the day we were in the store.

 

 

 

I think life has to be lived in small batches to have much meaning. And to be preserved well in memory.

 

 

 

 

Maybe this is the first year to have calendars on sale in August. But of course it isn't the first sign that human beings don't always value time. Not long after coming upon the calendar display, I came across these wise words from The Cloud of Unknowing, written in the late 14th century:

Pay attention, then, to how you spend your time.
You have nothing more precious than time.
In one tiny moment of time, heaven may be gained or lost.

I suppose one wise thing to do with my time would be to go buy a calendar while they still have such a great selection. . . unless they have all already been bought. Ha.

Snail Mail

A lovely mailbox I passed while walking down the street in Florence. "La Sorgente" means "The Source" or "The Spring." I have no idea what significance that had in this case, but it was so cute, I took a picture.

It seems that my sorgente has about dried up, but I assure anyone reading this that it has not. I constantly think of things I would like to write about. It's just a matter of time, i.e., my time is very limited. Well, that's not true, is it? We all have the same amount of time. My time is very much filled with other activities right now.

It hardly seems fair, though, that I could turn in a 20-page research paper and not have time to write  a paragraph or two for my blog.

So, on the theme of mailboxes, this is more like a postcard than a letter, but at least I know my blog still exists, and any remaining readers will know that I still exist.

And tomorrow I take the exam, and next week I will finish the project, and then for at least a little while, I will have a bit of time in the evenings not spoken for. Maybe my Christmas present to myself will be to reminisce and write about the rest of this Italy trip.

Arrivederci!