Prednisone, Paolo, and the Piano

Accidenti, I've nearly lost my voice. I've made it this far into fall with no noticeable allergic reactions. I've refrained from raking leaves, I've taken Claritin, I even stopped taking morning walks once the leaves covered the ground.

Except we did go for a walk last Sunday. Maybe that's what did it. I don't know. I just know that two evenings ago I noticed a scratchiness in my throat, yesterday my head felt congested, and this afternoon I began to sound like an alto who can't speak much above a whisper.

And tomorrow is Lessons and Carols. The "Hallelujah Chorus." "Lux Arumque." "O Holy Night." And many more. And I don't know if I'll be able to sing or not. I'm so very scocciata.

I called a kind doctor friend and asked if it would be safe to try taking our dog's Prednisone, as I had taken Prednisone in the past to get my voice back quickly. Kind doctor friend did not recommend taking Paolo's pills, but did call in a prescription for me. It all happened just in time for me to get to the pharmacy before they closed. We shall see if it has enough time to work its magic by 4pm tomorrow, 3pm for warming up....

Oh, how I hope so. The stuff tastes absolutely horrible. I took the first pills with warm tea, and then had a spoonful of sorghum, and still could taste that awful bitterness in my mouth. Bleah. I hope my sacrifice is worth it.

It will be rather a let-down if I don't get to sing, though I'm trying to just imagine how lovely it will be to sit in the pews and soak up the music. It will be lovely, if I'm not coughing!

It is something of a consolation that we had our piano tuned today. Our piano tuner is such a kind and friendly man that just having him here probably boosts the immune system.

And it's so nice to have the piano tuned! I've been having it tuned every six months, so it doesn't get terribly out of tune. But it is in a room with a sliding glass door, so I know the humidity and temperature changes affect it a good deal, and it does need that six-month tuning. I don't have perfect pitch, but I do have a quite sensitive sense of pitch. So my ears are happy each time the piano gets a tune-up.

Moreover (don't use that word very often!), something has been wrong with the damper pedal for quite some time. I thought I mentioned it last time the tuner came, but maybe not. At any rate, it was still the same after he left. Which caused me to fear that perhaps it was something so slight that he hadn't noticed it, or that I was imagining it, or that perhaps it was something that nothing could be done for.

But it was driving me crazy.

When I used the damper pedal, I could feel something with my foot that just felt funny, like it was catching or something. And it seemed that it was causing the keys to stick, and the sound to blur, but not terribly. Just enough to make me wonder if I were imagining it.

But I didn't think so.

So today I made a point of telling him about this, describing it as best I could, and making sure he checked on it.

And, yea! He did check it, and found that somehow the damper pedal dowel was getting mixed up with the mechanism of the sostenuto pedal....blah, blah, blah....I know this means nothing to anyone who doesn't play piano.

But it means a lot to me, and it is corrected, and I sat and played through Brahms' Rhapsodie in G minor, with all its fire and passion and sonority, and all that pedaling, and all my mistakes....and everything responded the way it was supposed to, and it's in wonderful tune, and that was enough to make me forget my stuffy, achy head and voice-gone-missing for a while.

In fact, as soon as I finished the piece and stood up, I noticed how cold it was. That's pretty cool, that playing piano can keep you from noticing that your body is cold. The brain is a fascinating thing.

Hmmm. I wonder if could manage to take the prednisone while playing piano, and see if that distracted me from the bitter taste....

I Miss Real Mail

For some reason it has hit me the past two days how much I miss getting real mail. Maybe because it's so cold outside, so just walking the extra steps to the mailbox is a stretch for the will. And I do it, because you don't want the mailbox just getting filled up. So I go.

And I do still have that little bit of a sense of anticipation.

"What might be in there?"

"Who might I hear from?"

"I wonder if there might be something from...."

But the truth is that mail with handwriting on the envelope is so rare, that little anticipatory rise is becoming less and less noticeable. Envelopes with what looks like handwriting are often fake, some stupid company's attempt to get your attention.

I'm not sure why this has hit me so hard lately. It's been a few months now that I find myself thinking about it, grieving the loss of real mail.

The mail used to be such an important part of my life. When I was growing up, there were cards from Grandmother, letters from cousins, letters from penpals. In high school it was letters from people I'd met at camp or Governor's School.

In college, campus mail was a lifeline. We sent mail like crazy. Checking mail each day was just fun.

And then of course I moved overseas. And back when there was no email, and phonecalls were beyond my budget and that of most people I knew, mail was the way to stay in touch. Letters from home, from friends or family, were part of the glue that held me together during homesick times and just hard times.

When I lived in Croatia, and the war was going on, one dear friend made a commitment to write me weekly, and she did it for much of the worst part of my time there.

And there used to be letters, or pictures, from children. And thank-you notes from time to time. Sending something in the mail used to be an exciting thing for children, I think. But it has been eclipsed by faster, more fascinating ways of communicating, I guess.

And of course most of my life, there were cards and letters from Grandmother. I'm sure I inherited a letter-writing gene from her. It was so much a part of her, not only birthday and anniversary cards, but just little notes to say "thinking of you," sharing news from her life, sending a newspaper article she'd read and thought I would enjoy.

I have tended to be a letter-writer myself, and I do try hard not to miss important dates for sending cards to people I love. But the computer, and the American way of life, have changed me. I have way more stationery than I can use at any given time. I'm often writing notes to people in my head, but much less often do I actually sit and put the pen to paper, and stamp to envelope, and the whole thing in the mailbox.

But I miss it. I miss writing more letters, and I miss receiving them. I'm glad for email, because it does make some things more doable.

But twenty years from now, it's the cards from Grandmother and the letters that were sent to me in Croatia, and the sweet notes from my young nieces in their oh-so-carefully-attempted handwriting, that will be in a scrapbook or a special box that I will, I imagine, open up and look at now and then. I don't know where the emails will be....even the special ones that say important things, they just aren't the sort of thing you put in a box to treasure.

Well, the season of Christmas cards is soon to be upon us. We'll get more "real mail" in one month than we do in all the rest of the year. Even though more and more people are sending computer-generated letters (and we may this year), at least the envelopes will have that little part of the person, the handwriting. And it will be fun to see the writing on the envelope, to open it up and hear from friends and family, and have something pretty hanging all around the kitchen where we display them all.

And then January will come and go, and the mailbox will become again a conduit for the omniumgatherum of catalogues and bills and computer-generated blather, some requested by us, much destined for the recycling bin. Sigh.....

Oh, but then there is my birthday not far off, so the anticipation will be heightened again, I suppose.

I just wonder if there will come a day when I'll go the mailbox with no hope at all.

I don't know. I don't know how much it matters. I don't know if it bothers anyone else the way it bothers me. What about you, gentle readers? Am I an old fogey already, or do other people miss the mail the way I do?

Let me hear from you....and if you want to respond by real mail, we're in the White Pages. :-)

Shamrock

This shamrock was a gift from dear friends over eight years ago. It currently resides in our bedroom, on a plant stand that belonged to Grandmother.

I love the way it leans into the light, grows toward the light, orients itself to the light. The window faces south, and the plant reminds me of those who always pray facing a certain direction--just that it's usually east, not south.

Hmmmm, is there a verb for that? Perhaps sudient, rather than orient....

Today I took a much-needed nap and while lying down was captivated by the light coming through the sheers and the new little white flowers heading toward that light.

Contented sighhhh....job security or not, winter light is lovely, green plants are beautiful, Sunday afternoon naps are wonderful, and it is good to be alive.

The Officialness of It All

I wondered all week, when I let myself think about it, how this news of our program ending was supposed to be made known to everyone else at work. Or was it going to be made known? Would I walk around for the next month or so seeing people in the hallways, wondering if they knew, wondering how to tell them?

I even went earlier in the day to our HR man, a lovely soul, and said, "I don't know whose job this is, but when you're laying a number of people off, shouldn't something be done in terms of communicating that to everyone? And shouldn't some form of support be offered to them? Or does the organization expect everyone to just walk all around the elephant in the room and all the emotions that come along with the elephant?"

(My reasoning was that this is a Christian organization that frequently invokes the terms "family" and "team" to describe the way it sees itself, and it ought therefore to treat people somewhat differently from the way any old organization does. And while I didn't know anything specific, I knew some others were losing their jobs.)

I'd never been through this before. But I knew the news had to get made known pretty quickly, because we had three new referrals this morning, and we needed to stop those referrals as soon as possible. It was an exercise in humility to realize that the decision that would change my life and that of my co-worker and those of our clients, wasn't even on the radar screen of the social workers and medical providers making the referrals.

A quick conversation with my manager informed me that there would be an official announcement made at some point during the day.

I was very curious to see how this would look.

And so, at 3:45, everyone gathered in the large meeting room. Ben and I sat together, knowing what was ahead. I have no idea who else in the room knew. Everyone sat there chatting until the CEO walked in. My back was to the door, so I only knew he'd come in because of the silence that descended upon the group of 30 or so employees around the table.

It was surreal. He didn't say a thing, just started passing out white papers. Two sheets of paper stapled together. The ominous silence continued as people began reading the document. I'm a quick reader, so I was through with it before they were all even passed out, I think. People just sat there reading, and no one said a thing.

Finally the CEO broke the eerie silence and began going over what the papers said. We and eight others are being cut. It was all presented in terms of the bigger financial picture, though that wasn't given as the determining factor regarding cutting the counseling program. That has more to do with "strategic factors."

(I'm still waiting for a clear rationale behind this "strategic decision." Not saying there isn't a good one, but I would like to hear it communicated articulately, if for no other reason than so that we can pass it on to our clients.)

Anyway, our truly good-natured CEO said nice things about everyone, assured that the layoffs have nothing to do with quality of work, made sure people didn't blame the CFO for the financial state of things, said there were no plans to let anyone else go at this time, and led a prayer.

(It was so quiet and serious. Heavy. When he mentioned our names, I was tempted to smile and raise my hand in a Queen Elizabeth sort of wave, just to break through the weirdness of it all. But I figured that might make people think that I was weird, and since I have to stay on another few weeks, decided against it.)

The meeting adjourned.

I have no idea how this sort of thing happens in other places. I don't know what I even expected. But that is what happened.

And it felt like a funeral or something, with that ominous quiet beforehand, the words spoken, and then no one said a thing to me as we walked out of the room. No one. I guess maybe people either think counselors don't need help dealing with emotional issues, or they think we're not bothered by it. More likely they just didn't know what to say, as people often don't at funerals.

The rest of the day was nice. Good talk with my manager. Session with a client I love meeting with. Short visit with the CFO. And oddly enough, on my way out, both of the MDs behind the decision (or at least present for the meeting in which the decision was made) came out, so I wound up holding the door open for them.

Which just now hit me as a really paradoxical moment. I almost never see these guys at work, almost never. But on this very day there I was, holding the door open for them when they have just shut the door on me. And yet even in the shutting of that door, other doors are opening.

I still don't have a pink slip, though. The one pictured above is so cute, I'm thinking I might just ask for one. To make it really official, you know.

A Moment in Time

I took Wednesday off to cook and get ready for the fourteen extra people coming over on Thursday. Despite my determination to be thankful, it was a hard day. I woke up very early, and struggled with a headache most of the day. It was afternoon before I even got to the grocery store.

Thursday morning I woke again at 4am (this is two and a half hours earlier than my norm), with thoughts running through my head about the work situation. Sadness, some anger, some regret.

But guests were coming, and I got to cooking and cleaning, and that helped.

I really wanted to get everything done in such a way that I could attend the ten o'clock Thanksgiving service held at a nearby church. I had looked forward to it all week, and had set the official dinner time so that I would be able to go, and still get back in time to be okay.

But because of the late start on Wednesday, it just wasn't going to work. The closer ten o'clock came, the surer I was of that. So I let it go. A bit more sadness, though I knew it was the best decision.

I was playing the CD "Signatures" by John Michael Talbot, to keep me company while I worked in the kitchen, and to keep my mind on better things than it tended toward when left on its own.

At a certain point, "Come Holy Spirit" began to play. It caught my attention: the centering prayer group I've met with weekly for almost two years always begins with this song.

For whatever reason, I looked at the clock over the dining room table. It was 11:34, right about the time our little group would normally be starting.

It was a real gift. Hearing that song right at that time changed my inner landscape. It made up for missing the service. It opened my heart and made me more able to deal with the sad, angry thoughts, and to move more fully into thankful ones.

I missed the Thanksgiving service. But I was able to serve more thankfully because of this "divine coincidence."

Thanks be to God!

Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, and I doubt anyone is going to read this for a while, but I feel the need to write something about thanksgiving.

Yesterday I learned for certain that our counseling program is coming to an end. Which means I get to add being "laid off" to my list of situations for which I can offer experiential empathy, perhaps not a bad thing for a counselor in the times ahead.

This is hard for me personally for various reasons related to how the situation unfolded and led to a somewhat dramatic denouement. (I'm not even going to bother to see if I spelled that correctly, it's my day off.)

(Addendum, added two days later with a less heavy heart: Things are already looking up! I did spell that word correctly! Maybe I'll pursue a job as proofreader somewhere....)

Beyond my personal situation, though, is the multiplied effect this decision will have (and has already begun to have) on our clients. Of course God will work through this, and that is what I am trying to help them see, but another "of course" is that it's hard for anyone seriously involved in therapy to hear that their therapist is leaving. It's a bit harder in this case because some of the clients feel a sense of betrayal by the organization we work for, whose mission statement says it is about meeting physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. They know our organization is moving ahead with plans to build a new medical clinic, so they conclude that it isn't dire necessity driving this decision. (And from what I've been told, it isn't.)

To cut the counseling program (which consists of only two people, neither working a full workweek) just doesn't make sense to them, and of course no one from among the decision-makers is going around saying to our clients, "I'm sorry this has to happen."

Which means we have to say it, even though it's not our decision.

And then there is the reality that many of our clients may not be able to get good care when we close because they either cannot pay even the low rates some private services offer, or they have an insurance that is hardly accepted by anyone but the local mental health centers who I like to believe do the best they can, but are terribly overworked and understaffed.

So.....it's hard. No getting around it.

And therefore the photo of pansies, from our trip to Mountain View last month.

Pansies make it through the winter here in the South. They are amazing, with those bright cheery colors.

You can go out on the morning after a freeze and see how they've withered, as if hunching down to keep themselves warm. If you didn't know better, you'd think they had died.

But as soon as a warmer day hits, they spring back to life and are just as vibrant as before.

And I've lived long enough, and been through enough, and gotten to know God enough, to know that even though there will be frozen days of withering ahead for my clients and likely for me as well, the sun will return, and life can be colorful and vibrant again.

More than that, I hope to stay vibrant throughout the experience. And thanksgiving is part of that. I've been reading from a little book a dear friend gave me, Jesus Calling, and she has some good stuff on giving thanks. Here is one day's entry:

Thankfulness takes the sting out of adversity. That is why I have instructed you to give thanks for everything. There is an element of mystery in this transaction. You give Me thanks (regardless of your feelings), and I give you Joy (regardless of your circumstances). This is a spiritual act of obedience--at times, blind obedience. To people who don't know Me intimately, it can seem irrational and even impossible to thank Me for heartrending hardships. Nonetheless, those who obey Me in this way are invariably blessed, even though difficulties may remain.

Thankfulness opens your heart to My Presence and your mind to My thoughts. You may still be in the same place, with the same set of circumstances, but it is as if a light has been switched on, enabling you to see from My perspective. It is this Light of My Presence that removes the sting from adversity.

(Note from Sheila: I think it important to understand that the word "obey" comes from the word for "hear" or "listen." It tends to have some negative connotations in our present day, but has a much deeper meaning than subservience.)

Not too long ago in my life, I would read similar things and scoff or at least accuse people of being superficial. (Which they sometimes are when they say similar things. I think it can be a religious veiling of denial, refusal to acknowledge how hard life can be and how much it hurts.)

But this writer, Sarah Young, is not superficial. And what she is writing about is similar to what the apostle Paul, Christian mystics, and all those serious about pursuing God write about, and it has been born out in my short experience of truly discipling myself to thank and trust God. It sometimes makes big differences in the circumstances, but more than anything it changes the heart and soul and opens us to His Light. And that changes everything.

When you think about it, the circumstances will be finished one day for all of us. The heart and soul will remain. That's where the most important changes happen.

It may sound irrational. I would say it's beyond rational.

Happy Thanksgiving Day.

Cake Making, Merry Making

And so, the morning of the big day, the frosting was made and the cake assembled.


I was nervous about this frosting/filling; when you've never done it before, it's hard to know for sure what "thickened and bubbly" ought to look like. How thick? How bubbly? And what's going to happen if I don't get it thick enough? And what if it overcooks?


But rather than letting fear overcome, I used my best judgment; it stuck to the cake pretty well and I hoped that was a good sign.


And did I mention that I also am now the proud owner of a round cake carrier? Here we are, ready to drive to Arkansas.


Cute candles, are they not?


Closer up.


Cute family, are we not? (Someone smart knew we had to make the photo before starting in on food, or else we never could have gotten all those young ones back in one place. And their shirts would likely not have been as clean as they are.)


They let me light the candles.


Happy Birthday, Daddy!

How Sweet It Is

Ha! I just realized that in nearly eighteen years of marriage, I must have never made a traditional round cake. At least not since moving to America 14+ years ago. I know this because I did not own a set of round cake pans until this morning, unless I have some in our Croatia kitchen that I've forgotten about. I do have a couple of ten-inch cake pans inherited from Grandmother, but I haven't ever used them to bake a cake.

After a quick morning trip to Williams Sonoma, I am now the proud owner of two eight-inch round cake pans, and I am in the process of making a real round, two-layer cake that will have candles on it tomorrow for my dad's birthday.

In case you wonder how I managed to live this long without such a common kitchen element, I guess it's because when we married, we didn't have a traditional wedding shower. We had a money tree, and we wound up needing most of the money just to pay for getting around in the States until we got back to Croatia. So I've never had a lot of things for kitchen and dining that the books say I ought to have. And when you don't have those things, you learn to find recipes that use what you have.

Anyway, if this cake turns out well, birthdays may never be the same again!

I'll try to add photos later, 'cause I'm sure you're all dying to see the process. (...And as you can see, I added the photo.)

Lux Arumque

Light,
warm and heavy as pure gold,
and the angels sing softly
to the new-born baby.

Monday nights are rehearsal nights most weeks. I began singing with the Memphis Chamber Choir almost two years ago. I had been to their Festival of Lessons and Carols and felt transported by the experience. Then a friend introduced me to the director, and Geoff's enthusiasm for not just music, but for worship, created a connection with me, and I auditioned and started singing.

(I had sung before with the symphony chorus, and the Rhodes Mastersingers chorus, and both were wonderful experiences. But I like being with a smaller group, offering music at no charge, and singing the music in the church setting it was written for, not as a performance for an audience of people, but as an offering to the ears of the One who is the subject of most of the pieces we sing.)

So, week after week we meet and sing. And sing, and sing. It's always enjoyable, sometimes tiring, and every now and then soul-stirring.

Tonight we began work on "Lux Arumque" by Eric Whitacre, a song with a somewhat odd history. It began as a poem (above) written in English by a poet named Edward Esch. Whitacre liked the poem and asked his poet friend Charles Silvestri to translate it to Latin.

I didn't know anyone other than students translated from English to Latin, but he does, and so then Whitacre set the Latin text to music. And the result is a feast for the ears, the imagination, and the soul.

It's easy to find and listen to via Youtube, by the way, if you want to.

Of course we just began it tonight, so it wasn't an incredible rendering. But the music itself, even mediocrely sung, is so lovely, and it just hangs in the air so that everything feels exceedingly alive, even when we're only holding out a chord.

And it just hit me at one moment tonight how absolutely amazing this thing we call singing is. I sat there with my eyes closed and could feel the air vibrating all around me, and I knew that it was all energy...energy was being transformed into this beautiful sound....and somehow that was coming from the bodies of these human beings all around me. We just move our lungs and throats and mouths in certain ways, and the very air changes. And every human being is born with the ability to do this.

And when you add the metaphoric heart to the literal lungs and all, this music has the ability to join heaven and earth, as my friend from the previous post put it.

So, I just sat there thinking all this in the space of a measure of music, doing my little part to add to this amazing music and feeling blest that I can.

And for a moment, the light felt gold.

Eternity in their heart

On Reaching Middle Age, with Friends

I planned a meal of food—
My food was love, instead.
Sweet joy and peace and hope—
With these my soul was fed.

I hoped not to feel old—
My heart instead seems young:
The years to come a song
Now waiting to be sung.

Here you are, Lucy. One more poem! You have coaxed me out of hiding.

I wrote this the night of my birthday several years ago. For various reasons, that particular birthday weighed heavily on me. Drazen had the lovely idea of having a real birthday party, something I hadn't done since childhood. I cooked and cooked, everything Italian, and had as many girlfriends over as our house could seat to eat. They ranged from a kindergarten friend to a friend made in the previous couple of years, and even one friend made in Italy was there.

As you can tell from the poem, it worked. My focus shifted drastically.

I have since had times of struggling with my age. Not so much the gray hair--I feel I've earned any sign of wisdom I might be graced with. But it's the things I haven't done that I thought I would have done by now, and the things that most likely will not be a part of my life, no matter what.

But I find Drazen's cure still works. Friends. Relationships. Old ones, new ones, green ones, blue ones. Oh, wait, the poem part is over, isn't it?

I love the verse from Ecclesiastes, "He has also set eternity in their heart." I feel the effects of time in my body, and I see them in the mirror. But more and more in my heart, I sense eternity. And friends are a big part of that, as you see them aging along with you and see their hearts growing and deepening, and you become less and less alone.

And the friends who have died....they just make eternity seem closer, more real.

Why am I thinking about this tonight? It's not my birthday, and I haven't noticed new gray hair, or re-injured my knee. I guess it's because we sang a requiem service tonight, in honor of local servicemen lost to the war, and people murdered in Memphis, in the past year.

A friend who was there told me later, "The music was just beautiful. It brought earth and heaven together right here."

I don't know when my true "middle age" might have been reached, or when it will be reached. But it just doesn't seem so important in the context of tonight--a night which, by the way, had a good deal of friendship and food both mixed in. Maybe food is also part of the mix....

I'll end with the piece we sang immediately following the reading of names:

Give rest, O Christ, to your servants with your saints:
where sorrow and pain are no more;
neither sighing, but life everlasting.
You only are immortal, the creator and maker of mankind:
and we are mortal, formed of the earth,
and to earth shall we return:
for so did you ordain,
when you created me, saying:
"You are dust, and to dust you shall return."
All of us go down to the dust;
and even at the grave we make our song:
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.