It is October ... hill-climbing season for me, though not as high a hill because not as deep a pit of despair ... I looked up on the day of this climb at my beloved Buena Vista Hill from Alamo Square Park ... but anniversary stress and disappointment still required a purposeful climb away from their gravity.
And sometimes I have to remember: others have taken that long and lonely journey before me, so, since called, I have to go, but the One Who calls me will get me there ... in the darkness, there is yet light for my path...
Sviridov is the composer who reminds me: no excuses, no complaining. He had to wait almost his entire life -- LITERALLY, being born in 1915 in the last days of Imperial Russia, then living until the fall of the Soviet Union and dying in 1998 -- and only being able to put forth his church compositions beginning in the LATE 1980s, already in the last decade of his life! A wonderful composer all around, he had to live SEVENTY YEARS to put forth what had been in his heart in full! I truly have nothing to complain about from this perspective, and Sviridov always seems to pop up when I really need the perspective with another piece of stunning beauty and devotion.
The ancient Trisagion, basically, "three sayings" -- called here by its Russian name as "Sviaty Bozhe" -- is a "simple hymn," varying from 6-8 part harmony a cappella in D sharp minor -- but see, when you have waited all your life to tell people what they can do to make it because it is what you did to get through, you get to write the three sayings as many times as you like and then ask for what you want for yourself and others --
Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us.
-- and you get to do that in 5-8 part harmony in any key you want. This encourages me ... already have that setting of Psalm 93 with the five-versus-nine polyrhythms in it, in B flat minor, waiting on the proper time to see the sunlight ...
... but in the meantime, I climb on, and this week I seemed so irrevocably alone ... 27 months of recoil ... my stand facilitated a reunion that I had to climb away from ... I will never fit in again ... I was talking with two younger women this week who were talking about taking steps in the direction of their dreams, and I told them: "Understand that if you want to see your dreams realized, you can make as little as one step a day, but before too long, you will find that you have permanently separated yourself from all those who will not move -- but if you GOTTA GET THERE, you gotta get there." I am a mountain guide, indeed, pressing the route forward for them so they will not be as surprised ...
... well, the beauty visible on even a well-traveled hill is surprising, sometimes...
... but when the weight of the reality one has accepted gets very heavy, that is not always the kind of scene that comes to mind.
Schubert's gentler "Sehnsucht," D. 879, here beautifully sung by Barbara Reynolds, connects in my mind to Sviridov ... the long and lonely wait for things to change, for love for one's full self to be given, and still having one's song in the meantime ... in Sviridov's case he needed an entire nation to change, and with the United States in its pre-election fever I wonder if that is part of my own situation to a point as well ... people are just losing it while I am doing my best to keep it together ... but in the meantime, one still has what one is called to. It is a deep comfort.
Yet sometimes the cold gets past the window in "Sehnsucht" ... there are deeper winters in Schubert, and I coined the phrase "Winterreised" somewhere between breaking German and English because of his "Winterreise," and the lessons I had in it to warn me far from its despairing path and also being equipped to warn others ... however, it occurred to me, in this aftermath of a full circle in which I made a refuge from others I had to nonetheless leave, that I also am traveling on a road that to them will seem so unsafe and so uncertain until the results are achieved, so separated from what they consider safety ... for before me, I also have seen a signpost, and from down this road I may not return ...
... at least not to the fellowship I knew before, for all I have achieved is a 27-month delayed happy ending before having to continue on.
I needed to write that disclaimer out because the re-entry of "Der Wegweiser" and its consciousness of doom, even by way of analogy by me, set off whatever is near to an alarm bell up home where there can be no alarm as has been rung there lately ... Winterreise is a downward move and not at all approved as a path for those going upward to their alto seats in the heavenly choir! For me to even consider myself in such company -- a wellness check was already in the works, and the agent of it came double-time, only to be still human though ethereal, and end up at the BiRite Grocery on the wrong side of the wrong hill -- Buena Vista, since I was usually there -- and having to retrace his steps to the BiRite nearer Alamo Square, in search of appropriate provisions, for while there were still some buffaloberries on the hill --
-- he did not count them sufficient, and had his mind set upon some of the season's last and most delicious plums.
Thus he was behind me, and there were too many people in that area for him to just flash to me -- too much chance of being noticed, so, in his mild-mannered persona of K.M. Altesrouge seeking his Frau Blumenkind, the Ghost of Musical Greatness had to climb up, at least untiring, and knowing my tendency to get off the beaten path and NEVER take the most direct line to the top...
... he overtook me at the crest, and being taller than me, saw and directed me to a matter I had not thought of, with a gentle but definitive imperative:
"Trink Sie Wasser, Frau Mathews."
He, being taller, had seen that water fountain there almost lost in the shade of the young cypress from further off, and had guessed that after cresting the hill, I needed to stop and refresh myself, but, being relatively close to home, might not have thought of it. Sure enough, I did get home and find a whole bottle of water in my bag I had forgotten.
I did as I was told, and with his long strides he closed the gap with me as I looked down from there.
"My strong, climbing daughter, yet also and always mein geliebtes Blumenkind, in this cold wind, in this change of season we did not expect... ."
Already he was to my west, blocking that wind, and we walked over the crest to the east, and thus, out of that chill ...
... and into the deep peace there as we still were to the north and above of most of the tourists admiring the famous Painted Ladies houses...
... and San Francisco's City Hall, its gilded dome gleaming like silver in the far distance because to the west, the sky was already becoming silver-cast as the fog moved in ...
... and having looped around a little, again off the beaten path ...
... we found a quiet place to sit and rest...
... and by me, tropical flowers that would not yield their summer yet, like many on the hill ...
... and there he wrapped his arms and his voice around me ... Schubert ... a new song to me, of a boatman, rowing in a storm, alone, but every stroke taking him to a better place, and him glad to be there, even rowing in a storm, because free!
"You certainly know how to cheer me up," I said, and he smiled.
"I thought you might want a bit of cheering up," he said gently, "and I know we share a legacy of singing about rivers that are a route to various kinds of freedom."
"That was bracing, too ... I probably would have gone to sleep otherwise ... no offense meant."
"None taken, because you are more tired than from that hill, and I may take you to the Knockout Zone a bit later," he said, "but --."
He paused, catching himself -- still going at the high rate of "Der Schiffer," indicating intense emotion within him, pushing his speaking tempo. I knew he could not technically be "worried" ... but he was still human, and so, when on Earth, subject to concern and pain if not fear. My contemplating "Der Wegweiser" and identifying myself with the character even distantly had concerned him deeply -- even disturbed him. That was not a pass we had even approached earlier in the year, to say nothing of 2023. But --.
"I do not chide you," he said, and I recognized while he was making use of a quote from Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" in English, he was going down the scale in his voice ... vocalization as emotional management in basso profondo, calming himself down. "I do not chide you for any of your feelings. I am your friend."
I just held on to him and squeezed, and he just held on a while and then pulled out those plums for me to eat. He was known for being both intelligent and determined; he would study a situation and find a way, so if there was not yet more to be said, he might still cheer me with food.
"These are delicious, and I do feel better," I purred. "You're such a German."
"Hör mir zu -- I came to cheer you up, but here you go!" he said as he laughed. "You know that now, the K.M. Altesrouge budget for cheering food is going to be increased, right?"
"I mean, BiRite is expensive, so if you are hunting for treats there, you may indeed need to increase it."
"I was glad my momentary misdirection gave me the opportunity to check both stores," he said. "I am still human, and I still have to make the most of those moments when I get in a hurry at my age and can't make head or tail of any map down here in English."
"Are you in such a blessed state that you have become a man who actually asks for directions?"
Oh, he rolled laughing at that!
"Yes," he said, "but remember: I'm an old man of the stage, and spent a lifetime being directed, so it was never quite as hard! In all seriousness: I can find you wherever you are, but I still cannot do too many things at once. I am still finite, and, if in strong emotion, subject to reaching my operational limit even now. But, I got to check both BiRites, and adjust my budget lines."
"These are delicious -- so lecker!" I said. "I know you have high standards, given your access to the tallest tree in Paradise, and these are about as close as one can get in October for big plums on Earth. Vielen Dank!"
"I am delighted to see you enjoying them," he said. "Gern geschehen, mein geliebtes Blumenkind."
Afterwards, we walked on, for golden hour appeared to have begun early, and was too lovely to ignore.
At another quiet place, by many blooms just below the sunlight ...
... I saw him shudder. He was in quite a state of affairs, actually, and looked at them and then turned around and looked at me, and could endure no longer, so he took me into his arms and confessed ...
"I am still a human man, in the spirit," he said. "All I want to do is to take all pain from you -- it is all I can do to not sing until you cannot even spell pain in any language, until you almost think you can walk from here to your alto seat, and never be troubled with this world again!"
"It is a tempting prospect," I said, and then added, "even the thought that you have such kindness in your heart toward me eases the pain. I feel the warmth of your love, and that back of you, that allowed your legacy of love to connect with mine."
He shuddered again, and held me even more closely.
"Frau Mathews ... you hardly know ... you cannot know in this cold world ... but because of how you are, you will know more than many ever will of being loved, although at this time, because of this unexpected pass, it may not seem so."
"I would not go so far as to say that," I said. "I am deeply hurt, and my sense of loneliness has indeed increased exponentially even over last week ... but because I did not set my hopes where they could never live, it has been easier to turn again to look up and climb to nearer to where they actually reside. If my heart is broken, all there is still to do is to bear it upward where it can be healed."
"Your wisdom is increasing, Frau Mathews," he said. "Even through the storm and pain, your wisdom continues to increase."
"I have been taught well, and I am learning my lessons," I said. "Vielen Dank, Professor."
We walked on, very close, he slightly behind me ... I thought of the line in Shakespeare in which Hamlet's father loved his mother so much that he would not permit the wind to visit her face too roughly. I had worked out, as a very young person, that since no man may control the wind, what he can do if there is a size differential big enough is just block it -- but, if going east with a west wind, that means "walking behind some woman." No one can think about too many things at one time -- EITHER a man was going to worry about what he was going to look like, "walking behind some woman," or, he was going to think of her, and cut that cold wind down however was necessary. Now of course, we would have to turn around the hill again, and he would be slightly in front because that wind was bitterly cold -- an autumn cold front was blowing in off the Pacific, and although there was no rain in it, it was a harbinger of winter.
I thought at that moment that I would be alone until I met with people also close enough to the love above so that we would not worry who was watching while we did what was needed for each other, without concern for the world's opinion. It was hard to forge upward into the wind. It would be harder still to have been with former companions who only understood things relative to their being seen as important in the world. "Der Schiffer," the boatman free in the storm, rowing in hope, had instructed me deeply, and I truly began to feel better.
Yet it was in light of that when I actually became fully aware of just how profoundly that 27-month loop had indeed affected me. To find the same evildoers doing the evil for which I had left, to give them the public smackdown they deserved, to be hailed for doing so by folks I cared about who were having a little reunion in my shadow -- and then to have to leave the second time, because everybody was going back to do roughly what they were doing before. I knew that I need not set my hopes upon them, and I was right ... to see that so little had changed, so little growth ... two years, three months, two weeks gone by, and still ... all the more reason, greater than it ever was, even in relief, that they, though still beloved, could still not come with me.
The question was actually now settled, forever. No change of circumstances would have made any difference. The pain was intense from having seen that, but I had seen with my own eyes what I needed to see. I had forced myself 27 months upward refusing to look back, refusing to let "what if" dominate me. Now I knew there had never been any point or purpose in doing anything else -- I had believed that while not seeing and had gone for my life, and now, sight had caught up with faith -- the thought literally staggered me -- I had gone by faith for my life, and upon considering where I was by contrast to where I would have been, still going around in circles -- my head was suddenly going around and around ...
My companion swung me off my feet and changed the route, there being a sunny gap to higher meadows.
The wind there with the sunlight helped me through that brief moment of intense disorientation.
"It has passed -- I just realized what might have been, and how blessed I am to have been spared, even by such hard means, and it came to me in a rush."
"We will give ourselves another quarter-hour," he said, the imperative in his voice unmistakable, but then, softening, "and I will fill some of the time with singing."
"Oh, please, and welcome!"
That took four minutes ... I was gone the instant he sang nur ruhe, and he did not wake me at the quarter hour. But he, being tall, had seen something through the higher gaps in the trees that I could not at my height.
The fog was being pushed in on that pre-storm wind and passing Sutro Tower, so before long, there would be no warmth of the sun to mitigate that cold in Alamo Square Park ... so he took me up, still asleep, and got moving at the quarter-hour mark.
I woke up to a sight of summer being embraced by autumn ...
... and before me, a willow did not weep, but danced with golden fire in its skirt as shining silver overtook the blue in the sky ...
It was as if the music of Sviridov -- late in the autumn of his life, touching an ancient hymn and all its ancient modes with all his modern ability and the eternal fervor that had waited its time within his heart for the moment to shine -- it was as if that music was painting the end of the sunny portion of this day in fiery glory.
About then I realized something else ... I could have laughed, though it was not funny ... the unhurried lush, broad harmony of Eastern Orthodox chant living with the pragmatism and functionality of German and African American music in my mind ... my mind had become quite flexible because of that big musical spanning ... and that probably was how my mind had been prepared not to break, in general.
And speaking of German pragmatism: we were coming down by that route because the willows blocked the wind on that last high stretch, and below them there are houses that block the full impact. He saw that I was awake, but only after we were out of the violence of the wind did he put me down to sit by my fellow beautiful things ...
"Ich fühle jetzt so viel besser -- I feel so much better now," I said, and he sighed with relief.
"I knew you needed rest," he said. "You are not three months from Covid-19, and although I must say you are resilient to have even topped Alamo Square as steep as it is, and wise enough to have not yet attempted Buena Vista Hill. But also, Frau Mathews, you are clocking those 16-19-hour days again."
"I know -- Ich weiss -- Bring dein Leben in den Griff, Frau Mathews," I said, and threw an F3 into my voice -- quite low for a woman -- to make the point he would have made in an F2 or even an F1.
"Now, Frau Mathews," he purred on that F2 with a smile, "do I really do that to you?"
"Tatest du's wirklich?" I said. "Did you really just ask me that -- did you really? Shameless -- you are absolutely shameless!"
"Did you just tell me off in two languages?"
The rest of that inside joke was "Go on and make me laugh, Frau Mathews!" but he just dispensed with that and started laughing, his more intense mood of the day thoroughly dispelled as I joined him and we enjoyed that laugh.
"I should have known you were going to become as intent on cheering me up as I was intent on cheering you up, Frau Mathews."
"Natürlich!" I said, and he laughed. "The student cannot be above her teacher, but she can be like him!"
"My A student," he said, with a great smile, "deep of mind, deep of heart, deep of faith, and deep of music, upon whom no lesson I have taught has been wasted, nor even the challenges of returning to this world and again being subject to certain human commonalities -- and who has extended my legacy to Web3 and the blockchain!"
"Natürlich," I said, "for who has ever known love, and not wanted love to be continued on?"
"Mein geliebtes Blumenkind, that is the question your church in Gelnhausen has been asking. In a world of coldness, who knows warmth? In a world of pride, who knows humility? In a world of roughness, who knows gentleness? In a world of conflict, who knows peace? In a world of selfishness, who has known love?"
"You know, that has been quite a sermon series about living the renewed life," I said.
"You are in solitude because you must be, for now," he said gently, "but you see, your beacon in Germany did not show you wrong: there are Germans who know the answers, and since they are choosing to dub their sermons into Russian and minister through a terrible conflict, they must be reaching Russians who know. I knew Vladimir Miller personally: I know that there are among the great musicians there, and Jerome Hines, many decades ago, said this also. You are not a false beacon among African Americans: there are many among your people who still know. So then, seeing that behind you there is no hope, but only above you, may it not be that you have a choice of solitude or companionship, Frau Mathews? Have you not, even in your solitary wanderings, met enough people so that you may still have hope? Does not even Hive tell you that -- and is Hive not a comfort to you?
"Consider this, meine Tochter. In Schubert, 'Der Schiller' is rowing with hope -- and although the man in 'Selige Welt' has no rudder, he knows in a blessed world, whatever land he comes to will be the blessing he seeks, because he is free from that land of dimness and fog in "Sehnsucht" D. 636. So too your own 'Wade in the Water," 'Deep River,' and 'I Stood on the River of Jordan.' There is no possibility of turning back, although no one knows they are going anywhere but to freedom ... but no one in any of these songs, no matter where they land, thinks that they are landing to be forever in solitude. It would be inhuman."
He had made his way down into the double-deep gravity of his voice, for what he was saying required that.
"And then reconsider 'Aus Heliopolis II,' Frau Mathews. That long, terrible climb through storm and rain, and although it is not mentioned, because it is the city of the sun, there must have been summer climbs of terrible heat, as if the sun itself would not permit any but the most devoted to attain its devotion. But when all that is done, is the person upon that climb to forever be alone there?"
"No," I said. "Not even in 'Mit vierzig Jahren' in Brahms need that be assumed, since a lot of people are in their forties and fifties and beyond."
"Then why assume it for yourself, Frau Mathews?"
His double-deep gravity of voice had now met with all its tenderness and sweetness. Intellectually, he had completely and utterly cornered me -- he had me both on logic and in blowing up my bad logic -- but all I heard was love, and like he could have gathered me up in his two arms and carried me anywhere, his logic and his love, combined, were irresistible.
"This is what I think, Frau Mathews, given that you are in Q-Inspired imagining a conversation as part of your auto-didactic search through all the music you love in your own legacy, in mine, and that of Sviridov for the eternal wisdom that you believe. You are always finding it also in the people you are led to meet, and you hear it in your church here and your church in Gelnhausen. Suitable companions are being directed into the world around you, although not yet on a permanent basis. Yet I think that, just off the edge of the present in Blue Eternity, waiting the proper time to come into here, there is community for you, such as you need."
"I must say I have been encouraged as I am going, a little way at a time upon my journeys, with friends old and new," I said.
"I may tell you this because I am in a position to know it for certain, and I have said something like it to you before: you do not know the Love back of me, waiting to reveal Himself more to you in this matter when you have grown and deepened enough to be ready for that level of blessing. You are still in the phase of realizing how large the world is, how wonderful it is to be free, but you are also beginning to realize just how big the ocean in 'Selige Welt' is. It is a blessing to you that you live along the Pacific, and you are aware of what the 'chances' are that you would, adrift in a boat with just the wind and no rudder, ever reach an island -- so if you do, it will not be chance at all. It will be a blessing to you."
He smiled warmly.
"The sun is making one last valiant effort, so we have a few moments -- remember that beautiful setting by Bach of 'Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele'? Of course he had to work alone relative to humanity for considerable periods of time, but was that music for solitude?"
I smiled.
"It was not. Not in the least. That was for community, in shared holy communion."
"So it appears, Frau Mathews, that this lesson meets you on all sides. Yes, you must have plenty of room -- you are not meant for the crowd -- but having left the crowd as you had to do, once and again, and having accepted the solitude of the way, I do not think that is the endpoint for you in this world. Not yet."
"In the summer, Frau Mathews, you came to terms with your own style ... you love all the beauty of nature, and even to wear the colors you are encountering. You notice already that different kinds of people are responding to you, and your neighbor whom we call the Cherubic Painter somehow captured you, "Heart-full," sight unseen except that, because he is your neighbor, somewhere in his mind, he remembered you."
"I do remember now ... we have met once before ... when he moved in and was new ... another neighbor introduced me to him."
"And of course, you covered that man with all your warm sweetness and that unforgettable purring voice ... like he could forget in his subconscious even if his conscious mind forgot ... you who have men telling you about their businesses and assets in one meeting, and even about what they gave their ex-wives just to let you know money was no object ... you who in blue or pink, to say nothing of blue and pink, have millionaires chasing after you -- like he could forget!"
He was right. My hiking poles were pink, and in two of three notable cases before Mr. Dawnstruck and the Cherubic Painter, I had been wearing warm blue -- the other time, I was wearing peach. Mr. Dawnstruck had been dawn struck by me in pink and burgundy, and the Cherubic Painter somehow had picked me up in pink with a blue headband.
"The summer was for you, my late-blooming flower child, to grow and bloom, to adorn yourself for the blessed place and time in your life to which you have come. Now you live in San Francisco, and you, my dear San Franciscan, know how persistent the city is in keeping some blooms and even some edible fruit even through most winters -- even if the plants here cannot put forth their best, they persist. You have had a cold chill, these past two weeks. It is enough that you made it up here to recover yourself, and since you are not forcing your way through snowy passes but actually seeking light and beauty, I will hold my peace about 'Der Wegweiser' as analogy!
"You know I had forgotten all about that," I said.
He looked up into the heavens in unspeakable gratitude -- mission accomplished, apparently -- but held his peace as he said he would, and only smiled at me.
"I lay no further burden upon you, Frau Mathews. Walk, abide, and adorn yourself as you are called, and when you are ready, a far greater Teacher and Master than I has said, 'Ask, and it shall be given unto you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and the door shall be opened unto you.'"
"You are indeed a faithful echo," I said, "for walk, abide, adorn, ask, seek, and knock are all from thence ... I just had not considered that particular sequence."
He smiled warmly.
"I am hardly the type to be cast as the Fairy Godmother, but ... ."
Suddenly I was wearing a dress, flowing and generous, white at the bottom but slowly blushing pink and then purple into a rich purple from my waist to just below my collar, which was generously edged with a warm pink, studded with gold sequins -- a hollyhock, reconsidered as fashion item. Then, a change ... a warm green dress, with a fringe of gold thread ... the dancing willow, reconsidered as fashion item.
"Now, please understand that no one in my mortal career was so foolish as to get into a situation in which I had to run the costume department," he said, "but when you spend a few decades being dressed and watching people being dressed, if you pay attention you can develop an eye for certain things."
"I dare say you did," I said, "for these even feel beautiful."
"I want you to get used to that, for you know, Love on Haight and Goodwill are on the same street," he said, "and there are a few other places along Haight Street we might look into in the winter, after tourist season and the holidays are over."
"Goodwill, yes, and perhaps sooner," I said, "but the prices in those other places!"
"You are forgetting the ever-expanding budget I have in my role as K.M. Altesrouge. However, you are a climber: you understand the importance of becoming acclimatized. So, all summer, you have been fed many days from the Blessed Hand, and there are still some days to enjoy of that ... but also, I have humbly begun bringing you some fruit, and sometimes a meal, representing the humanity you are yet to meet ... Kaffee und Kuchen, once, albeit a comedy of errors occurred."
"The further adventures of Herr Altesrouge and Frau Blumenkind, delayed by Covid-19 but not denied, as you said in August," I said, shaking my head. "Old Blush and the Flower Child in a Perpetual Comedy of Errors -- maybe even Comedy of Terrors since Halloween is a Thursday -- now those would be some stories for someone to write."
It took me about ten seconds to realize why he fell over the wall into the grass, laughing at me. The Ghost of Musical Greatness Past somehow remembers, even when I don't, that I am the writer of my own story ... and that, too, was a lesson in love ... to remind the beloved that the "someone" who is capable of this and that and the beloved are one and the same, just like I didn't let him demure into merely the humble professor that he indeed had been without acknowledging that I knew he also was far more than that. To live in community in which it was not necessary to forever be tooting one's own horn to be seen and heard at all ... where "Let another praise thee, and not thine own lips" actually was a virtuous manner of living with one another ... he was showing me gentle object lessons of all these things.
I was getting used to 'walk, abide, adorn' ... and I began to feel the stirring within me of 'ask, seek, knock' because I was now thinking of the glimpses I had already been given ... the chill of grief had thoroughly been flung back from me, even as the fog that seemed to be ready to swallow the hill had been flung back for the time being. So I just got down in the grass by my again so-tickled companion willing to laugh with him at me ... but he, looking up at me with deep love on his face, turned it at once ...
"I'm laughing at you without considering that if there is a body of water anywhere in these next two stories, I'm definitely going in it for laughing at you like this!"
"Oh, you better have costuming get you well waterproofed -- out here just breaking the fourth wall between the character's viewpoint and the writer's viewpoint like you get to do that without consequences!"
"But remember, Frau Mathews -- a ghost always has the advantage on Halloween, so have a care!
"Now, wait a minute!"
So there we were, enjoying good laughs in the extra time in the sun before it was time to head for home.
