The Lark Ascending

My love affair with Ralph Vaughan Williams goes back to my early 20s.  My college choir had sung Reconciliation (from the Dona Nobis Pacem cantata), and the soloist was a lovely young man with a lovely baritone.  But I didn't learn about his orchestral works until I moved to Portland.  I still remember the discovery.  I was living in a studio apartment in downtown SW, and my aunt was living in a 2 bedroom apartment near the Trinity Episcopal church in NW, about a mile away.  She and her partner were going on a trip, and she asked me to house-sit for them.

The apartment was in an old building, with high ceilings, picture rails, hard wood floors, and steam heat radiators.  It had comfortable and beautiful furniture, with enough empty space so that it could be appreciated, and it had an excellent stereo system to accommodate their eclectic taste in music.  The lighting was provided by floor and table lamps, spilling pools of light in strategic places and leaving the rest of the room in soothing shadows.  There were plenty of tall candles in old spindles.  And there were coffee table art books plus a collection of classics and philosophical tomes.

The atmosphere was, in short, civilized.  It was a gracious, calm home, and staying there was like being on vacation.  I cooked simple meals in the long, narrow, well-stocked kitchen and settled in the living room for evenings of books and music.  This was in the time of vinyl, so there were record jackets to read, too.  I pulled out some old favorites, like George Winston's Autumn and Claude Bolling/Jean Paul Rampal's Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano.

And then I found the Vaughan Williams record.  The jacket had a picture of an English countryside, the violinist was Iona Brown, the orchestra was the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Neville Mariner conducting.  It had Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, Fantasia on Greensleves, Variants on Dives and Lazarus, and The Lark Ascending.  I listened to it over and over, the luscious orchestration and beautiful melodies echoing against the wood and tall ceilings.  I was young, alone in a big city, wrapped about by a loveliness that was almost spiritual.  I was in love.

In the years since, I've played the orchestral parts of all of those, I've sung the complete Dona Nobis Pacem, and I've heard the Lark played by several excellent violinists. I thought I knew all it had to tell me, and that it belonged to that comfortable substrata of experiences that inform and support my current life.  But I am always happy to hear it again.

So, when I noticed last December that David Felberg was going to play the Lark with the Santa Fe Orchestra this February, I made a date with my stand partner to attend.  David is the conductor of the APO, which I joined in September, and he is the first conductor I've had who was a violinist. He looks like Puck:  thick curly red hair with side burns, pointed eyebrows, pale skin, mischievous grin.  I relish his musicality and gently firm expectations of us ("you should WANT to play it fast," "it would be really nice if those two F's matched,"  "it's coming along....you do know we don't have any more rehearsals left?")  His conducting and face are music made visible:  I often wish the audience could be privileged with the experience the musicians have of hearing his musical interpretation and following his lead.

But, although he sometimes picks up the concertmaster's violin to demonstrate a point, I hadn't experienced him as a violinist.  It was a revelation. The technique was brilliant, with clear precise notes,   sweet vibrato, effortless slides, double-stops so perfect they produced harmonic overtones....but it was the interpretation that overwhelmed me. Previously I had been aware of the ache of the beauty and longing of the lark for the sky, but today I felt the joy as well. The sweet trills, the soaring melodies, the dancing folk tunes, the accompaniment of lush strings and floating winds permeated my ears and body with gorgeous sound.  I felt large tears trickling down my face as I listened, and I wiped them away without shame.  I have seldom been so moved by a performance.

At intermission I uploaded a picture of the Lensic foyer, along with a doggerel haiku:

The sweet notes trilled while
Melody soared,  tears dropped, and
The lark ascended.

Now I want to hear him play the Bach Chaconne for solo violin.

Regrets, I've had a few

I don't even like Sinatra, or the song.  But when a Facebook (and old school) friend posted a Guardian article about the five top dying regrets, I found myself quoting "My Way."  As with many things, it was a serendipitous posting, fitting in with my current thoughts.

Minor Geminid digression:
I once heard that the reason you notice things is because of the filtering part of your brain.  (Gotta get something out of those management classes!) Without the filter, you'd go into sensory overload.  But, once you've created a pathway, the filter lets things through.  Agatha Christie mentions this phenomenon in They Came to Baghdad.  It's universal:  once something grabs your attention, you see it everywhere.

So, I'm thinking about regrets?  Yes.  This is not the same as regretting things. It fits into my personal work:  I've been going over my assignment from my therapist.  What do I want, need, deserve?  It is significant, I think, that in my previous post I turned Deserve into Desire.  Apparently, I don't want to think about what I deserve.  Desire is need, so is want, and I turned the exercise into a puzzle:  how do I differentiate?   I spun my wheels, trying to fit my list into increasingly abstruse categories.  Is healthy food a need or a want?  What about love? Clearly a desire....but is it also a need?  What about meaningful work?  friends? safety?

Here's the list I dictated into the phone while sitting on a bench outside during a long break:  food, lodging, meaningful work, safety, security, goals, creativity, love, friends, serenity, connections, music, writing, books, exercise, amusement, sleep, healthy food, wine, sweetness, laughter, joy, fun, a lover, purpose, stability, money, peace, someone to take care of me, strength, competence, self-confidence, time, adventure, activity, health, wisdom.

Then I started spinning my wheels further, analyzing the order in which I thought of things.  Does it indicate my priorities?  Or something deeper?  I observed that I started with the concrete, included a lot of my Shoulds, and smuggled in only a few emotional needs.  And that I followed "someone to take care of me" with a bunch of self-sufficient qualities.  It's a disjointed, contradictory list.

Even when I'm trying to figure out how I got into this emotional pickle, even when I'm trying to dig my way out, I seem unable to focus on the sweet, joyous things in life:  love, friends, happiness.   It's no accident that the Declaration of Independence does not talk about basic needs (food, lodging, work).  It talks about life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.  It does not attempt to define happiness or the way it is pursued.   Why can't my own declaration go in that direction?

And this is where regret comes in.  There I was, sitting on a bench outside the Balloon Museum, facing my beloved Sandias, watching the play of New Mexican light over the mountain, following the clouds in the endless sky.  Why wasn't I walking, taking photos, basking in the beauty around me and rejoicing in the health of my body?  Why was I focusing inward instead of outward?  Why didn't I do something useful with my life, the little bits and pieces that I have to work with?

The big regret is waste:  waste of time, opportunity, talent.  And I think the real waste is only slowly coming to me.  I am wasting my joy.  When something wonderful happens to me, I transmogrify it into a problem.  When someone tells me I am loved, I question it.  When I try to think of what I deserve, I dodge the question.

Now, this is who I am.  I think too much.  In the long run, what does that accomplish?  What seems like a waste could be seen as the necessary part of the whole, neither good nor bad.  The yin and the yang, as it were.  However you see it, the waste is inseparable from the procession of events that make up a life.  It's a product.  And so is regret.  It's what thinking humans do.  You get a result and you rejoice, but you also regret.  So sue me.

After all this musing, I end up with the Declaration of Independence. I have the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.  Looking to my list, I find that it's easy to categorize from this point. I deserve these rights.  I need the basics to use my rights:  food and shelter, work and play.  I want the things that enhance these needs: security, stability, creativity, meaning//purpose, health, money, amusement, aesthetics, exercise of mind and body.  Coming full circle, I deserve the intangibles that inform these wants and needs:  love, laughter, joy, friendship.  Where does regret fit in?  It probably shouldn't come into this at all.  But  I  do regret the time and energy I waste in the pursuit of unhappiness.

However, I don't fucking need, want, or deserve someone to take care of me.  Let's make that perfectly clear.

Getting lost

For some reason, I was telling a friend about my trip to Italy, and the truly epic ways in which I could get lost, despite an excellent map, guidebook, and brain.  Siena was the worst, because I was fresh off the train, tired, hungry, and looking for a place to stay.  The old town is a series of twisting circular streets, all leading to the Piazza.  I found the tourist place on the Piazza, but instead of calling for me, they gave me three addresses and sent me and my heavy 20-year-old pack into the cobbled streets.  The backpack was left over from my post-college one-month Eurail-hostel vagabondage, but the body was much less able to handle the weight.

The first stop, I recall, was at a blank door in the middle of an uncharming (for Siena) street.  I buzzed for the landlady, and a bald slatternly woman buzzed me in.  She was standing at the top of a steep flight of stairs, and she had no English.  I climbed up to see an absolute hole-in-the-wall, with taped-up windows and a dirty quilt.

I left.

I can't remember what happened at the next place, but  from there I was wandering the streets turning the exact wrong way whenever it was possible to.  Did I mention that the streets were twisting and curvy?  There were also a lot of intersections. When I finally reached a sweet little hotel on a quiet street, I was in no state to deal with any more roadblocks.  So, when the young man with the melting brown eyes said, "I'm sorry, we have no rooms available tonight," I looked at him and said, "I think I'm going to cry."  I didn't think I was serious, but he did, and when he said, "No, don't cry Miss," I found out...yes, I was going to cry.   I gulped and gasped, and he got on the phone and found me a space at the Youth Hostel and a cab to take me there.

I thought I was remembering this, because I am still able to get totally lost, even when I know the place, even when I have my smart phone to tell me the way.  Last week, when V was visiting, she was ready to smack the phone out of my hand:  she had a perfectly good map and was giving me adequate directions.  She thought.  But she was right in that I had no business trying to use the smart phone while I was driving.

It's funny:  in my past life, I would never dream of texting or phoning while I was driving, and I would totally get myself equipped with good maps and directions, or be prepared to spend some time exploring.  But now I've abandoned those skills in favor of the sound-bite, GIS technology.  Google is my guide, and that's a pretty scary thought.

I think I need to find a better guide, and not just for my physical travels.

Today, my therapist took issue with all the "shoulds" yattering in my brain.  I had been whining:  I should make more money, do more creative things during my time off, practise more (well, I SHOULD), be a better friend, etc etc etc.  But then she gave me a Should of her own:  figure out what I Need, what I Want, what I Desire.  Three different things, she says.  (Which makes three more Shoulds....)

After writing this, I think I know what I NEED:  the ability to manage being lost.  I don't know where I am or where I am going.  But I have a pretty good map, guidebook and brain.   And my friends and family are pretty nice concierges, even if they don't have melting brown eyes and an Italian accent.

So, time to explore.

manic depression

I think the weather is bi-polar. V was visiting from 1/10-1/22, and during that time we had snow, freezing winds, gorgeous sun, mellow afternoons, temps ranging from 7 to 60 degrees. I was looking up the definition for manic-depression in Mosby, and it describes the last month to a T:

Bipolar disorder, formerly known as manic depression, is a mood disorder that causes radical emotional changes and mood swings, from manic, restless highs to depressive, listless lows. Most bipolar individuals experience alternating episodes of mania and depression.

Of course, it also describes me, which is why I was looking it up. Is it possible to develop such a disorder in one's fifties, or was it always latent in me? Maybe. After all, during my pre-menopausal days, that basically described my cycle. I used to say that the only time I saw life truly and saw it clear was when I was having a period. The rest of the time I was a happy idiot: anything could bring me joy. I enjoyed small triumphs and beauties and I ignored the horrors and banalities of every day life.

And I've been a happy idiot for much of the past month and a half. Visiting the family, enjoying scenery from the train, playing music with my sisters and Mom, sledding, hiking in the woods, sharing New Mexico with V, taking pix, writing haiku, burning CDs, baking, knitting, spending time with T, watching Deadwood, discovering new books, catching up with friends....all good. I could spend hours listing and describing what's good about my life.

That's the manic phase.  And then.....

I walked into my therapist's office this morning, smiling, getting out my knitting, ready to talk. She said, "It's been awhile, did you have a good time with your friend? You're smiling..." And I starting crying and didn't stop for the next hour. 

I guess you'd say I'm in the depressive phase now.

In fact, I'm an exhausted basket case. I made it to rehearsal, but started sobbing on the drive home. I thought, this cannot be good for me, despite what my therapist tells me. I'm wiped out. And I shouldn't be driving.  So, I looked up "chemical effect of tears" in Google. I found what I was looking for: 

Emotional tears are composed of more protein-based hormones, such as prolactin, andrenocorticotropic, and leucine enkephalin (a natural pain killer), which is suggested to be the mechanism behind the experience of crying from emotion making an individual feel better.

But I also discovered a recent study that women's tears reduce testosterone in men.  So, not only am I exhausting myself, but I'm preventing myself from getting laid.

Now, that's something to be depressed about.

Loneliness

Two days after my last post, the one about Change....I left D.

It's been a month of more changes than I can count, more stress than I thought possible, and more grief than I expected.

I don't want to think about all that right now.  The poor choices of the last 10 years, the financial and personal loss, the ongoing drama in disconnecting, the pain of hurting the man I love, the loss of self-respect, the relinquishing of power, the second-guessing....it's all too much.

So, here I sit, in my cozy little casita, listening to the birds who are cheeping in the bushes and complaining about the cold and the dusting of snow on the ground (yes, I'm anthropomorphizing.)  I have an excellent landlord, a retired librarian who let me use her oven last week to bake Julecaga and rolls.  There is art on the walls, there are books on the shelves, there is coffee in my cup.  I just finished skyping with H and S and eating breakfast, and this afternoon I go to T's for a cookie baking party:  she got the idea from me and ran with it, and I'm so happy to have a little holiday baking in my future.  I'll be bringing the potatoes I mashed last night, and I'll make lefse.   Ostensibly, life is good, I'm productive, and I'm doing things that bring me joy.

In fact, I have too muich to do:  practising for the upcoming concerts, knitting for Christmas gifts, reading, writing, making decorations, sending cards, getting a new driver's license, managing my budget.  And work.

This is how I lived 10 years ago:  lots of activity, lots of friends.  I didn't feel lonely very often.  I liked having my home to myself to recoup from the busy days.  Ostensibly an extrovert, I have introvert tendencies:  being with people can energize me, but it often saps me intead, and I need the space and solitude.  When I first left D, my grief was buried by an immense relief: I no longer have to deal with him, I can come home to a peaceful home, I can do things the way I want to without recrimination, I don't have to compromise a damn thing.

So I thought.

But, yesterday I was sad, sad, sad.  I wanted to call D.  I wanted to make sure he was okay.  I wanted to plan an outing with him.  I wanted to hold him.  I was lonely.

I can handle the days, of course.  There is work, there is business to take care of.  The nights, though...they are tough.  My current branch assignment is very quiet:  very few customer interactions, only 3 people to manage, the building maintenance is done by the site where the library is located.  I don't come home exhausted by the demands of the day, and I need activity to offset the brooding.

I don't have TV to watch numbly while I knit, and I don't want to anyway.  I can practise, of course.  And read.  But they both require serenity and focus outside of myself.  I am too restless to settle down to anything.  I can do some baking and fudge making, but the kitchenette does limit that, and I'm not hungry.  I have to bring anything I make to other people.

Yes, I can call my friends.  But I don't want to overburden them, especially the new, local ones.   And I don't like talking on the phone.  Yes, I can Skype.  But in the end, I'm alone, when I'm used to having someone there.  Yes, it was someone I fought with, yes, it was someone who belittled me, who used me up.  But, it was a connection, however toxic.

Yesterday I called my Mom during my lunch break, and we talked about loneliness.  She shared what she went through after Dad died, and she encouraged me to pick up the pieces and look for another man.  Uh, no.  I don't want that, I never did.  I still don't know why I gave up 40 years of single bliss for 10 years of....what was it?  Companionship, caring, being needed?  I have years to figure that out.

But in the here and now, I have to figure out who I want to be, how I want to put the meaning back into my life.  It seems I am not put here to take care of another person.  I gather I am here to learn some sort of lesson, to grow in some way, to make a difference somehow.  And that is fine for the big picture.

It doesn't do much for the lonely evenings.

Change

This blog is not a journal or an attempt to keep track of the external events in my life.  It's supposed to be a place for me to think, ponder, figure things out.  But today I need to make sense of the external events.  I want to think about change, and how I respond to it.  This means I need to think like a diarist, not a ponderer.   I really feel like I'm stagnating, and I want to make some positive changes, but I'm not sure I have the wherewithal to do that, nor, looking back, do I think it would be wise.

I think I've had about as much change as I can handle for awhile.

The timeline:  I get laid off in October, 2010.  In January, 2011, I turn my family room/mother-in-law apartment into a vacation rental to help cover the mortgage.  I job hunt, interview, find part-time temp work, job hunt some more.  In June 2011, I become an editor for OLAQ.  My annual wine-tasting trips turn into camping trips (much cheaper.)  I hang with friends, work, job hunt. 

After a year of this, in March 2012, I have run through my savings. I downsize my possessions and I renovate my home to accommodate a renter.  In April, I end up renting to a crazy woman and her PTSD son.  I get offered a job in ABQ, take it, find new renters, and move across country in May 2012. 

My dog dies.  My new renters turn out to be even more trouble.  My finances become even more problematic.  My apartment is beige, but the mountains are beautiful.  We go for weekly drives, enjoying the country, looking for a home that isn't beige.  We swim in the pool.  The job turns into a 6-month project: every week I'm in a new branch of the system.  Nothing seems stable.  The job, the finances, the Portland house, our living situation....all are temporary or problematic.  D's job is contract work, and he's stressing it, which means I'm stressing it.

I continue to job hunt, looking for better pay.  But I don't really want to leave.  In October, I volunteer at the Balloon Fiesta and have a BLAST.  I meet some people that could potentially be soul mates.  I join the orchestra, I sing in the choir, I learn the best travel routes, I start hiking in the Sandia Open Spaces.  We manage a marital truce, and we find good restaurants.

Then I am offered an interview for a job at the Oregon coast.  Living at the beach would be a dream come true.  I pull together airfare and crash with my friends.  I don't get the job, and I discover that, in 5 months, I've become estranged.  I love my friends, I miss them terribly, but Portland is no longer home.  All the dampness feels weird against my skin, and all the trees seem to be cluttering up the landscape and hiding the bones of the earth.  The sky is blotted out by a blanket of grey.  I miss New Mexico.

This is probably good, since I seem to be here for the duration.  I can't get approved for a mortgage, so we decide to spend another 8 months in this apartment complex.  I am not happy:  the beige and the cheap furnishings and carpet depress me, and I wonder what to do about the possessions back in Portland.  

Last weekend we move into another apartment in this complex:  it has the advantage of a gas fireplace, and the view of the parking lot is replaced by a view of trees.  It's a good change, but it is still change, and a lot of work.  Simultaneously I am rehearsing for concerts that take place on the weekend of the move.  D quits one job and starts another.  I am assigned to a new branch, while continuing to manage the project, which is over at the end of this month.  This all takes place over the course of 5 days, and it takes its toll on body, spirit, and the marital house.

So, why am I dreaming of more change?  Surely I should go into hunker down mode.  Winter is approaching (it hailed out at the East Mountain branch), and I should want to hibernate.  But I don't.  I want to do something different with my life.  I'm not sure what that would look like, though.  I am still thinking in terms of what I don't want:  I don't want to fight with D, I don't want to manage passive aggressive people, I don't want to be in debt. 

Do I want change as a way to escape?  Probably.  Can my body, emotions, and mind handle any more change?  Probably not. 

Perhaps the change needs to be internal, instead.

Hiding behind nuns

Years ago, I took a trip to Italy, starting with a few days visiting A, who was subletting a studio apartment in Rome during her first Fullbright year.  She loaned me a fabulous DK guidebook, gave me advice about gelato (make sure it's made AT THE SHOP), suggested places to visit, and met me for dinner at fabulous restaurants.  But the most important advice regarded Rome traffic:  drivers ignore the traffic lights and your only recourse is to catch their eyes, glare, and assert your pedestrian rights while continuing to maintain eye contact.

I never had the guts to do it, so I found groups of nuns or school kids and crossed with them.

I've thought of this a lot since moving to Albuquerque.  The drivers here are notorious for being drunk and/or distracted, ignoring pedestrians or actively running them down, and weaving in and out of traffic.  There is no such thing as checking the blind spot or leaving an escape route or gap.  There are two freeways that bisect the city east/west and north/south, and the speed limit is 65 mph, even in the heart of the city.  Lane changes are abrupt, and I've watched cars essentially drive diagonally across four lanes to get to the faster lane or the right exit.

I spend a lot of time driving the surface streets or the frontage road:  the drivers are just as crazy, but the speeds are better, as long as it's not 3 am.  (One of my student staff said an acquaintance died in an early-morning motorcycle crash.  I asked if he was wearing a helmet, but apparently he was going 100 mph down Montgomery - one of my main routes home -  so a helmet wouldn't have done much for him.) 

There are billboards everywhere saying DNTXT, and numerous commercials about people who died or became quadriplegic because they were texting while driving.  There's a big campaign to reduce distracted driving, but I don't see much evidence of success.

So, it's especially frustrating that D is totally refusing to stop talking on his cell while he drives. He says, "I've driven like this for years, I can do it, we're fine."  I grab the chicken bar as he swerves towards the next lane or bears down on the slowing driver ahead of us while he wrestles with the phone. 

There are no nuns to hide behind.