Quiet descended on her, calm, content, as her needle....
-Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway
I purchased our tickets for the Paul Winter Solstice Concert at the Cathedral today. I have been doing this particular dance for nearly thirty years; essentially ever since I had my own money in my pocket. I think, if someone asked me to choose the music that really tells the story of my life, it would be Paul's. I gave my future husband a second glance because he was running around with a promotional t-shirt for the Consort's Common Ground album when we were 16 or so.... the back of the shirt really drew me in... it was a light blue rectangle with same color text asking this question: "A peace treaty for whales?"
A year later I was on my way back from my first semester at college and stopped at the cathedral to fall in love with the place. I didn't know that was going to happen, of course, but it certainly did.
A few years later I was living at Columbia University and going there every chance I got. By 1985, I was out of school and living in the Bronx. I wrote to the Dean of the Cathedral and asked if I could interpret the next performance of the Missa Gaia, and then did that for more than a few years. As it happened, I became ill and lost my gig by default. But I still went to listen, if not participate in the performance. Missa Gaia is quickly coming upon us (first Sunday October to honor the feast of St. Francis). I have dragged so many friends to this event over the years that I am accused of being responsible for a few conversions! I do not know exactly how that works since I am an erstwhile Catholic and the cathedral is squarely Anglican, but it is the kind of blame one takes easily.
After the animals get blessed, we will turn around and I will be sitting with my husband, my mother-in -law and my new convert to the event, Christy. She came with us last year. As did my dear friend Chris. He had the best time.... and I had the best time sharing that experience with him as we have so many, many times before! I wrote Christy a long and beautiful letter afterwards(if I may say so myself) . I kept a copy of it, but have no idea where it has gone to. Months later she told me she carries it in her bag and shows it to too many people. It warmed my heart. It brought me so far back to when we were all so young and carried each other's letters with us... shared them with whoever would sit still to humor or envy us.
This week a dear friend had her hip replaced. I have been trying to get to see her, but I have not been able to make it. I heard a friend of ours would be going to the hospital to visit, and I hurriedly wrote the patient a note in a card I choose for its prevalent orange (her favorite color). We've been kind of out of touch and I have been full of doubt about our friendship. I think it is the grief. C.S. Lewis, in his A Grief Observed, opens with " No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear." Lately I easily believe that all my friendships are collapsing. I think it is the anxiety he speaks of. I hope I am correct. Anyway, the intrepid co-worker came to see me the next morning and said our friend was very moved by my note. She must be feeling very tender, indeed. I must be as well, as evidence by my the rapid-fire shock and relief with a tear chaser.
I try to remember to do things with my hands. I try to write hold-in-your hand letters--- now more rare than ever in our world. I try to sew because I believe it is a therapeutic act. It makes me like thousands of women over thousands of years. It connects me to mother and grandmother and beyond. Quiet descends, indeed.
Last year, I finally sat down and executed an idea I had at the first Paul Winter Solstice Concert I attended. This simple picture in thread was thirty years in the making! When it was 'drawn' I shaped it into a christmas stocking and gave it to Christy as a memento of the concert. I will be so happy to sit beneath the blue ball with her again. And with my husband, and his (our) mother. I will be so at home in the chest-deep chants. I will weep uncontrollably for my friend whose absence will be palpable. I will be on watch for his presence, just as palpable!
I will think of the shape of the cathedral. I will watch spirit burst open the cube of the cathedral's cross. I will think of my husband's back as I read it in the high school hallway, and of the many years from there to here. And next year, I will ask Paul if I can interpret the Missa Gaia again. This year I will ask Christy if I can borrow my letter back and if I can share it here with whoever is out there listening in the ether!
All photographs and text, unless otherwise noted, copyright (c) 2010 C.M. Carroll
