Amazing woman … and amazing how life takes over. Sheri Roberts-Greimes will be gifting us with a concert Sunday May 7 @ 4 p.m. at the home of Rick & Lynda Condon. Let me know if you’d like to reserve a seat! Sheri was named Blues Vocalist of 2017 by the Washington Blues Society! She has a set of pipes that don’t quit and a soul to match. Join us, it’s gonna be great.
The life taking over part, I always have plans. Oh yes, I do. Then the electrician shows up early, the student can’t make their lesson, the CD needs to be redone, the photographer didn’t bring all their equipment so we need to reschedule, the Board meeting is scheduled for the same time as the contractor is coming, my internet server goes down, and the battery on my smoke alarm is getting low and won’t quit beeping.
Ah, then my son calls, my friend of 40 years, Deanna, calls and wants to meet after I finish on the radio Wednesday, avocados are on sale this week, and a chickadee lands on my porch and chirps.
In Dublin, on April 13, 1742, at age 57, George Frideric Handel debuted his new oratorio, Messiah. He composed it in 22 days. Are you kidding me? It takes me 22 days to clean my house. Even though he was a superstar at that time in London, he had worn out his fans with insignificant operas, and he’d gone bankrupt a couple times. (I had no idea you could go bankrupt in 1742.) So when he was invited to Dublin, across the water he went.
Last week, at Blessed Sacrament Parish in Seattle, their Schola Cantorum, Soloists, and Baroque Orchestra performed for nearly three hours to present Messiah. How many hours of practice that took is beyond me. And the music director, Matthew Loucks. There are not many people I would kiss the ground they walk on. We have never met, yet I watched what he did, how he did it, and the results that together they all achieved. The 21 member choir, soloists, and Baroque Orchestra were passionate; inseparable from the music they were making. They must have been high for days afterward. I hope so.
“But you don’t really care for music, do you? It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift. The baffled king composing Hallelujah.”
Years ago, I sang in a randomly recruited choir assembled for a performance of John Michael Talbot’s The Lord’s Supper. The practices were challenging, as most of us had some singing/music background but were far from professional vocalists. However, we were motivated to sing this beautiful piece: the numerous parts, the harmonies, and the community of us working and singing together to live up to the beauty of the music and bring it live to others.
“There’s a blaze of light in every word. It doesn’t matter which you heard, the holy or the broken Hallelujah.”
Supposedly when King George II heard the Hallelujah Chorus the following year at its debut in London, he was so moved by it that he stood up. Of course, when the King stands, so does everyone, which is why audiences by tradition still stand today during performances of the Chorus. There are those who don’t stand, saying it pays respect to a long dead monarch and a societal practice, not to the music. Seems fitting to me to recognize genius, tradition, and a rich beauty that elevates us. When I hear the first notes of the allegro Hallelujah Chorus, I am filled with the exuberance of the music – standing up is the natural response. As I watch the wave of people around me rising to stand, I become part of a community of joyful listeners, joined witnesses to human endeavor. And hope.
“I’ve told the truth, I didn’t try to fool you. And even though it all went wrong, I’ll stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.”
Having a bad day? Feeling hopeless? Just want to feel alive? Listen to the Hallelujah Chorus. It doesn’t matter what religion you believe in or don‘t, what spiritual practice you have or don‘t. If the lyrics don’t work for you, pretend you don’t speak English. Hear the magnificent harmonies, sophisticated timing, exquisite layering of voices, subtleties and dynamism, and the trumpets! Oh the trumpets!
Listen.
Hear the brilliance of Handel and the beauty of human creativity and expression. If you don’t cry, I cry for you.
Thank you, George. Thank you, Leonard. Thank you, Matthew & company.
Bluebird bike I gave myself permission to buy a bike.
In itself remarkable, as my choice of ultra frugal living these days, a bike is not a necessity. Yet I need exercise. Walking? Naah, too slow.
Yes, there are bikes for sale online. I know nothing about bikes. A friend tells me about a bike shop nearby. When I arrive, I find they don’t sell used ones. Low end new ones are $350. Then of course I need a helmet, tire pump, repair kit, kickstand, plus sales tax, so we are talking close to $500. Nope, not happening.
As I am beginning the trip back home, I hear my phone ding. Of course, I pull over in order to check it, and see Lydia’s text, “I love being divorced.” Oh really? That merited an immediate call. In the course of our conversation, she asked if I’d gone to a local big ‘everything’ store in my bike search. “Why no!” I said, “what a great idea.”
I get in the store, find the bicycles, an employee tells me many of them are on sale. A young couple in their 30’s stroll up. The husband wants a three-wheeled bike with a basket so he can tote groceries and their toddler. While he cute-ifies us riding up and down the aisle, his wife and I examine bikes, their experiences, their opinions on good bikes; a friendly employee comes by and offers to get down the bike that seems the best bet (and it‘s purple!) Another staff member sees it takes four hands to retrieve the bike, and helps him get it down.
After a few minutes of picking out a helmet, seat cover, bike bag, and a tire pump, I take them over to the counter, and come back for the bike. As I roll it up, and look around for a clerk, a man looks at me from the aisle at the end of the glass counter, which is a handgun case, about ten feet from me.
“Are you going to buy that bike?”
With a big smile, I nod.
“May I tell you about that bike? I repair and rebuild bikes.”
“Sure.”
He walks over to me, mid-thirties or so, curly dark hair, caucasian, slightly heavy-set, about eight inches taller than me. He points to the word typed on a clear sticker in black capital letters, FRONT. “See that? It’s because these bikes arrive mostly unassembled. Most of these bikes are pretty good bikes, yet the bikes, and barbecues, are assembled by guys who go from store to store doing that. They have ten minutes per unit. They are rarely bike mechanics. They are assemblers. See right here? This part is on backwards. Here, look at the calipers.”
He closes his hands into fists on the brake handles. “I am squeezing them full on. See, the calipers are not tight on the bike tire.”
“Are you my bike guardian angel?”
“Nope, bikes are how I make my living.”
Moving his hands off the handlebars, he steps back and nudges the derailleur, it wiggles. “This should not be moving like this, even though the unit is a good one. So, if you decide to buy this bike, you’ll need to take it into a bike shop and have it tuned up and some of it re-assembled correctly.”
Oh my.
Not only would I have bought this bike, I would have ridden it with these problems, having no idea that I was making them worse by riding it.
I introduce myself and ask his name.
“Paul.”
People coming out of nowhere to help me: Lydia happy to be divorced, the young man at the bike shop, the young couple, the helpful staff. Then Paul. All moving me forward.
Amazing. When others act in our lives. Assuredly, people have moved in my life, and moved me, whether I wanted to or not. It has been in the last year where I actively recognized where my actions ripple in others’ lives. That is almost a “Duh!” moment as I was a counselor for decades. However, that was my job, which means that I saw some of my impact on others but did not see it on the personal level that I have now begun to.
A real estate deal I was working on last year: it did not pan out to my benefit. I did a ton of work for the owners of the house, nearly all of it they did not know to do (getting an easement which had been erroneously placed on the property removed, a wetland expert out to examine the property; believe me, the list goes on.) In part due to my work, they eventually sold the property for more than they expected, and in part as I stirred the waters to get interest in the property.
Giving a lady who stopped me in the parking lot directions to the highway last week, so she in turn arrived at her destination where people were waiting for her so they could go on with their plans. Leaving an extra copy of the local newspaper for my neighbor, who reads it, talks with a friend, who then takes some action. The dominoes falling once set in motion. And most of the effects, I wouldn’t be able to imagine, for they happen outside my vision and awareness. (As well they should, I have enough trouble getting to sleep as it is.)
So, after owning my new sapphire blue bike a couple weeks, I get on it, helmet securely fastened, and launch out of my driveway. On to a street! I had up to this point only ridden on the paved trail for bikers and walkers.
As I get maybe twenty feet down the street, my seat tips forwards. Stop. Readjust it. Try again. Now I can’t get my foot onto the pedal fast enough, and have to keep restarting. Okay, wobbling forward movement. Seat tips again. Sheesh. I stop and readjust it. Knowing I have to go into the bike shop the next day, I realize this is too dicey an arrangement to ride in the big show: moving cars, 4 x 4‘s, and mini-vans. Before I reach the stoplight, I turn around to head home. As I veer left to get up onto the sidewalk, unable to turn and use the handbrakes at the same time, I nearly slam into my neighbor’s fence, and have to stop with my feet.
Okay, that’s the last straw. I dismount and walk the remaining few feet to my driveway. In years past, I would have been embarrassed.
Instead, the best supervisor I ever had’s adage came back to me, “If you can’t do it right, at least be a lesson.”
Ah, those ripples.
Michael & Slade 10-29-15
“I love you, momma!” The text arrived at 7:30 on Wednesday evening from my son, Michael. In itself, not unusual. Yet, it was out of our regular pattern. A typical text from him was a picture of the St. Louis arch, or “Hi mom, in Arkansas,” or just a “Hi momma.” And those were generally in response to a text I sent initiating the conversation. Was his intuition perking up, as his face had come to my mind a couple times in the previous hour.
I sent a text back, “Glad to hear that. I was just thinking about you.” No response from him. Also, not unusual. As a long distance truck driver in the mid-West, I never know where he is until I hear from him. And many have been the times on the road when he could not answer me right away.
The next morning, Michael called me as he was unloading the truck at one of the retail bargain stores on his route. “That text last night might have been my last words to you, Mom. I was stuck in a tornado, worst one I’ve been in. Didn’t know if I was going to live through it.”
What? What?
“I texted you and Dorothy, in case I didn’t make it. I wanted you to know I loved you.”
My face froze, my body felt weightless, I felt a veil close around my arms and legs like sleeves.
The voice that spoke was mine, however it surprised me with its calm, even tone.
“Really, Michael. Where were you?”
“In Canton, Missouri. When the hail started, I knew this was it, Mom. The hail stones were as big as ping pong balls.”
“What did you do? Was there a storm cellar?”
“Nope. The employees and I huddled in the little women’s bathroom, one stall and the sink. Even inside the building, the tornado sounded like a stampede of boulders rolling down a hill.”
As I sat, so still, looking out my living room window at the acre of lawn in the park edged with hundred foot tall cottonwoods, I tried to grasp the enormity of what he was telling me and not panic, as I could hear Michael talking to me, and to others as he unloaded the roller carts from the trailer. He was out of danger – he was alive, safe, and on the job.
My job at that moment was containing myself. I was in disbelief, that ever-practical Michael, having recounted being run into by drunk drivers, his truck jack-knifing in a wind on an icey highway, being rammed by an oncoming eighteen wheeler when that driver lost control in a storm, and the list goes on, had been afraid he might die.
Living a sane life has required that I disconnect myself from the reality of the dangers Michael faces every time he gets on the road. I have programmed myself to believe that no news is good news.
I know, I know, I raised my children to have wings not strings.
This same disconnect has other useful applications: do we get on a plane, buckle our seatbelt and say, “I bet this baby is gonna crash.” I think not.
One of the magical powers I have wished for was a protective bubble around those I love. Actually, there have probably only been two powers I’ve wished for. When I’d heard others wish they could fly, or be invisible, or read other people’s thoughts, I didn’t relate to that. Until the prevalence of cell phones, I had abandoned wishing for magical powers.
When I see someone using their cell phone while driving, all I’ll have to do is blink and their phone battery will instantly die. The next time they turn the phone on after re-charging, it will say, accompanied by a tornado siren, “If you ever talk on the phone again, much less text, while driving, this phone and any other phone you will ever have, will implode.”
I’m not asking for much. Consideration and attention to safety.
My friend Char does have an amazing power: when her car alarm goes off, it sets off all the others in a stone’s throw radius. A symphony of protection.
So my protective bubble power must have been working, even six states and two thousand miles away. I’ll keep working on the other one.
Thumbtack.com, a go-to site for services of all kinds, including storytellers, musicians, and MC’s, had the excellent discernment to recognize me as an award-winner!
Just as we get ready for the amazing performance of “The Wonder Smith and His Son,” written by Ella Young. This epic telling is the vision of Allison Cox, and sponsored by the Seattle Storytelling Guild. Scads of storytellers, each telling their version of a chapter, and assorted musicians, including myself!
Where: George Center for Community, 2212 NE 125th St., Seattle 98125 (just a couple blocks up from Lake City Way)
When: Saturday, March 19, 2016
Time: 7 – 10 p.m., with an intermission
Suggested Donation:$5 Guild members, $8 non-members, $12 families
