"Now, wait a minute -- tatest du's wirklich, meine junge Frau?"
You know it has been a week to consider when the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past comes in full-voiced and already done with me...
"I thought we had gotten past you breaking both German and English in 2023 -- what is this new monstrosity?"
"Oh, sorry -- let me fix that post title up for you -- der Eisenblumenkinderung," I retorted.
The last thing I would see of him for several days was him laughing so hard at me improvising a more Germanic monstrosity -- and he knew the mistake I made on purpose to make the word even bigger and badder -- that not only did he fall out of gravity, but before he went, all of costuming's efforts were completely wasted. The appearance of the wise old mentor vanished into a merry man in his mid-forties, the same years in which he had started doing the music he wanted to do and not any of what he didn't -- in other words, the same years in which he had boldly seized the course that continued to inspire me to take the same steps as a creative in my mid-forties. So, he loved this from me, and I made sure he would get all of that laugh!
"And while you are going, I'll see your hurdy-gurdy man from Schubert that we have heard far too much of and raise you some bagpipers and bears dancing in Bartok -- that will teach you to come into Q-Inspired fussing at me! I'm not having trouble with you either!"
I heard a report later in the week in the news: "We may now have evidence of extraterrestrial life in the universe, but if this is a true indication, it is laughing at humanity at this point in our history, and laughing long, and deep, and loud."
Oops ... oh well!
Other reports were coming from deep in Golden Gate Park -- the fanbase of K.M. Altesrouge did not know whether they were coming or going with his mid-spring lineup. I would get the full understanding of why they were beside themselves later on, for he himself would show me ... just when you think that old bass cannot think of another way to escort folks into the Knockout Zone...
Meanwhile, I was awakened in this week with a sudden spring storm of unexpected power, and it was fitting. Spring must have its storms, and they overtook me in more than one way. The quiet strength of Bach has truly been a welcome counterpoint ...
Last week, I was given a new challenge, right on time.
You know what you want. Be crystal clear and iron-strong in refusing what you do not, no matter who offers it, no matter what story and circumstance they come with. If it is to fall into your actual responsibility, you will know that.
So I set forth on that path ...
Sunday and Monday came, and smack got real, real fast. Tried and true foolery, expected but still upsetting foolery, unexpected foolery, cruel and unusual foolery -- and all the people involved, some of whom I am responsible for, some of whom I am not. The challenge was to sort them out, take a stand against the foolery when and where possible, and block out those who want the foolery, either tacitly or actively, from any significant portion of my life. I am revoking the privilege of folks who are, in essence, Don Giovanni on the brink of the abyss, still not wanting anything in life except what got them to that point. My hand and heart strength are not to be wasted on such situations. No more.
I have been in tears, so much ... and have been so blessed by Bach, a man who buried a wife and more children than most men ever have, and kept going, knowing by Whom and for Whom he was called and that he had to not only live but live powerfully even in the midst of the grief. That Bach knew depths of loss I will never know, and walked on ... that he knew heights of joy in the midst of it all that, considering from how deep in sorrow he rose to reach them, that I also cannot even imagine and must simply take his testimony as fact ...
... this tells me that I will make it if I just walk on ... for if he could, so can I ...
The D major fugue recalls to me a lovely moment at the end of last week ... in choosing to preserve an hour in the park even if I did not have energy for a walk, I made room in my life for a sunshine-kissed nap in the Fuchsia Dell while everything was happening ... birds were singing, young men were playing a chase game that kept coming in and out of the Dell ... a very different kind of music was playing on Hippie Hill and it was funneling right up into the Dell as it often does on Saturday ... and still with all that activity, it was still joy enough for peace ... the D major fugue is an ideal version of such a moment, but I was happy enough in the imperfections of a reality lacking unnecessary foolery.
Voila. That's what I want, and where my life is going, and who I am going with. Nothing else. No one else. The amount of responsibility in my life requires me to endure a certain and high amount of difficulty, and inevitable human foolery -- so I need to eliminate as much of the latter in myself as possible so as not to add to the former.
The only fool I must have in my life, and who I need to have an iron grip on, is me.
While this is perfectly suited to what many people in the United States have learned the hard way, it also points up another harsh reality ... any change hoped for externally tends to settle back into a different version of the same outcome, because the individual underlying issues that support oppression of the people are never addressed. In the same manner, I have often found myself in situations I have to leave because the underlying issues in me were not addressed.
I hate to see people suffer, and I have massive survivor's guilt from being one of the just three African American survivors of gentrification in my generation in my neighborhood -- but history cannot be changed, and I do not have the right or the power to keep anyone, of any race or background, from the necessary consequences of their decisions.
As I was also reminded firmly last week:
Justice arrives where mercy is refused, and both justice and mercy are equally good. Remember that, mein Eisenblumenkind.
Robert Lloyd is tied with Franz-Josef Selig as my second favorite as Commendatore ... Mr. Lloyd brings the deep, noble concern of a powerful father imploring his prodigal to come home, but also brings calm submission to the arrival of justice when the time of mercy is over, walking majestically back into the radiant light from which he came and in which he will dine forevermore, undisturbed by Don Giovanni not accepting the invitation and going on to Hell at exactly the same time.
I went on my walk and found some radiant light in which to contemplate this ...
... and my favorite Commendatore, in the spirit, walked out of the radiant light he dwelt in into the light of the sun and announced his presence thus:
"I would not in the least be disturbed, Frau Mathews, if you would displace me with Robert Lloyd as your favorite Commendatore, because of your present necessities."
"No. Never. Nein. Nie." I said calmly, and he chuckled -- and then bowed.
"I recognize die Eisenblumenkindung," he said, "and we will style it in the feminine after the manner of transfiguration -- die Verklärung -- in mind of Isolde at the end of Tristan and Isolde because you are a woman. Yet you are a woman in the process of powerfully living for love, not dying for it."
"Liebesleben, nicht Liebestod." I said. "Genau -- precisely."
His smile was gentle, but his glow up was notable ... he was intensely excited, but pacing himself, as he did when he sang. He would get you where he was in due time, using every note, every line, every circumstance of the song ... no hurry at all ...
"Oh, yes, I am savoring every moment of this day, Frau Mathews ... long have I waited to see you come to this place in your understanding ... but I'll get to that in due time."
The timbre of ecstasy was already in his voice, but in check ... he was firmly in the lower middle of his voice, and already softly ringing its joy bells there, but still below the point where to hear him was to take one out of any consciousness of the troubles of this world. He was pacing himself masterfully.
"You could have just written 'Becoming the Iron Flower Child, Week 1,'" he continued.
"The Germanic line of thought has a certain rhetorical ring to it, though," I said, "I mean, if one is going to write a libretto-length post anyhow ... ."
He laughed.
"Die Eisenblumenkindung does sound like something Wagner might have on his shelves ... maybe one of those 20 operas I said in 1988 he would have written if he had a personal computer."
"Oh my -- I'm trying to imagine the prelude of that and it is scaring me!" I said, and he laughed uproariously.
"Put down that Tristan chord and slowly back away before somebody gets hurt!" he cried, and that cracked me up.
After that we got up and walked on for a while ... it was such a lovely day in the Oak Woodlands ...
... and with me never seeing a side trail I didn't like ...
... there was always something new to see ...
... and he, seeing for himself with my energy level that day what my doctor had confirmed -- ahead of schedule in my recovery from severe anemia, out of danger -- could not withhold his joy any longer, and burst into song ...
"Well, look, don't feel the need to burn the whole place down, sir!" I cried, and that lit him up even more! There was a flash --- and then there he was as that robust, handsome, immense man at 44, in all the joy of having made the moves and the sacrifices he needed to make to at last enter upon the deepest parts of his calling -- and then in seeing another soul track him in this, indeed!
"Do you know how old I was when I recorded so many of the songs that are so dear to you now?"
"The first of those was 1982 ... you were 44."
"How old are you, Frau Mathews, now?"
It just so happens that I am 44 years old.
"My A student, born out of due time, but still added to me ... still added to me not merely as a musician, but as a human being, climbing to where she should be, finding inspiration in the deeper legacy I quietly left to forge her own high path ... that I, though long dead to this world, might yet sing, and be so heard for good -- ach ... mein Herz ... mein Herz ... mein Herz platzt vor Freude!"
At this point he had forgotten he didn't have a physical heart that could burst for joy, for he put both his immense hands where his heart would have been and shivered ... and the earth trembled beneath our feet at a heart-cry from him so deep that the infrasonic waves were tickling the local fault lines -- so in order to keep from splitting the entire San Francisco Bay Area along its fault lines, he took me and swept me away in his joy, all along that golden light ...
... and at last, because I still had a body and a physical heart and could only be carried so far in my recovery, he brought us to a halt in a lovely place ...
... and told me all his bursting heart...
"Ach, mein Eisenblumenkind, I show you all my heart ... I know this week has been difficult for you, but I have watched you meet the tests with iron resolve and decisiveness so you could pour more into yourself and those you are called to -- and I watched you thrive -- I knew you would! I knew you would make it -- oh, my joy for you -- *mein Herz jubelt für dich, O mein geliebtes Eisenblumenkind!"
"On Sunday I watched you step into a higher level of musical and director power despite not being entirely well -- I watched you block out people and their demands that are not your affair, and preserve your energy so you could make sure the elders you have direct concern for were well-situated, and then reach deep into your ancestral musical legacies not just for yourself, but for your students and your fellow musicians and your community. In spite of what happened just two weeks ago, you got back up to your proper place as a master musician -- you would not be stopped, deterred, delayed, or denied, and you opened all that space for all those younger musicians to do the same!
"On Monday -- in so many different spheres, at the same time, you just trimmed and pruned and moved and blocked -- you decided those who have ignored you once do not get twice, and those twice, not three times, and some people don't even know time is up but they will find out whenever they find out!
"Before we know it, you might be making big moves and sending people pictures of what you've done to announce what you did not need their permission and do not intend to apologize for -- you might just get so bold as to let them stumble over the reality and not even explain! You might get completely out of control, Frau Mathews, to all these mere sons and daughters of Adam who have no right to limit you!"
The soul of the man who had moved and announced it to the home crowd with a photo of himself, his wife, and his new big house in Munich -- the soul of that man was in golden-voiced ecstasy over my iron-willed exploits ... and, still being human, was entirely forgetting that while he got into these states of mind and just was energized more and more and more, we were temperamentally very different. My thresholds are quite different. A walk in the park on a beautiful day is often enough to get me close to the edge of ecstasy and thus close to the limit of where I can remain fully conscious -- there are passages of music that will bring me and even across to that limit, too. This particular experience was hitting on all thresholds -- and so, the Knockout Zone welcomed me with golden auroras flaming across a black midnight sky spangled with all the Milky Way for light, and all the music of the spheres was there, ringing joy bells!
Since I was for the moment asleep to the world, he carried me from there ...
... down to the bottom of the trail ...
... into a sunny meadow ...
... and into a quiet spot there, with golden-tipped shade...
... and stayed quiet so I could hear the songs of birds and the sweet sound of the wind in the breeze instead of those overwhelmingly lovely joy bells ... he was glowing and smiling softly as I opened my eyes.
"You see I have the same problems you do in this earth, Frau Mathews: the only fool I really have to worry about is me. There is a secret older than we are, though written for anyone to read: 'He who is ruler over his own spirit is mightier than he who rules a city.' To me, born a humble German villager, that wisdom came down simply as me understanding that if I learned not to have trouble with myself, I also would not have trouble with anyone else. Obviously I did not and still do not succeed perfectly. I do get carried away."
"But even then," I said, "not such that anyone would have to fear being carried, because you conducted the rest of your life in such a manner that meant that particular failure actually became an advantage in the long run."
"I did enjoy a long career," he said, "so I suppose there were a few people who did not mind going where I wanted to take them."
"A few million at this point," I said, and he blushed.
"YouTube amazes me -- my second career in what you call Web 2 amazes me," he said, "and you, making on Hive my third in Web 3 -- all I can do is be humbly grateful.
"And that brings me to this point, from eight years into a permanent retirement that apparently I am not having, since my audiences are bigger now -- ."
I broke out laughing.
"The marvels of the Internet!" I said.
"But you see, my beloved Iron Flower Child, I had to overcome many of the same challenges you are overcoming to get there. I have in common with you early, painful formative experiences that gave me a deep desire to bless, to build and rebuild for my people in their great need, and thus an inclination that developed into the formation of my character."
" 'A kind man with a gentle soul,'" I said. "That is how you are remembered ... too decent for the villain roles you played, ever looking to bless your peers and especially the younger musicians, ever a joy to work with."
"And with all that," he said, "it is forgotten that the picture was not always so golden, for I certainly had my struggles, especially with the eventual realization that the formative sphere I began in was not large enough to hold me in my calling ... and also the realization that although there were always going to be plenty of things I could do in that sphere, I was being called higher, and I would have to answer and tune out every voice to the contrary."
"In retrospect," I said, "I know what else we must have in common: an iron will."
"And also a well-developed intellect. Those two can be employed to protect and honor a gentle soul that will not endure doing needless damage to others to have its way, but nonetheless must rise to the place to which it is called."
That was like balm to my heart, and I found myself in tears from the relief.
"There is a way, Frau Mathews, and you are on it: right action speaks for itself to everyone, and leaves minimum room for unnecessary offense. The courtesy of an explanation is not always necessary, or even understood or appreciated."
He smiled, and then put his head in his hand.
"When I was 50, I gave an interview, and if only I had thought of this when I got that question about Hagen ... ."
"And just dropped a bomb on your fellow basses," I said as I chuckled, "by saying the role is better suited to those who can no longer sing."
"Thus not everyone agrees that I am a kind man," he said, "although I did not mean that unkindly at all -- but I would have been better off not explaining so much. Learn from my mistake, Frau Mathews! Saying less and being less available to the many in order to pour into yourself and those to whom you are called and then letting the resulting right actions speak for themselves is wisdom."
"I do see the wisdom," I said, " My struggle, and what requires an iron will, is having such a desire to communicate and share the blessings I am experiencing, but actually operating only in terms of discernment. I remember that interview you gave on your 50th birthday, willing and desiring to share your joy with others ... but all the humility and goodwill in the world -- and you have it -- could not keep those folks from a tour of the intellectual wing of the Knockout Zone that nobody recovered from until you left the building."
"But at least they wanted the tour, if you will," he said. "Imagine what that would have been like in Cologne, some years before that. As you know, I am capable of giving levels of explanation for anything I hold forth on, and every one of those levels would have been a further hurt, a further offense, to those who wanted me to stay there. This, by the way, is one of the surprising ways that interpersonal violence can occur to people of good nature and high intellect: all the while you think you are being kind and reasonable in explaining, and the other person feels more and more rejected and piled on by all your good reasons. So, it is kinder to both you and them to say less."
"I have realized that," I said, "and even the grim reality you speak of has been foreshadowed to me. One far greater than us has said, 'Cast not your pearls before swine, lest they turn and tear you.' I have learned that this indeed is true, and I must walk in the truth that I know."
"And for which," he said, "you have been given an iron will, and eternal reinforcements of it from on high, because to someone of tender heart, this is unspeakably difficult."
He pulled out his ethereal handkerchief and handed it to me, and waited patiently for me to hand it back.
"Danke," I said. "Thank you."
"Gern geschehen," he said.
He was patient quite a long time after that, letting me completely compose myself, and then added, ever so gently, "While walking in this truth, and thus preserving your energy, you will find that you will more and more often be free to open new ground for yourself and for those ready to explore it after you, if not with you. How much room do you think you have in that freedom, if you preserve your energy to explore it -- for you, and then for others?"
"I don't know for certain," I said, "but I can find out."
"And for what do you think you have been brought to this place in your life -- for what have you been called to this long climb away from people who would not even begin to think of how to invest their lives into who they are called to be?"
Now that was a thought ... for even in common terms, we hear of how people spend their lives and even waste their lives, but rarely did one think of investing one's life ... that required a much longer view ... in common grace, my students, and my students' children occupied much of that view ... in special grace as a Christian, I thought of both my students and everyone to whom I was called to do good as a representative of Christ, and the eternity I would share in the fruit of that work with others so called with me, in the presence and pleasure of Him Who empowered it all.
But then again, that is already how I have invested my entire adult life. I just hadn't thought of it that way before. That is why I had moved away, not fully understanding but still moving, from long-term connections with people and institutions who just don't get it.
Clarity on this point staggered me because of its implications ... most people live and make their connections based on the comfort of kinship, familiarity, ethnicity, nationality, and tradition, and often stay in objectively bad situations for far too long because of this. Very few people thought about living based on return on investment relative to one's calling. But that is exactly how I had pared my life down, and found peace ... and how I would keep it.
"I will return next week, Frau Mathews, with a deep lesson beginning right here ... for you do subconsciously know what you have been doing, but there is something in new to you in Brahms and known to you in Löwe and Schubert to compare with something you know from your studies of Scripture ... imperfect echoes, but still of value to illustrate in common grace.
"But for today I am going to see you home ... we must still not overtax your strength, and I am glad to know that on the non-fiction side of the fourth wall you have seen your doctor and the report is very good."
"Getting there, focusing on taking good care of me and caring for others out of that -- seems to be working -- and speaking of which, it is such a lovely day ... I would love to rest in this meadow a while longer."
"As you wish, mein geliebtes Eisenblumenkind. You know what you want. You are gently refusing anything else. Since I advised you to that course, I can hardly gainsay it since apparently you do not intend to have trouble even from me!"
He started laughing.
"I wasn't ready for Bartok's bagpipers and dancing bears, I confess -- that alone cost me hours of laughing in orbit!"
"Not ready for another tour around the planet, eh?" I said.
"This old ethereal German is perfectly content to sit in the sun in the wonder-shining month of May again, and can only be grateful that he is wanted to sit there, with and by you. The days have gotten long again ... we have time."
@deeanndmathews, I'm refunding 0.144 HIVE and 0.037 HBD, because there are no comments to reward.