Light, Hope, Love

     I've celebrated, so far, over half a century's worth of Christmases. All have been spent in the loving and boisterous bosom of my family; all have featured torn gift wrapping strewn about the living room, good food that took hours to prepare and minutes to consume, laughter, hugs, and general good will. There were many Christmases long ago when the whole family climbed into our huge Chevy station wagon in our coats and Christmas finery, to drive to the Main Chapel on post for Midnight Mass. The colored lights cheered our way and the very air smelled of something joyful and comforting.

     There have also been Christmases that, on one level at least, were not so joyful. There was the Christmas of 1995, when I was going through the deepest depression of my life. Not yet returned to the sacraments at that time, I nevertheless experienced an inexplicable but undeniable solace when I walked into the church with my parents for Vigil Mass. Perhaps that was the beginning of my religious reversion.

     There have been three Christmases dimmed by the shadow of death: just days before Christmas 1977, my sister died, shot at point-blank range by her so-called boyfriend. The month before Christmas 2011, my father died, a peaceful early morning passing after years of physical and, I'm certain, mental suffering. And this year in Connecticut, twenty-six souls were taken from this earth in one mindless, brutal act.

     Through them all, there has been light. There has been hope. There has been love. These are things given by a merciful God to sustain and strengthen us, and can never be taken away.

 



The Ersatz Organist

     I never wanted to play the organ. From the dawn of my musical life, I knew my keyboard instrument of choice was the piano. I loved the seemingly endless spectrum of tone and color one can draw from a fine piano, simply by virtue of one's physical and psychological makeup—combined with the speed, the amount of pressure, and how much of one's fingertips one uses to depress the keys. When I listened to great pianists, I was awed and fascinated at their ability to turn the piano into an aural kaleidoscope, to evoke the sound of rain, thunder, birds, the human voice, and everything in between. When as a child I looked at an organ, with all its stops and pistons, bells and whistles, I thought, "Well, you just push different buttons to get different sounds. That doesn't seem very fun or challenging." Aside from hymns, I didn't even like to listen to the organ. Organ recitals left me completely unmoved and unimpressed.

     Even now, I remain unmoved. I can sometimes be impressed by a fine organist's skill, but I am never moved, nor would I willingly choose to attend an organ recital. The piano, on the other hand—rather, in the hands of a master—can, and very often does, move me to tears. It can also make me laugh—when I am so overwhelmed by the music and the pianist's gift, so much joy wells up in my soul, I can't help laughing. Glee. Sheer glee.

     When I entered the monastery, I knew I would have to curtail severely my piano playing, noise of any kind, musical or otherwise, not being conducive to the silence that is so crucial to monastic life. I also knew that I would eventually be asked to learn to play the organ. It surprises me that so many people think pianists can automatically play the organ and vice-versa. The only thing the two instruments have in common is the keyboard; otherwise, they are radically different and require different techniques. By the same token, an oboe and a clarinet are both wind instruments, but they are radically different and require different techniques—not to mention the fact that one has a double reed and the other has a single. The only thing they have in common, really, is that they are both blown into.

     Sisters in that monastery who learned the organ before I entered, took lessons from a local teacher. But when it came time for me to learn, that teacher's health had declined and she no longer taught. Since there was no other organ teacher in Lufkin, I perforce taught myself. At that time, a sister from an active congregation was visiting us for a week, to help hone our liturgy and improve our singing. She kindly got me started on the organ, giving me the Gleason manual as a guide. I remembered my high school choir director, who was also a church organist, had always told me that hymns are some of the most difficult things to play on the organ; so almost immediately on learning basic pedal technique and finger legato, I sightread and worked on as many hymns as I could.

     For some time, I found it especially difficult to stop my left pinkie finger from wanting to play bass notes! And of course, there was the problem most common among pianists learning the organ: training the left hand to be completely independent from the feet. At first, the left hand wants not only to play bass notes, it wants to move parallel with the bass line  instead of sticking to wherever the tenor line goes. The remedy is to practice, ad nauseum, the feet and left hand by themselves.

     I won't go into the challenges of finger legato or the finer points of pedal technique; it all gets too complicated. I will say, though, that I had to practice using at all times the quietest registration possible. The monastery owns two organs, almost identical to each other; one is in the chapel, the other in the chapter hall. The latter is used for practice. However, the chapter hall is in the same building as the professed sisters' cells. Given that when they're not working or in chapel, nuns are encouraged to spend as much time as they can praying and reading in their cells, those practicing on the organ can never practice with "real" registrations, for fear of disturbing their sisters. So the organists never really know what a piece sounds like until they play it on the chapel organ, in the actual situation for which they practiced! When I was asked to play the Bach-Gounod Ave Maria (and later, the Schubert) for a special Mass, I had no idea what my chosen registration actually sounded like beforehand. Scary—and very frustrating.

     Now I am the volunteer organist (and, at the moment, the volunteer cantor) at a small chapel in a retirement village. The congregation consists of retired sisters belonging to a certain active order, and lay residents. I'm happy to put the skills learned during my novitiate to such a worthy use, and grateful to be given the opportunity to serve the Church in even a small way. But I consider myself a pianist by nature and an ersatz organist who still doesn't like the sound of an organ, except in the liturgy.

Whassup?

     In answer to this post's title question, nothing much. As I look at this blank page, typing words merely to fill it, and rummaging around my echo chamber of a brain for any tiny scrap of inspiration, I realize that my life these days is a swiftly-passing series of ordinary details rather than a colorful parade of main events. Today, for instance: it started routinely, with praying the Office of Readings and Lauds, then Mass --

     [detour] I've been pulling double duty at Mass these past several weeks, playing organ and cantoring. Our former long-time cantor/liturgist had to retire per her doctor's orders. Until we find a new cantor, I'm it. Though singing and playing the piano at the same time has never been a problem for me (it was a big part of my job as an opera coach, after all), singing and playing the organ at the same time is a different story. Feet are involved, as well as hands. Some very peculiar, Berg-like bass notes tend to emerge from the pedals while I'm singing. There's also a body mic involved. The mic is attached by a three-foot wire to a little box (don't know the technical name) that has the on/off switch and volume control, etc. and is meant to be clipped to some clothing part or other, but sometimes my outfit affords no such clipping place, in which case I just lay the little control box next to me on the organ bench. Last Sunday, just before I began to play the Communion hymn, I caught my hand in the wire, which caused my body mic (which was on) to fly off my collar and onto the organ pedals, yanking the control box down with it. The racket through the speakers was horrific. Luckily, no one choked on the host in their surprise. I do hope we find another cantor soon.

     -- then after Mass, I hurried home because we were having one of our Sunday family lunches. These are invariably jolly, noisy, and much of Mom's good Filipino food is consumed. Today, after lunch, we had a couple of rousing games of Mexican Train Dominos, which raised the noise level in our tiny house almost to deafening. Whoever said women are the gentler sex has obviously never been around my sisters at their most raucous. 

     Post Dominos, my sister-in-law helped me restore the favorites bar on my computer (I am so hopeless at technical things), which disappeared mysteriously some months ago (the bar, that is; not my computer). I didn't really miss it until I joined Pinterest and discovered I had nowhere to put my "Pin It" button. Which is why my Pinterest page is currently such a washout. But now that I have my favorites bar back and my "Pin It" button on it, rest assured I will be pinning like a madwoman with a voodoo doll!

     Quiet was restored after the family left; my mother settled herself at the dining room table with the Sunday jumbo crossword, and I retired to my room for a soothing episode or two of Frasier before confronting the blank writing box on Blogger.

     Since I have indeed managed to put something up on this blog today (whether or not today's rambles are of any deep interest to anyone is of little consequence to me; I'm just happy I wrote something), I may put this day to rest with a clear conscience. After praying Vespers, I look forward to watching the finale of Food Network Star, which my mother and I have been avidly following.

     All in all, it's been a good day. Good days don't have to be comprised of major events. Ordinary details can be just as satisfying.