Organist on the double and other stories

Organist On The Double

This Sunday I lived a dream.

Having had multiple churches ask me for services as organist, I’ve wished that everyone could just organize themselves with staggered services so I could play for them all. Well, this Sunday I played for two churches. An Episcopal Church and then a Methodist. I played the hymn ‘Holy Holy Holy Holy Holy Holy’, which is to say, I played ‘Holy Holy Holy’ at both of them.

The first service was at 9am, and then I non-dawdledly drove to the second service beginning at 10:50. The first church was Our Lady of the Polyester Robe, and I got to feel all dramatic and important—like I was rushing between scene changes—as I flew down the back steps behind the alter after one service before the next, flaring off my choir robe as I went. The playing at both churches went smoothly, which pleased me.  Nine people in attendance at the first church, and more than I could count at the second.

After the churches it was sunny and I didn’t have to do any bending over (unlike my weekdays) and I had that anticipatory pre-bicycle ride frenzy of indecision: It’s-a-beautiful-day-where-should-I-go-biking?!? After flapping through some maps and not finding anything quite obvious, I decided rather arbitrarily to head south down Seneca Lake. This ended up being a very fortuitous decision because I not only had the Lake Gazing Happies but also found a sign with an arrow indicated Arts Fest in Penn Yann. So I turned up bucolic roads to that and there I tapped along to bluegrass music, admired jewelry I felt too cheap to buy, happily wondered why there was suddenly so much art made with recycled forks, and chatted with two not unattractive blokes at a craft brewery tasting table. They ended up giving me more tastes because I hung out so long. I very much enjoy making new acquantances. The ride back was effortless, skimming along in a sky of expansive farms, green fields, flowering weeds.

Summer

My favorite part of the work day today was planting parsley, all baby ones frilly and frail, the bed looking sweet when we were finished, featuring rows of this curly light green. I carefully pulled some purslane from the edge of the bed and Mrs. Greenhouse observed, “there’s Sandra getting tomorrow’s lunch!”  Yup. Have reputation. Will travel. The fact that the other day Mr. Bossman not only excused me for a few minutes to harvest my favorite weed (Chenopodium album) at the edge of the field we’d just arrived at to plant, but also offered me a bag from his truck, gave me a certain sense of belonging. Although I’m certainly the only one around here wearing Teva sandals as work boots, sporting teal hair, finding endless four-leaf clovers, and eating weeds, but at least nobody is giving me too much trouble about it. 

I love that the evenings are light until 9pm, that the summer solstice is approaching. However, the summer solstice for me is bittersweet, because after that the days begin shrinking and the darkness stretching. The daily change is minute at this point (and we can live in ignorant bliss until about September), but once the middle of October is here I am faced with a mildly stabbing sense of loss as each day begins to be 3 minutes darker than the one previous. So the time just before the summer solstice is the sweetest: before the great shrinking back of the light begins. Yet another reminder to be Here Now and present.  (Or another motive to take a bicycle trip in the tropics….Being cold and with a beloved, in a cozy pleasing house, with a motivating job is one thing. But being cold and alone is decidedly another matter).

Fame

My father, the famous and incorrigible Bill Wayman, (who wasn’t even there) had his retirement mentioned from the pulpit at Church Number 1. And it wasn’t me who said anything either. How did this come to pass? 

It was before the service and I was tiddling through a hymn. The substituting priest woman approached me, noting, “From back there I saw you had gray hair—which is very attractive by the way—and I couldn’t tell if it was Mrs. Normal organist or someone else.” Mother Substitute had a face that flipped a switch from my memory….. I told her she looked familiar and then we both commenced that strange foray into history, to find the ven diagram of our past. She asked my full name. “WAYMAN?” She said all recognition. “Bill Wayman’s DAUGHTER?”

Famous by association, hm.

A co-worker of my father’s (Cathy Lewis), who would have last seen me as a timid child in a flowered turtle-neck, prepping enough courage to ask her about her horses. “You rode!” she confirmed now. “Yes,” I clarified, “horses. I ride bicycles now.”  She stated emphatically she would not have recognized me, that it was fabulous to see me again, and regards to my parents. I’d known her as the very smart sciencey woman who kept horses back then, and now here she was priesting.

And so the two of us, once horse woman and once horse girl, led the service as rector and organist. And she was so pleased about all of this she bubbled to the congregation about our connection, including my Dad’s upcoming retirement.

So this is what can happen, stomping again around the grounds where one grows up: one encounters figures from history.

Playing organ and tying tomatoes.

On Organist-ing

The church (Episcopal) was built in 1831, dark wood, a tall steeple, heavy doors. I sat on the organ bench and during the sermon I looked out through the congregation, out the open front door, and into the chirping sunny June outside. That is one of those timeless moments, sitting there in an intentional space, all of you there in community, looking out the church doors into anticipation of a sunny Sunday.

But I had the rather blue polyester experience of wearing a choir robe for the first time as an organist. You’d think I would have encountered this earlier (at one of my seven other churches) but previously congregations had to deal with my miscellaneous sense of style—loud pants, striped socks, colorful scarves. But this Sunday I was standardized. Balanced at the organ, I was my own personal microclimate of contained evapotranspiration inside that thing. Boy was I happy to get some ventilation and get it off.  

The organ was one of the oldest ones I’ve played (early/mid of previous century I think) and it was like pedaling a bicycle with no gears. Meaning that when I pulled out more stops for increased volume, the keys required more force to be pushed down. I enjoyed the historic feeling of this and the sound was airy and full. However, organ instruments have as much variety as tractors, and being able to drive one does not seamlessly translate into being able to drive another. The foot pedals on this organ had a different spacing, and the keyboard was shorter, which made me struggle a bit. I think I stepped on a few aural toes down there. Next week I’ll bring a little lamp to illuminate the foot pedals and see a little better (“a light unto my feet and a lamp unto my path”) because otherwise it’s a lot of flailing around in the dark down there. 

The congregation was small, welcoming, and the priest young and enthusiastic, with bouncy hair. I shook a lot of hands and received a lot of thanks for filling in. Mrs. Regular Organist was taking a trip around the arctic circle (!?!) and had been playing at that church for twice the length of time that I have been on this earth.

But I committed an inadvertent misdemeanor. Called: not playing all the pages of a hymn. (ahhh!) Most hymns have an expected 2 pages, however, “Hail This Festival Day” (or, as I was singing it later to become mentally prepared for the upcoming cabbage planting: “Hail This Vegetable Day”) had three, and a page turn. Which I did not discover, until after the hymn and that strange feeling, caused by longer breaths in the congregational singing and stumbling on words, that something was probably slightly amiss. But I just couldn’t place what. Later I prostrated myself before them in apology, but everyone dismissed it, “Oh it’s a hard hymn—you did great!,” “It was fine! We were flexible!”

On the Seed Job

There is a new girl at work; she showed up a little bit ago, sitting down for our morning planning meeting with her I-9 paperwork and documents. “Nice passport!”, I said, “what’s your name?” Teacher Taylor, she is another graduated master’s student (yay!), and is taking this summer job in between school semesters. She’s smiley, laughy, and wholesome, and I appreciate her company for talking (coming to terms with repetitive tasks, discussing the NPR we listen to during said repetitive tasks) and laughing (the names of vegetable varieties, silly quotidian things like this).

I was writing stakes for leeks that I was repotting (variety name: ‘Striker’). The leeks all contained in the same tray anyway so the stake labeling was simply extraneous identification. Striker, Striker, Striker, Striker, I wrote. And then I just couldn’t help it: Stinker.

One way I’ve found to deal with the repetitive tasks is to treat them like yoga or a hand-eye coordination excursive. For instance, bending for an endless stretch of tomato planting can become a great hamstring stretch, and I’ve been trying to do tasks with my non-dominant hand. This can be a surprisingly challenging teaser for the brain. At first putting the tool in that hand feels insurmountable, how to even hold it? As un-natural like doing something in the mirror. But then slowly. Like practicing a piece on the organ for the first time: feels impossible and laborious but eventually smooths out. I even wrote out some label stakes with my left hand.

Senior Native Plants, who I tried to accumulate wisdom from in Puerto Rico, described farming as an opportunity for yoga. Try and do every movement, every task, so that it is balanced on the body. Some times hoeing on the left side, sometimes hoeing on the right. Can I tie tomatoes with fluid grace? Can I make it look like a dance? Can I find a rhythm in planting peppers? 

On Nostalgia

I want to practice something called Pre-Nostalgia. See, we get nostalgia, this poignant feeling of wanting a certain past time back or having extraordinarily fond memories of a time. Ecstatically riding the commuter train to Seattle, bicycling towards the mountain, dancing with Mr. India…..but these things are over now.

With Nostalgia sometimes the passing of time can massage troubling things into a more attractive perspective, or condense feelings and experiences into a graspable nugget, or simply further glorify that which was already glorious. But that feeling of nostalgia can be quite strong, the yearning for something unattainable. A wise photographer once told me, a little cryptically,  “with nostalgia, the having is in the wanting.”  Basically, the feeling of wanting a certain time back is richer than trying to relive or visit or recreate a time that has past. Because it won’t be the same.

I was thinking about this while bicycling into work this morning, into the wind, in the gray rain, my raincoat flapping wetly around my arms. And I was thinking how then I would farm for 8 hours—caring for tomatoes, stomping about in the soil—then come home and be whisked by my parents out to dinner with my grandparents. This time of working hard, eating well, and being around my family. I realized that some day I will look back at this time with Nostalgia, and I should do my best to appreciate it now. That is the Pre-Nostalgia.

Place, space, time, and hearts

On Place

I have moved my place of existence and focus from western Washington to central New York. I am fascinated by what Place is. What makes somewhere in this country feel different than somewhere else? How do we all experience Place: in generally different or generally similar ways to each other? I have no essay on these things, but I am still wondering myself.

I miss the mountain—Mt. Rainier—in a way I had never believed possible. It’s only a land form….but I’ve realized I experienced that mountain in almost a spiritual way. My knees would get a little weak if I were to see that looming white and, at sunset, purple massiveness….so rare for the clouds to part for her. I would always check east for the mountain, and even now, here in upstate NY I’ll look east and if there happens to be a cloud in just the right place I’ll do a little double-take in silly hope.

But there are no mountains. Instead we have the finger lakes. And lots of little rolling hills, the Wayne Drumlins. Or, as I called them on my bicycle today while riding them, the Wayne Dumplings.

In western Washington there are drive-through coffee shacks and no ice cream huts, and central NY is all about the ice cream huts, totally lacking in coffee shacks. How interesting! Why? How do we get our quick buzzes? Sugar and fat or caffeine?

In central NY there are countless equidistant towns of similar size, rather than a series of towns along the main vein of commuter spread-out, like near Seattle.

And here there are more pickup trucks.

On New Living Arrangements

I may be working an unglamorous job with a lowly hourly wage, but I have just come into a substantial fortune.

But the sort of fortune that needs some uninterring.

The Hobart and William Smith College tenants where I’m living, The Little Room in the Messy House, have vacated. And they have left a fine array of products. But of course these products aren’t on beautiful display like in a grocery store; instead they are on dusty shelves, forgotten behind the book shelf, left dripping in the bathroom.

I suppose some people might be reticent and a little disgusted to eat some stranger’s half box of granola, or adopt their old hand cream. But you’d use your friend’s? So I just reason that these folks would’ve become friends after some time so it’s no different anyway.

Plus I was thoroughly conditioned by sleeping various places in Cambodia to face all sorts of dust, grime, and ick to Search, Find, and Rescue these goodies from this house.

Last week I organized and cleaned, feeling very purposeful and humid. The shelves and cabinets were totally disorganized, with Nutellas in two different places. I found this wholly satisfying, the simple task of moving about and grouping Grains together, the Teas, the Pastas….

Leaving Burt’s Bees Milk-N-Honey hand cream is inconceivable to me (that stuff is not cheap!), although I imagine someone being in a rush to leave, or having enough money where you’ll just buy another bottle later. But still, I cannot understand seeing what are to me “treat” products, as such disposable things. It’s been an interesting peak into the residuals of others’ different ways of life.  

Some of my favorites were the crate-sized container of Wegman’s Organic Animal Crackers, the German bottle of liquor I have-no-idea-what-it-is but it looks expensive, the Teavana tea, the Farro grain, and the chia seeds. I’m fortunate these people weren't all into just ramen or cake mixes, but the sort of Splurge Food I’d want for myself but never feel worthy enough to buy. What a blessing!

Yeah…..Chia seeds. Which I should write a bit about. Those minuscule seeds all recently famous for their high protein, fiber, and good energy content. When soaked in water they form a little coat of gel around themselves, interestingly, to their hydration benefit. Healthy and satisfying (satisfying in the knowledge of how healthy they allegedly are), however, disconcerting when—some time after breakfast—you take a swig of water, and a chia seed, now all engorged with its little gel coat, is felt above your tongue. It hadn’t arrived there with the water; it had been lurking in there, somewhere, and lord help you if it had been in one of the visible front row seats. Grabby little buggers.

Thoughts on being alone and on being

My current existence is markedly different from what I had grown accustomed to recently. In southeast Asia Lady Elise and I ate (pho) together, slept (in hairy beds) together, pedaled (seaside climbs) together—in that foreign place we had to be our everything for each other. And then upon return, my time was with Mr. India, in that way where daily quotidian items are bring lights because you’re with a beloved one. And now, I am entirely alone. Except for weekends, which are rich with friends and family who have known me since I was young and awkward.

I was curious how it would be, bicycling home to an empty house, to cook and then eat alone, and then spend my evenings. But I am not at all bored: working on a manuscript from my master’s work, cleaning and organizing my newly adopted jars of Nutella (ha), playing the organ in preparation for Sunday services.

I had realized something, standing there next to the alter, head craned towards the intricate ceiling. That I really enjoy being in empty churches alone. I put my finger on it; it’s not just the organ playing, it’s having such an intentional space that normally is filled with people, all to yourself. The holiness becomes especially resonant in the stillness and silence.

On heartbreak revisited

I had erroneously thought that even Short-term Time would make heartbreak lessen, that it would get painted over by other things. 

This is not happening. 

Granted, it has changed over time, but only the immediacy of it has faded. But I am learning that sorrow can exist intertwined with the joys of a bluebird, the laughter of friends, the endorphins of a bicycle ride. I miss him intensely, and it comes in unexpected little waves, just when I think I might be disengaging myself from it. I woke up on a gray day earlier this week, a little spinny from the alarm, bleakened from the low skies. “I miss you Anurag” I said out loud first thing, heavy from it in the gray, “but let’s go make tea.” I try to be good to myself, as Mother Wisdom had once said, “take care of yourself like you would your dearest friend.” 

Pastor Articulate also had something very wise to say about this, “it is like a death…you don’t forget it or leave it behind; instead you learn to assimilate it.”

I think I am learning a lot from the wise ones around me, because of this.

I’m also learning that there is a strong present-ness in sadness. Sometimes so much in the moment, so aware of my being and others around me, simply even what people are saying, what I am seeing….life and existence become heightened, if just for a moment. Like I’m on some strange chemical and perceptions are altered.

Aloneness is not loneliness. I am experiencing both at the moment.

Loneliness happens most intensely in public places, at Wegman’s or walking in the park, where I see couples holding hands and talking in low voices to each other. I feel like saying to them, “you don’t know how good you’ve got it: you get to keep each other.”

Aloneness can be a celebration and rich, in this personal way, almost in that way a child relishes a secret—All Mine. I go and play the pipe organ, shamelessly loud, bold in knowledge of no other ears, and relish there being just me. You can be extra bold without expectations of others around you.