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.
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