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.