Inner life of a traveling pipe organist

This morning I played pipe organ for my sixth different church of the summer.

(So far the list is: P-ville Reformed, Lyons Episcopal, Newark Episcopal, United Church of Phelps, Rochester Christian Science Church, Canandagua Episcopal) 

Each church and instrument is like learning a new language: how much intro people expect for the hymns, which sounds are available on that organ, which stops to avoid (the shrieking 2-foot, for example). There is nothing apologetic about playing the pipe organ: what you do is heard by all, should support all, and can bog down or enlighten a worship service.

I'd never been to this church before--the Episcopals in Henrietta--and arrived a full hour early to introduce myself to the instrument, play through Praise My Soul The King of Heaven (that thing is like hiking a few mountains across the pedal board), and certainly enjoy the quiet empty sacred space before it fills with other humans. That empty space I appreciate so I can settle in and test drive some of the organ stops, which can be a rowdy, if not down-right disenchanting, listening experience. Much better in private.


But this morning I climbed the steps to the organ loft and found a collection of choir members milling about up there. Nobody told me they'd gather at 9am to rehearse! So instead of spacious emptiness, I had choir faces peering at me, with no small amount of curiosity, over the organ console. But I decided to accept the spontaneity of the situation and managed not to deafen anyone as we rehearsed. "Shall we play through the sanctus number--" I began and was interrupted by a dear Linda who, as if she had just seen me, crowed, "Ohh! Your hair is so cute! Should we do that with our hair Sheryl? Oh to be young...." 

Having the choir up there in the loft with me, behind the organ--nay, resting on the organ console itself--meant they could cue me as needed, as they were facing the sanctuary and I wasn't. During the end of the communion hymn I had to stifle a laugh, because I look up and there is a set of three bobble-head choir members on my dashboard, all doing the International Play Another Verse Symbol, which is rotating one's finger about.


Situated outside the disquieting strip-malls and intersections that is Henrietta, the church was airy and woody inside, giving it a summer-camp and approachable feeling. And a large window in the back without stained glass meant I could sit at the organ and stare at the trees.  The passing of the peace was a veritable coffee-hour minus the coffee, which is a heart-warming thing to witness in a church. The people were so sweet, especially that original Linda, who saw me walking down the hall after the service (not sitting on the bench) and exclaimed "And you're so tall too! Tall AND adorable." I was also blown away by how much everyone said they enjoyed my playing. I could feel it, actually, that I was in a soulful and joyful space and this must have been coming through the music, too: enjoying the hymns and working with the stops and.... those trees out the window.


I had tested preset 5 and did know that it was so blasty and all proclaimy, full of horns and deep bass--brazen in fact--and wasn't planning on using it.  But my subconscious must have bested me because just before the Gloria (S-278, by the way Mother Robin, delicious fun! My first time playing it!) my thumb shoots to 5 and with surprise I hear what I have done but I can't change this and I don't want to and then realize we're raising the roof and every foot is like a fog horn and then we end on that huge final chord and I get a little shiver.  Mmmmm THIS is why I wake up Sundays.


~~~~


"Are you an Eastman student?" asked everyone.  "Nope," I would respond, and for helpful clarity on my music background I added, "I work on a farm." 

Long morning full of thoughts

Before I started this season at this trial and demonstration farm I wondered how it would be, in my brain, to do labor from my body all day. I wondered which vegetables I would actually get to eat. I wondered if my bicycling and running would get tiredly set aside after 8 hours of moving around in the soil already.

Well. I learned that I still have a voracity for bicycling (and to a needing-motivation-extent: running) and could bomb off for a little jaunt even after a work day (this got easier as the season progressed: I learned activity can beget more activity, once one has accustomed to it). I also learned that Monday asserts itself as A Hungry Day, especially after a Sunday bicycling back from the city.

I found I got to eat all of it. And learned how it feels to have a bountiful endless supply of an astounding variety of vegetables--overwhelming and undeniably thrilling--and that I do not have nearly enough stomach or time for all the fennel, tomatoes, eggplant, garlic chives, thai basil, and sweetheart cabbage. And I learned what tronchuda and escarole are, and that white beets exist, and that there is a surprising variety in eggplant size and shape, and that red beets can be sliced in the field and applied as lipstick.

I am studying my brain while my body works. Some days I dribble off into a pool of blues or bluegrass from my headphones. Some days I figure yoga positions into my work (today I sat in legs-wide-open-pose to stretch some thighs while weeding some chard) or challenge myself to prune with my left hand.

When I first started I was in a walled-in grump place that I didn't have an output for creativity or analysis or writing in this temporary job.

Well: that's what being an organist is for, and writing, and discussing meristems with coworkers. Or simply working with one's hands and letting the brain paddle about on an ocean of thinking. Or not thinking.

Today I had thoughts: I didn't listen to more than an NPR podcast all day, and the good Lord knows I talked to nobody besides one four-leaf clover (and that was only in greeting), and I astounded myself that I got through the day in a pleasant and accepting mindset with no more stimulation than my dirt-working hands and my thought-stirring brain.

A long morning full of thoughts. And the cadence of that phrase brought me back to reciting a certain prayer during my short and shy tenure as a Catholic school girl.....

Long morning, full of thoughts
The sun is on thee
Ripped are thy arms among women, and
Blessed is the fruit of thy work, veggies
Long morning, full of thoughts
Bless you my future
Now and at the coming of the winter