My father’s pale eyes

I have been enjoying my solitude. I miss my wife, but the quiet is nice. Yesterday I attempted to repair the silverware drawer which has been falling apart or getting stuck. Very annoying. I laid around and did dishes and generally goofed off until my meeting with my boss/friend/colleague, Jen. It is such a blessing to have her for a boss. Came home and cooked: apple chutney, cucumber raita and potato pea curry. Mmmm. Somewhere in there I had a chat with my daughter in England. She and I traded links to plays and places to stay on our upcoming visit there. 

Waiting for Godot will be playing while we are there. Very tempting.

Choir rehearsal went well last night. I started later and had many more people arriving on time. I cut the rehearsal a bit short after we accomplished my goal to simply do note checks on  the upcoming pieces (holding interp to a minimum). Our tenor (who is one of the long standing members of the choir and a retired english prof) offered his home for our post rehearsal bachannal. Very gracious. 

During the day yesterday I watched/listened to part of Gordon Brown’s March 4th address to Congress. Roger Cohen in a recent NYT article (“Gordon to the rescue“) mentioned it as an example of statesmanship rhetoric. So far it’s a pretty good speech. I’ll listen/watch to the rest of today no doubt.

Not to clutter up my blog with NYTs links, but three articles in Wed’s NYT caught my attention. All three are examples of the struggle to break free of the shackles of governments.

In Afghanistan, the Supreme Court upheld an outrageous sentence of 20 years for Parwiz Kambakhsh, 24, for the blasphemy of his article on the role of women in Islam. Of course this was a reduction from the original sentence of death. 

Georgia (the country not the state) backed down in the face of censor and controversy about its entry into the Eurovision pop song contest. Apparently Putin was not amused by the lyrics of 3G’s song “Don’t want to Put In”. more info from the BBC

Finally, the Chinese have found a clever way around their own censors with a new craze for a children’s song about grass-mud-horses. The mythical creatures (who look suspiciously like alpacas) have a name which apparently is pretty close to a prohibited obscenity. The song also seems to be many clever puns and sound alike words that offend censors but render them helpless with their surface innocence. Well done.

Still listening to Kirkpatrick’s Ives piano pieces.

NPRs news seemed to be all monetary babble this morning. It feels like navel gazing to my early morning unfiltered brain so I switched to Ives on the MP3 player. Much better.

Presumably wife Eileen and mom Mary have safely arrived in Calif after a delay in their flight due to high winds here in the midwest. Yesterday my day was relaxed despite planned activities. I met with a committee at church that is reading a book and discussing liturgy. Due to my training this is sort of a no brainer for me. Then met with the players for Friday. This went really well.

I think I may have opened the discussion about intentional collegiality with this group of musicians. Very cool. We sat in my kitchen for a chat. I tried to get them to talk about their dreams a bit. Pointed out that all four of us have dedicated our lives to music. When we rehearsed I sensed an ebbing of tension and a flowering of imagination and relaxation. Very very cool. We got a ton done. 

Then I jumped in the car and drove to Grand Haven. As I suspected even after stopping to pick up a veggie sub I was the first musician (including the director) to arrive. He specifically had announced we would begin at 6 PM, but I think he announced incorrectly. Anyway, the rehearsal went until 9:30 PM. 

Recently ran across a Youtube video of Manjula Jain cooking Indian cuisine. Very cool. This led me to her web site where all of her cooking videos seem to be indexed. Inspiring. I love to watch a good cook.

Music (and information) wants to be free! Here’s a link to free MP3s of a Shostakovich’s 1st (Cleveland orch – no date of the recording given), 5th (1942 recording by Cleveland Orchestra) and 6th symphonies (1939 Philadelphia orch under Stokowski.  The online commentary points out that the place to begin is not the First symphony, but the Fifth. The first is an early work. Also it and the sixth are reconstructed from the original 78 recordings.

Went out yesterday and purchased an MP3 player for my wife. She has been using crappy little ones. I just couldn’t get them to work properly to load up a couple of books on CD for her trip to California. I bought this at Walmart for about 40 bucks. It instantly worked. 

I am still struggling with not feeling so good. Yesterday I had depression as well physical stuff. My mom’s negativity was getting to me.

Unfortunately it and my physical illness bled into the rehearsal with the musicians for this Friday. Dang. 

But we had a good rehearsal. It is an interesting challenge to try to build a collaborative situation between these musicians. We are all very different but each has a unique piece to offer. Being the old guy, it falls to me to try and monitor how we are doing at communicating and connecting. It’s not that big a deal, but I have been so looking forward to this particular collaboration, that I would like to do all in my power to make it good.

Kevin the drummer suggested that we could benefit from a bass player. He is still feeling his way into openly communicating (especially with the scarey weird old guy… that would be me). He has a player in mind whom Jordan the sax guy also knows. It sounds very promising. The player is young (15) but excellent. And literate. Today we have an extra rehearsal at 3 PM. At least I have spoken to both Kevin and Jordan about it. I left a message for Jonathon. At this rehearsal I am hoping to have a brief open discussion with these guys and clear the air a bit. It’s tricky getting musicians to trust each other. But it looks promising.

Kevin had to leave early yesterday so Jonathon, Jordan and I worked on. We ended with looking at piece Jonathon is writing. It was fun for me to watch him work with Jordan and Jordan work with him. Jordan mentioned that he might do some writing soon. So encouraging to see people interested in the kind of thing I am. And also be a bit free of the blinders I have experienced and continue to experience in so many musicians. Jordan and Jonathan are extremely open to all sorts of musical and aesthetic experiences. This in and of itself is valuable enough for me to spend my time with them. Playing our set list on Friday is almost a bonus. But admittedly a sweet one. 

I am listening to John Kirkpatrick perform Charles Ives “Concord Sonata.” I was listening to Ives’ own performance last night (thank you Mark for connecting me with these recordings). I am reminded how much I like this music. Since it is so difficult, the idea of playing It has always overwhelmed me. But now that I have been successfully learning some of Messiaen’s piano and organ music it might be time for me to get some Ives in my fingers.

I misplaced the library’s copy of Henry Alford’s “How to Live: A search for wisdom from old people (while they are still on this earth).” But not before I had put a sticky on the section where he comments that as we age and mature we become more of who we are. I like this. Recently I have been feeling very good about being 57. I feel like not only can I learn from connecting to others but that I have a small piece of the wisdom that is directly related to having lived this long trying to pay attention and be self-aware.

Not that I have always succeeded at it, but that I have tried.

Anyway, on a congruent note, I think I might have left the library’s copy of this book in my brother’s car while he was visiting. Ahem.

I’m a fan of David Foster Wallace. I am looking forward to reading his first novel, “The Broom of the System.” I loved “infinite Jest.” The New Yorker has an article about him (“The Unfinished” by D.T. Max) and by him (excerpt from his unfinished novel). Both are worth reading in my opinion. If you read the D.T. Max article first, you learn that his sister coined the word “greebles” (meaning bits of lint) which he uses in the excerpt. Nice touch.

Propublica is keeping a list of states that are making their use of the stimulus package transparent replete with links to their sites for this purpose. My state (MI) is on it. Is yours?

Well my lovely wife and mother get on a plane tomorrow for California. Mom has had a hard time recently grappling with Dad’s mental absence and his physical deterioration. She has an appointment at the pain clinic this morning (for her back pain). I’m hoping they don’t pump her full of pain killer which they sometimes do. When they give her this treatment she is extremely fatigued for 49 hours or so. 

I have a rehearsal this afternoon for the coffee house gig. I am feeling a bit better (was sick this weekend) but am trying to pace myself.

Life goes on.

Whew!  On Saturday after several delightful hours of preparing with Jordan VanHemert the sax guy for Friday’s gig, I decided I felt fatigued and lay down on the couch with the idea I would get up in an hour or two and bake pies for my Dad’s 80th birthday.

I was down for most of the next 48 hours. I suffered from body aches and diarrhea (aint blogging great? just what you need to know about  my day….. ). I managed to drag myself to church duties on Sunday, But Eileen and brother Mark had to take over the Dad festivities. Eileen picked up a couple pies at Meijers on Sunday morning and everything went fine, I guess.

Fortunately, this morning my aches and tummy problems seem to have gone away. I am sort of weak in a usual post-virus/flu thingo state. But I think if I pace myself I will do well over the next five days. That would get me through the upcoming gig on Friday. Plus several other rehearsals… I actually have daily rehearsals scheduled between now and the gig. It’s for three different projects/responsibilities: the high school music pit orchestra I assist, a reh for Friday and thursday’s regular choir rehearsal.

When I outlined all this for my brother Mark he sarcastically commented that it must be great to be part-time. Besides my own overfunctiong he  was thinking of his own upcoming schedule that he will have to balance between part-time adjunct professor and part-time priest (His priest gig starts Apr 1).

So even though I have been sick, I have been reading and thinking as usual. Here’s a poem that caught my attention:

I found this on Boing Boing. I love the internet.

I woke up with a sneezing fit (remnants of my recent cold) so I came downstairs in order not to disturb my lovely wife’s sleep. 

I don’t have much to write about today. Or rather I’m not feeling much like blogging.

Yesterday was a prety good day. The high point was getting a phone call from the DC daughter (soon to be the NYC daughter). It is such a pleasure to have grown up kids. I recommend it to all.

Other fun parts of the day include taking a cell phone call from my parents’ lawyer in the middle of a chat with Jonathon.  I was feeling frisky and the lawyer is a former choir member, so when I saw his name on the I.D. I answered and said in a goofy low sexy voice: 

“Heellllooooo.”

Pause. I don’t think he knew how to respond. His spluttering thereafter sounded like he thought he had the wrong number. When he determined that he was indeed talking to Steve Jenkins, he asked me if I always answered the phone with a sultry voice. I told him only if I knew it was him. Heh. 

I did spend an inordinate amount of time on the cell with the lawyer and bankers yesterday.

Still trying to clear up details on my parents assets and medicaid application.  Supposedly all my leg work for this stage of the process is done. I’m going to call the lawyer (deep voice ready) today at noon to verify that. 

I had a nice productive chat with Jonathan yesterday. We are strategizing about the upcoming gig. He allowed me to add my recent composition, “One Page Essay: from Brahms to Satie” (pdf) to the beginning of the set list. We are mostly in a trimming mode. But still trying to fully utilize the talents of the other two players (Kevin the drummer and Jordan the sax player extraordinaire). We decided to ask the drummer to do a four minute solo toward the end of the evening to allow him to do whatever he wants. We came up with this after Jonathon mentioned that whenever he has played with Kevin he spontaneously offers to do a drum solo at some point in the evening. I responded, let’s put it in the list.

We dropped “They just got married” by Randy Newman. Good tune but it had to go. We abbreviated “Under the Sea” and added a surprise trombone solo by Jonathan. We also rehearsed this. Fun stuff. 

Jordan the sax guy has proposed a funky tune called “Chromazone” by Mike Stern. Very cool tune. Kevin pointed out that the Youtube version linked above was made when he was one year old. I told him “At least you were alive.” So if he was one in 1990, I guess that makes him 20 years old. Tut tut tut. Young people today.

Anyway, Jordan sent me the chart (jazz for sheet music, heh) and I worked on the bass line that begins the video. I think I just about have it down. It will require continual practice to play well in public. We might not have it together for this gig. But hopefully this talented group of musicians will play with me again. Soon.

My boss read the staff another Friedman Fable.

Friedman continues to guide me from the grave.  I spent a bit of time talking to Jonathan yesterday about family systems.  (A quick definition of this concept is that when considering functioning the smallest unit of consideration is never one person but two or more usually more).  I found Friedman’s rope fable online this morning. My boss recently read this one to the staff to help introduce to them to a more healthy discussion of boundary issues and grown up behavior in church leaders.  Plus she had a presenter come and do an open session on family systems. The staff seems quite taken with it which is a good omen for better function in the future. In my opinion anyway.

I like the picture below. Found it on Oysterism also via Boing Boing. I love the internets. 

I am gingerly keyboarding with two bandaged fingers. Around this time of year my fingers sometimes get very dry and cracked near the fingernail. Yesterday I spent most of the afternoon and evening in rehearsals (easily over six hours all told) and my fingers are sore and in bad shape. But my spirits are high.

The rehearsal with Jonathan and Kevin went splendidly.  Kevin is a fluent percusionist and a bit younger than Jonathan. Jonathan and I attempted to integrate him as a full creative partner in our work. This entailed some unusual discussion and rehearsal. Kevin is interested in playing bass and drums at the same time so we did a lot of that yesterday. I can see that he will open up creatively in performance as well as rehearsal. At least that’s my expectation.

We actually managed to rehearse our entire set list of pieces we play together. Today Jonathan and I are meeting, probably to discuss yesterday, revamp the set list and maybe put together a little poster with the names of the four performers on it. 

I am thinking of adding my composition, “One Page Essay: from Brahms to Satie.” This a piano piece I wrote recently that begins in the style of Brahms and gradually changes to the style of Satie. At least that was my intention. Surprisingly when I showed it to Jonathan he seemed to like it. I was thinking it might be an  unusual way to begin the set at the coffee house.

The first act of the evening at the coffeeh house is a fiddler. An undisguised piano solo on an accoustic piano might set a bit of a different tone for the evening.

It would lead seamlessly into the introduction to the first song, “Frickin Trains.” I plan  to run it past Jonathan today. I still am planning to perform movement two of the highly abstract, “”Vingt Regards sur l’enfant Jesus” by Olivier Messiaen. 

Yesterday when I was practicing movement one of this work, I was looking hard at one of the several 11 note chords (ahem… get it? 11 notes… ten fingers?). This particular one I find difficult to play. But I noticed it is written in two different ways in the piece. It looks like a typo. In one of the ways, the lowest note is played slightly before the rest of the chord. This is easier to negotiate than trying to simultaneously play all eleven notes precisely at the same time (as the other notation indicates). 

It’s actually a bit of a mundane question. I emailed one of the pianists I know at the local college and asked him if he knew the work and if he had an opinion.

In the meantime I was doing some research (while sitting in my mom’s shrink’s office yesterday. I do love the tubes of the internets), and discovered that further on in this piece Messiaen “paraphrases” this movement. Movement one is supposed to be the ”Gaze of the Father.”

“Avec Amour” as Messiaen puts it. If you don’t know this work, it is a gentle hovering piece in F#major that can be surprise in its beauty and tenderness. Later in movment 5 which is called “REGARD DU FILS SUR LE FILS (The Contemplation of the Son upon the Son)” He elaborates on the music of the earlier movement. It is a blow by blow expansion. When it reaches the point of the chord in question, he does it the easy way. Heh. I think it’s a misprint.

On the parent front, the lawyer seems to be in a bit of tizzy. I had a funny email from him yesterday which he sent before completing. Hmmm. Anyway, I have to run down some more paperwork for him to submit to Medicaid. Apparently they have given us an extension to the 9th day of this month to append our very complicated (and previously erroneously filled out) application for Dad’s medicaid assistance. Of course my lawyer only informed me of this deadline yesterday (that would be the third day of March).

O that reminds me.

I did a gotcha on my church staff a couple of weeks ago when we were scheduling today’s staff meeting. The staff is pretty intimidated by me, I think. I am a bit of presence phsycially with my erupting passion and intense affect.

Also some of them probably are intimidated by my Notre Dame degree (hah! Little do they know how sucky Notre Dame was in some of its stuff…. but actually not the liturgy part). So when I solemnly said to them… “O right. We’ll be meeting on the day of the great command. You all know that date? Right?”

Embarrased pause as they look at me. I wait a beat and say in my best Mr Peabody voice:
“You know…..

March Forth.” Heh.

Dear Diary,

or should I say Dear Website,

I wish I had a little more time to devote to your design and upkeep. This template provided by WordPress is pretty restrictive and seems to regularly go down and require some advanced problem solving to get back up again.

I liked it more when I designed you from scratch myself. But of course I couldn’t figure out a way for people to leave comments. And since conversation on the web about ideas and music and art is one of the main things that atttracts me to it, I converted to the silly WordPress template.

For a while there I managed to have my music (both recordings and sheet music) online for people to share if they so desire. I think of it as cyber busking. 

But the last time WordPress locked me out of my own web site, I neglected to restore all of that. The files are still sitting on my server. It’s just that I have my hands full these days and haven’t taken the time to restore a sort of definitive list of my compositions and recordings. 

Ah well. 

Eileen has urged me to purchase my own copy of Dreamweaver so I could design you from the bottom up. But I just googled Dreamweaver and it seems to cost over 300.00 which is what I suspected. I have been offerred bootleg copies of it, but so far haven’t succumbed. Even if I had it, it’s a big program and I suspect it would take quite a bit of effort to figure out how to design a new web site and get it up on this domain. Maybe I’ll find a share ware equivalent this summer and fix this up. I would like to put up more music, maybe even some videos and a tip jar. Hah.

Anyway, yesterday ended up a bit busy. I needed down time but filled up my day off anyway. I called over to the Cottage where Dad is living and asked if I came over to play the piano, the person who vacuums on Monday could give me an hour’s respite. They said to come around 1:30 PM.

Right after I hung up, my Mom called and said she needed to get out of the apartment. I told her she was welcome to come over to my house and watch me fill the dishwasher. So she did. I fed her some moussaka (which by the way was much improved by Eileen’s suggestion to bake it some more). 

Then I took her back to the apartment and went over to the cottage and played piano for the elders. I was a bit late. I take my electric piano because there is no instrument there so it takes me some time to load the equipment and then unload and set up. I played two movements from a wonderful piano sonata by Mozart I have been working on (Sonata in Bb, K. 333, 1778). Then some WWII (that’s World War Two not Wheee) songs. But when I ended with hymns was when I was a bit hit. One of the wives of the elders broke out her CRC hymnal and asked me to play a hymn. I even had people singing along which is always fun. 

It crossed my mind that some local religious people might think it hypocritical of me to play hymns when I myself am a non-believer by their terms and much too open to humans who aren’t in their clubs.  I have even had readers of this blog freak out and condemn me for my ideas and lack of morals while I am a leader in a local church. Inconceivable to them that there are other coherent points of view than their own, I guess. 

I do see the possible contradiction. But it makes sense to me from the point of view of comforting those who are afflicted. Even though I don’t agree with their religious ideas, I have nothing against moving the air molecules around in ways that bring a smile to the lips of someone who is dying.

Dad was a bit more alert yesterday after two nights of drugged sleep. He smiled and snoozed while I played. I know when his mental faculties were better he was not too keen on the hymns of the conservative Christian church. But he, like me, was raised on them and probably finds thems vaguely comforting because they are familiar.

I rushed home and made Chicken and Rice for Eileen’s supper. That’s what we call it. I just googled the ingredients and couldn’t come up with a more elegant name. Eileen learned it from some friends from Kuwait. Basically you cook the chicken in turmeric (I baked it). Then saute chopped onions and turmeric.  Toss in garbanzo beans and heat. Serve with white rice and simple tomato sauce (I used tomato paste and water). It’s an amazingly simple blend that has its own unique taste and texture. And it’s easy for the vegetarian (me) to skip the chicken and still have a tasty meal. 

I couldn’t find a recipe for this so I did it from memory. Apparently it was right. Eileen remembers eating with her friends on the floor with newspapers spread around. At least that’s how I remember her describing it. 

Today I have a long day. I meet with Jonathan this morning to strategize and practice for the March 13th gig. Then take Mom to her shrink. After that a rehearsal with Jonathan and Kevin the drummer. From there to Grand Haven for a high school musical pit orchestra coaching session with the director and the students. Life goes on.

I admit I was dreading church a bit yesterday. Recently  I attended a funeral that shredded the small bits of faith I have been mustering. Inanity always knocks me for a loop. As well as the way church communities do so little to welcome and accomodate people who don’t usually go to their church. (i.e. no printed programs, lack of clarity about what is expected of the congregation, strictly denominational hymns). It’s not that big a deal. It’s more that I sometimes wish I could just completely walk away from my church heritage and not have to think about these sorts of things.

Having said all that, yesterday went amazingly well. Most impressive was the way the choir seemed to rally themselves and really connect to the situation. I sometimes feel that choir is pretty low on people’s priorities. I try very hard not judge people’s commitments. My philosophy is to work with who is present. I think the “heart to heart” at last Thursday’s rehearsal started a good conversation and might have given some choristers some insights into why I lead the way I do. 

The anthem went surprisingly well. Several people noticed the organ music. This was encouraging because I had a bit of difficulty concentrating during the prelude because people were talking loudly right near the console. I must be showing my age when this sort of thing distracts me. Or at least showing my thin skin. Heh. The congregation sang so well I was able to drop out on two stanzas of a strong four part hymn. They continued on in four parts. That’s always cool.

I added a descant to the last hymn: (The Glory of these Forty Days sung to Erhalt uns). When I gave it to the sopranos one of them wondered if we could do descants during Lent. I said, why not? It was actually quite nice in the service.  The Buxtehude prelude and Gerald Near postlude were both based on the closing hymn. Even though I have performed the Near before, I felt like yesterday’s performance was actually quite musical. I guess practicing easy stuff pays off too. heh. 

Eileen spent an hour with Dad and Mom at the nursing home yesterday. I skipped it. Apparently Dad has not been sleeping to the satisfaction of the nurse. He has become increasingly uncooperative. Although when I saw him Saturday, he tried to skip using the walker but didn’t refuse when I tried to get him to use it. I am finding myself more worried about him. They gave him a sedative and the nurse thinks he’s depressed. She has a requested a psych eval which I think is a good thing, but wonder how you do that with someone who can’t speak or think well. 

It’s Dad’s vunerability that is getting to me. I’m a sucker for the weak. So even though I didn’t see him yesterday I had nightmares. Oy. 

I spent some of the afternoon making Vegetarian tMoussaka. I forgot that Eileen doesn’t like eggplant. But it didn’t turn out very well anyway. Dang eggplant didn’t cook through. Ah well, I do enjoy cooking. It’s more fun when I can share the food and it actually is edible. Heh. 

Today is a day off for me. I will try to relax, do some cooking and prep for the upcoming gig on March 13th. I would like to say this gig will be webcast but I’m not sure how to pull that off and also give the performing all the attention it needs.

I got up and sent an email to the fam about Dad’s continuing deterioration. I have been thinking a bit about aging and dementia and wanted to blog about it. Better to have family read it first in an email than here.

I recently read this in Anthony Burgess’s autobiography

On that first visit to both Berlins, I returned footsore from inspecting the free side of the Wall, peeping over and being jocularly threatened by armed official thugs, and went thirsty to a Bierstube called Der Moby Dick, with an inappropriate blue plastic whale in the window. I took a seat in the sun, but none of the young men who ran the place came to serve me. After half an hour I walked in and asked why. ‘Because,’ I was told, ‘you are of the generation that started the war. I went for a beer elsewhere.

Of course, at fifty I was old, and, to those young idealists of Der Moby Dick, I must have been of Hitler’s generation. There was no gradations of eld any more: fifty was as bad as ninety. Youth and age had become spatial concepts with a Berlin Wall between them.

from “You’ve Had Your Time” by Anthony Burgess

Burgess is writing about events that happened around 1967. He obviously was attuned to the changes in the culture around deifying youth.

Interestingly he mentions Mick Jagger (whom along with the rest of the band was considering appearing in an early movie rendition of Burgess’s novel, Clockwork Orange). Of Jagger he says how he admires “the intellligence if not the art, of this young man and considered that he looked the quintessence of delinquency.” High praise from an eld.

Later after telling about his wife awful death from cirrhosis, he observes

Works of fiction which present dissolution and death rarely show the outside world, and the trivial affairs which sustain it, going brutally on, perhaps rightly impatient with the snuffing out of the universe that a single obscure death represents.

That would be another way of viewing what is happening to Dad: that his universe has been diminished while the rest of us have to live in a bright unforgiving world that will brutally go on.

I have had very mixed feelings about my Father over the years. When I was in my twenties, I held him in my arms as he wept at his own inability to acccept me. This was the beginning of my true adolescence. He has adopted the usual male distance from me over the years. I mostly felt like our relationship had more to do with his relationships with his two brothers and his father. As usual, I felt like I was barely on his radar emotionally or even intellectually. Whoever he was relating to certainly wasn’t me, but I was comfortable with that. I loved him. But didn’t need to clarify who I was to him  constantly. 

Then when Parkinsons hit him, I wasn’t paying close attention.  In retrospect, both he and I could have anticipated how this part of his life would play out a bit better. But as I think over his misbehavior of the last few years, I wonder how much of it was as a result of the disease. Personality change is a symptom of Lewy Body disease (what he finally was diagnosed with). 

A couple of years ago when he threw a tantrum in my kitchen (also throwing his meds at me), at the time I just thought he was being his worst self. But maybe it was partially if not mostly his disease.

Family systems teaches me that it is difficult to differentiate ourselves from those we love. Hard to tell where we leave off and they begin. I use Friedman’s term, “globbing,” for this. I realize that in the last few years I have globbed big time to my parents. But I don’t really have any regrets about this. As I tell my Mom when she expresses misgivings about being a “burden” on me, these are my values: take care of those you love. It’s an old extended family deally and has not been part of my fam of origin, but somehow it has leaked into me.

Well anyway that’s the heavy thoughts from Steve today. Upward and onward to the usual pathology of church and church music. Heh. Today I play some easy Buxtehude for the prelude and easy Gerald Near (a living Episcopalian composer whom I quite like) for the postlude. The choir is singing a gorgeous canonic anthem by Robert Edward Smith. I am expecting people to do some serious acting out soon since I have started a very threatening conversation about change. Change in my role and change in the choir. One guy who told me last Sunday he was “sick of it” referring to some of his own discontent with my leadership was not at rehearsal Thursday.

This is tricky because when people don’t show, there is a world of possibilities including many completely understandable reasons they don’t make it.  I try to not jump to conclusions or as I said Thursday to the group to not set other people’s priorities for them.  Fuck it.