A Farewell to Arms

"Patience," said my friend, "is a virtue. And everything depends on right timing."

"That's real deep." I exclaimed, laughing. "And applicable to so many situations."

"I know." She smirked.


**********

Right timing is very important when it comes to our hot water system. A delicate work of surgery precision, every movement is registered, and has a resultant effect. Taking a shower has become a matter of strategic planning, as my housemates and I swap our various tactics against either an early death from pneumonia, or a hospital stay due to third degree burns.

My housemates all have different systems in place to combat this. Between munches of toast I discover that one housemate opts for the simple water-saving option. Just have quick showers, he says. In and out. Another relies on the precision of geometry: one twist of the hot tap anti-clockwise, and then 3 rapid turns of the cold. I measure heat by the number of body limbs washed. One clean arm and two legs under the lukewarm hot tap, and then it's time to turn on the cold water tap before I burn to death.

We are military strategists, the four of us. We plan our lines of attack, and, armed with towel, sponge and rubber ducky, plunge into the deluge. Mostly we emerge clean, pink and steamily triumphant. A few times, with a roar of pain or a shriek of shock, we stumble out, admitting defeat by the flaying of arms to keep the circulation going. Sometimes the white towel is hoised, and a truce is called. No time for conditioner, but at least the soap's been washed off.

My fourth housemate won't put up with it though. My morning shower, he explains, is like other people's morning coffee. Necessary. Like a good diplomat, he has surveyed the scene, observed the carnage, and decided its time we put down our arms and appeal to a higher authority.

He is right in his wisdom. We'll be ringing the landlord tomorrow.

Piano Lessons

Once, in an expansive mood of vaulting arrogance, I remarked during a dinner party that I don't bother reading books written after 1970. They're all crap, I said dismissively, and there are already enough disappointments in life. Besides, I was a pedant, and once begun a book, needed to read through to the end. No matter how bad. Only, with rubbish books, I'd skim, impatiently turning the pages, picking up a stray sentence here and there with my eyes, stringing together the plot in my head, keeping a finger tabbed on the last page and feeling with my hand the volume of words I had to go before I could put the book down, onto my Finished Pile.

Reading as I would eat a rushed meal. Gobbling, barely digesting. Not for taste, but for the sake of accomplishing the task.

Recently however, I've been influenced by friends who do venture into the 20th Century and beyond, to read into the present. Mostly, I've forgotten what I've read, but a few books have been gems.

Yesterday I used up my Borders voucher to buy Anna Goldsworthy's memoir, "Piano Lessons". I began reading in the bookshop, and my eyes barely left the page as I clambered on a tram home. I stayed up until 2am, when finally the book slipped out of my fingers as my head lurched forward in fatigue. This afternoon, in between coffee and conversations with my housemates, I finished it.

There are two photos of Anna Goldsworthy in the book. The first is on the front cover - a faded image in 70s russets of a small, chubby child in a hand-knitted jumper, smiling into the camera. Chin upturned, mousy brown hair dumped like a bowl on a moon face, hand awkwardly holding on a large, rectangular suitcase, body leading slighly off balance on the stoep of a suburban house. The smile takes you by surprise - no teeth, but how a closed, upturned mouth could exude such cheeky exuberance, such expression that draws you into a great cosmic joke.

I turn to the back cover for the other picture. A more recent and familiar image of Anna Goldsworthy - the dark curtain of hair, the palest of porcelain skin, a long white neck, deep blue eyes, a small and perfect red-ribbon smile. I'd seen this tall elegant woman on advertisement broschures for the Seraphim Trio, a statuesque presence at the piano. Later I glimpsed the same calm, reserved woman in the Ormond College SCR. A more human presence then, flanked by her Italian husband. Her children clambered onto the worn leather couches, and played havoc with the cushions. Her husband pulled one boy towards him, and quietly told the other to behave. The children switched effortlessly between English and Italian, while speaking to the parents.

Anna Goldsworthy's memoir spans the period between these two photos, recounting the path to becoming a concert pianist. The continuous thread is found in piano lessons, and indeed lessons in music and life, from her Russian piano teacher, Mrs Sivan. In between are conversations with an incredibly supportive family, a swathe of academic and musical awards, the awkwardness of growing up and entering high school. Mostly tho', there are the lessons learnt at the piano - phrases of illumination and wisdom that translates just as well into life as onto the musical stage. Lessons in how to live for a passion, to carry a legacy, to know that one belongs in a long line of musicians, men and women who grappled with beauty, with being human, with expression, and communication and oppression. With wanting to touch the face of God. We get to know the composers through their music.

Above all is the relationship between teacher and student. Mrs Sivan's extraordinary pedagogy - a genius teacher - conveyed to the reader through meticulously remembered phrases. The broken English only enhancing the richness of her emotional range, her joy in music, her drive in carrying that, instilling that into her young charge. What is intuition, she'd say, it's tuition, that is IN the student.

The writing is elegant and lyrical. Anna is after all, the daughter of Peter Goldsworthy, whose novel "Maestro" upturned my life one summer in my final year of High School. Cool heart, warm brain, Mrs Sivan had taught Anna about the art of pianistic interpretation, and it seemed to have carried over into her writing, which is clear without being mechanical, compact and economical, but rich in poetry, intense but not bleeding with passion.

A wonderful, self-deprecating, enlivening read, whether fans of memoirs, music or pedagogy.

Half a Review

Last night Flick and I took advantage of cheap Monday tix at the Nova to watch "In Search of Beethoven". Two and a half hours of sublime music and an epic saga of an extraordinary talent, a supreme confidence, and suffering ameliorated by a terse, agonising hope. The hope of happiness.

One of the loveliest things was the way Garbralsky weaved interviews from pianists, composers, historians, conductors. With an handheld camera mostly. There is the Beethoven worshipper, a owlish man who bounces on his feet in enthusiasm and affection. There is the respectful historian, who circulates around to the truth, to talk about Beethoven with diplomacy, forgiving his temper tantrums, his neurosis, his recusiveness. There are the pianists, who talk of Beethoven with a honest affection, as of an intimate friend. Commenting on his freakish fingering; the impossibility of his piano sonatas. The conductors, who speak with a mixture of jocularity and admiration for the genius that is Beethoven. The radical nature of his compositions, breaking all convention. The sheer arrogance of the 26 year old to write such music, to be so confident of his talent.

And the self-consciousness of Beethoven. His frequent desires to suicide, his ability to hold onto life, to keep writing, all the music in his head. His disorganisation, his lack of hygiene in the latter years, and yet, despite appearances, the very orderliness and control in his music. It's a common misapprehension that Beethoven's passion was barely contained, his intensity and temper wild and unpredicable. Perhaps it was so with his social life, and yet his music was deeply controlled, organised, intelligently wrought.

Intermission

Let the music stop
The ghastly clamour cease

For one moment.

Put down the bow
Untune the string
Muffle drum and dampen keys.

Let stillness reign.
Let silence hang.

Erase flesh and beating heart
Chill the blood which throbs in vain.

Throw down the baton
And mark today

With a stop.

Put in the rest notes
Count the beats
I am tired, and in want of sleep.

Four beats of stillness
Let my mind be freed

A two-quavered hiatus
Let shattered body heal

A dotted breve
To solidify my soul

And into the mute void
The lion's roar.

A new sound.

Listen.

A Grief Dismissed

I've a less than 48-hour old grief. A fresh wound, but old enough that I can begin to write about it.

I skirt carefully around my grief, poking it a little, making concentric circles, closer and closer in, until I stare at it, peering at its form. But it's only for a few minutes, before I have to withdraw.

The trouble with grief is that of course one can't just look at it. One doesn't walk around it as if at a museum, studying an exhibit encased in a glass box. Grief is a writhing, living, growing thing. One has to handle it, touch it, throw it about.

Only, it's bigger than me, more like a body of water. I have to enter into its silent immensity. I hold myself there, forcing myself to sit still in its centre. I can only manage a few moments. Like holding your breath under water. Grief is that split second just before you have to resurface: your lungs are almost out of air, but still holding out, and there's a panicked moment of paralysis, before your legs wake up, and propels you out of the water.

It's momentary, quick jerks of intense anguish. Impossible to sustain, even if I am willing to sustain them. Very quickly my mind turns to self-mockery, or tries to rationalise the situation. Reason acts as rudder, pushing distance between me and memory. Away from raw pain.

It's all relative, I know. I've just read the blogs of two families who have lost loved ones. A wife and a son, both to cancer. What do I know of such loss? What is my "loss" in comparison? A loss of future hope, a mirage of a dream. Nothing but foolish musings for addled brains.

Footloose

They say we dance through life
A dance macabre with death

You say we dance in Trinity
A dance of eternal love

We dance in bodies
We dance in The Body

Slow Waltz? Quick foxtrot?
Who knows the steps?

Tiptoeing, testing
Afraid of false moves

Enter into Your rhythm
Following Your lead

Slowly, stumblingly
we mirror, we trace

dancers for grace

A Wedding

I have just come back from easily one of the best weddings I have ever had the privilege of attending. Something has shifted within me, and I shall carry this day with me for a long time to come. I am writing, trying to distill it, to memorise it, and to come back to it for renewal when I might need it for the future.

The day slips away though, as I am trying to remember it. It's a bit like an impressionist painting - the overall image, and the sensation, stays. But soon as you try to focus on an individual part, things blur. But let's try anyway.

Some things I loved about this wedding. The surprises:

Matthew and Miranda are some of the most intelligent, witty, character-full and educated people I have ever met, so I was expecting something unique and sophisticated with the service. I think I had in mind something formal: hymns echoing to vaulting ceiling, a long, white lace train, lilies, and words sung in Latin. Instead, it was held at Queens' College chapel; we were crammed in, and the heat was making everyone somewhat sticky.

Yet into that warm, gathered silence, they came. Singing. The opening song was also the processional for the bridal party. The "best men" were women - Emma and Benita, and amongst "bridesmaids" was a man - Matthew's brother Michael. And then Matthew and Miranda walked in. Together. She wasn't on the arm of her father, and he was obviously not waiting at the front of the chapel for her. Matthew had said to one of my friends that he was planning to break tradition, by going back to an older, Mediaeval tradition - that of crossing the threshold together. Entering, the promised land, as it were, side by side.

There were no flowers. Flowers are lovely, but Miranda didn't carry a bouquet. She simply walked in with the bridal party and then promptly sat in one of the pews, as a member of the congregation. The minister had declared, at entrance to the chapel door: "Let us worship God together!", and so it was. Incidentally, that's one of my favourite things about Christian wedding services. It's about the community of saints, gathering together. The bride and groom, beautiful and central as they are, merely pointers, to the greater grace of God with us, God in us, God amongst us.

The girls in the bridal party didn't wear matching dresses. They wore party dresses that they obviously enjoyed and reflected their personalities. Benita is Matthew's little sister and bears the Champion family resemblance: dark-haired, long-legged and lithe like a gazelle. She had on a simple sleeve-less shift in blocks of navy blue and black. Rachel, Miranda's sister, is the funkier, edgier one, and came striding in a back satin dress with black and white Japanese inspired ruching pieces and lots of marvellously complicated tied bits that I find hard to describe.

The music. They had a choir. There was harmony (seriously. You could take alto sheet music from the ushers). And, as one friend commented - robust, proper hymns. Nothing twee or sentimental.

I loved the way the minister conducted the service, he didn't try to bring his personality into it too much, simply announcing when we were to stand and what we were to sing. But he placed his gifts and attention into the prayers and sermon, beginning with a prayer in the tradition of the Jewish "baruch ata adonai elohim" (Blessed are you, Lord God) - or, as he phrased it: we praise you Lord ...

The wedding vows themselves took the shortest time. There were no promptings. They memorised their promises to each other, and spoke, while exchanging rings. The kiss came as a surprise: he simply leant over and embraced her after the vows were done. Without the inevitable and cheesy "and now you may miss the bride" and giggles from the congregation. Natural and understated. No ostentation.

And then the sermon. I don't remember having ever wanted to cry at a wedding; I just am not that sort of girl who gets sentimental at weddings. I rejoice and I laugh a lot, sure, but never cry. Crying, I suspect, I reserved for the sublime: the beauty or humanness that moves me. This sermon made me cry. I don't think I can talk about it properly, even, and I won't be able to capture the entirely of that wonderful piece of truth, beauty and god-ness (for want of a better term).

The passages were difficult, I thought, and certainly not common wedding scripture that I've ever heard. Deuteronomy 26:1-11 marks the entry into the Promised Land by the Israelites. Thus begins the covenant relationship between God and his people, so integral that we can no longer, after this, speak of Deity without speaking of Relationship; of a God that is always with his people. It was a hard passage, and the minister did his best to contextualise. Then a seamless move into the NT passage, II Corinthians 1:16-20. So seamless that I've almost forgotten how he did it!

I liked that the minister related it to current culture, without too much contrivance. He's very much an "ideas" preacher, reading the signs of the times in terms of changes in thinking and assumptions. So he spoke of promises, that our society is fearful of the air-tight certainty of promises. Promises that seem tyrannically, unchanging despite a changing world. Are Christians naive, blindly walking into something so binding? Making vows to another person for a lifetime. A commitment that says, regardless of the future unknown, the uncertainty, the changes and losses that shall come, that I will commit to you. Not a contingency plan, a phrase about how I shall be your wife/husband until I no longer feel love for you, but a life-long commitment, till death do us part. Unambiguous words. An unambiguous yes.

Such a commitment, he went on to say, is not possible, until we have heard and understood the promises of God. If we believe in a history; a past, a future and a present that is not constructed by chance, by happenstance, but shows the hand of a Creator, a relational Father, then, and only then, can it be possible for a man and a woman to make such promises. Oh, but he put it better than that ...

Christians marry in Church in order to be ikons: in the man and woman we see the promise of God. In the Yes that resounds in us, we see our God. Our response, for those of us who have heard the Yes of Christ, must be, is compelled to be, a Yes, and an Amen.

Thus, we enter courageously and confidently, into the Yes of marriage. Into the Yes of a friendship. The Yes of a Conversion too, I suspect.

Amen, amen.