Like the excellent and detailed professor he was in his mortal life, the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past stayed on top of what he intended to cover in his syllabus at any given time.
See you on the 14th, Frau Mathews ... oh, you thought today was what I was doing for Valentine's Day? Oh, no, meine liebe Dame, we are not going through 2026 missing any opportunities for you to get the point.
The point has been on the syllabus since 2024: I'm really good at making sure everyone else knows they are loved, but I am not as good at staying still long enough to be loved. I have gotten much better ... on my solo walks and sits in prayer, deep in the park, that is my time to be with the Lord and rest in His love ... also at times in the midst of my many duties when I have breaks to myself.
But, there are few human relationships in which I can settle down and be deeply loved and cared for. My sister is back in town and has started to help me in terms of being able to have a bit more time to myself without needing to be doing something -- that's a start, and I am grateful for her efforts on my and our parents' behalf. But I am still acclimitized to see people and instantly get to work.
Thus, the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past, not satisfied that I will ever seek out more human interaction for my own enjoyment on my own, just looked back at his syllabi from 2024 and brought those elements about me just being loved back for 2026.
Now if we could just get you to sit still ... !
This stubborn ethereal man, the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past, was not going to take no for an answer, and Valentine's Day was just going to have to get adjusted ... he had already pulled in big-time German backup with Bach, whose double violin concerto I adore, especially this historic rendition...
... and he had more tricks up his ethereal sleeve as he arrived a little earlier than expected.
"Vergib mir, bitte," he said from outside my door at 5:15pm. "The concert is not until 7:00, and I forgot to ask if you would like to get a bite to eat first."
"Ein bisschen zu Essen?" I purred as I looked out of my window. "Ja; danke schön."
"Bitte schön," he purred back.
He waited with the patience of a man who has eternity ahead of him until I came downstairs, and was smiling as I opened my door.
"I knew you were going to have that burgundy bow tie with the spots on it," I said as I came out in my burgundy dress and black shawl.
He started laughing.
"You like burgundy, so that stood out to you from my 1984 recital series, among other things!" he said. "And, you should like burgundy because it is a wonderful color for you, meine Herrin."
"Thank you -- you look so recital-ready that I wonder if you are going to be joining the concert," I said.
"Thank you," he said. "I thought about giving you that surprise, but I need to model for you sitting still and enjoying and letting other people pour into me."
"Oh," I said. "That's what we're doing today."
"And that's all," he said, "along with related thoughts about holidays and other externalities as a form of communication. But first... ."
He extended his arm, and I took it, and thus off we went down the street. As we were going, he purred, "The wonderful thing about having what you call in English a photographic memory is that if I have seen and focused on a thing, I can see it pretty well in my mind's eye ever after."
"I remember you said this to August Everding," I said. "I suppose it applies to more things than music."
"I told you that I saw a necklace that reminded me of our lovely journey to Mallard Lake," he said, "and that I had a moment that I thought of buying it for you. But I know you -- you are not at all pretentious and it makes no sense for you, in your environment, in your ministry, to have such a thing.
"But then I thought some more, Frau Mathews, about costuming and communication, and I thought about the conversations we have had about light conceals itself with itself. What I meant by that is, be where you are safe to be the radiant person you are when in your joy, in all your radiant adornment.
"I thought of this in light of your future when you have come to your alto seat on high: everyone there enjoys the radiance of everyone else radiating to the full, with no jealousy or envy or need to diminish others in order to shine brighter. That is the future you are walking toward, and your spirit is already responding to that because you have laid full hold to your Blumenkind era of fashion, loving to wear colors inspired by your journeys in nature on a daily basis, and you now are noticing people are responding to that commitment as you go to and fro, day by day, in this mild winter your city is enjoying.
"So, suppose you were wearing a necklace of gold and onyx and turquoise and jade, and every time you breathed, the light would ripple like the reflections of Mallard Lake ... how much of a step up would that really be?"
"OK; budget," I said, and he smiled.
"Yes," he said. "Yours, and everyone around you who wouldn't know how you afforded it and wouldn't think you should have been able to afford it and don't think some man shouldn't have afforded it for you because they can't. But also, no, because that wasn't the question I asked you."
"What?" I said.
"The question is simple, Frau Mathews. You are already Blumenkinding in your fashion with your choices of colors. How much more of a step up would it be to have a necklace that reflected Mallard Lake?"
"Well, if we don't consider the questions around the cost of gold and the rest, it is not much of a step up at all. But because of the cost, I could not communicate effectively what I would intend as an everyday person."
We were standing at the edge of the near meadows of Golden Gate Park as the lamps began to come on. We had stopped to have this conversation as people flowed around us ... many were smiling ... the evening was pleasant, and I supposed they were reacting to seeing both of us in the blend of the sunset glow and his personal ethereal radiance. He was happier than usual this evening, and so gently but definitely glowing up.
"What you say is of course perfectly understood," he said, "and so I have added a bit of dinner onto this lesson to demonstrate something to you. It is hard for you to sit still and be loved where you are because people know you as someone who comes in and gets things done. They love that aspect of you, but they do not know you in your fullness and thus cannot support and love you in that way. Many do not have the capacity to endure seeing in you what they feel they cannot achieve for and in themselves, you approach them with humble compassion and do not show them more than they can handle in their own pain. This is good and proper. And yet, for you, you need balance, time in spaces where you can be fully yourself. Your walks accomplish this, but there is more to be done."
I considered this in silence, allowing my mind to consider how big the horizon he was showing me might be.
"Good," he purred. "Sehr gut, mein geliebtes Blumenkind ... you are not afraid or resisting the idea, and this is good because it is for your good and also even those not going to explore this horizon with you directly."
"Well, most things sound more doable with a big bass voice and a smile."
He laughed, a laugh deep with joy.
"Wherefore," he intoned, his eyes shining with happiness, "I have been sent to you, Frau Mathews!"
"You're doing a great job," I said.
His laugh deepened as he gathered me into his left arm, and raised his immense right hand.
"It is so cliche, but when you have such a large hand," he said, and then snapped that huge finger and thumb -- and all at once the evening view and wind in San Francisco deepened in hue and softened even more in temperature and became scented with tropical night flowers -- suddenly we were somewhere in the tropics for dinner, bathed in the light of an outdoor lamp of a resort restaurant.
My companion's size and solidity meant that if he didn't move, there was a good chance any woman in his embrace wasn't going anywhere either ... but this was not a frightening thing ... I just rested in his embrace and watched people coming and going ... lots of different kinds of people, just enjoying life and no one worried about the difference -- assuming a mixed-race couple on Valentine's Day, we fit in perfectly well and were dressed just right.
"And even can dress up a little more, Frau Mathews."
I looked down, and I was glittering like Mallard Lake -- that necklace had duly appeared, and when I looked up, his tiepin had been enhanced with a jewel that glinted like a star.
A waiter appeared.
"Herr Altesrouge und Frau Blumenkind?" he asked.
"Ja, wir sind hier," we answered in bass and contralto harmony, and his chuckle was rich.
"Dein Deutsch ist immer besser," he purred.
We were shown to a roof seat in a corner all to ourselves, with the view of the moon rising over gently rolling waters. The centerpiece of the table was three candles set in a bowl of water in which was set fresh night-blooming jasmine flowers ... warm with a warm scent that played delightfully with the sea air.
The menus came -- the waiters brought them in English and German, and I took the English one. No prices, just food, and plenty of it. Now, generally, if you worry about a missing price, you can't afford it, and I peeked around my menu by reflex, but only met a big bass voice and a smile.
"Order whatever you like, Frau Mathews. I have not been singing in the park for your dinner for no reason. It is a good thing I have two years banked, of course -- we can probably still get you some cheese and crackers next week --."
I cracked up laughing, and thus went things until dinner arrived with this delightfully witty ethereal individual ... but soon enough he was quiet, choosing not to compete with the deeper voice of the sea and the harmony of the warm wind, into which the pleasant sounds of music in the restaurant below and the occasional laugh made beautiful adjunct harmony. He waited until we were waiting on dessert before speaking again.
"I do hope you are enjoying your dinner," he quietly purred, fitting his voice into the lower harmony of the moment.
"Immensely," I said. "Danke schön."
"Gern geschehen," he said. "I want you to understand why I added this to the evening. Your home region has had some pleasant clear nights that have not been too cold, and we could have sat by San Francisco Bay or San Pablo Bay and seen the moon and the golden lights across the waters ... or even taken a sunset cruise. But I understand the challenges you, being a local, would have faced. To you, the necklace and a place like this would be an authentic extension of the life that you are living ... adorned in colors of nature, seeking immense, deep, warm experiences full of light, with a big, tall, deep-voiced man because as a contralto, you prefer a voice deeper than your own in a man, and you are a big, bouncing woman.
"But because few have chosen to walk the paths you have, your enjoying these things would be complicated by the majority of people reading your enjoyment through their pursuit of the wealth and status by comparison to the status they would tend to assign to you."
"Listen," I said as I put down my coffee cup. "Your fan base is hilarious comic relief, but in real life, me being seen with you, a tall, handsome European who always looks like a million bucks --."
"Makeup and costuming," he said as he blushed wildly, "but continue, Frau Mathews."
"Well, I suppose we could disguise you as a big and tall average American white guy," I said, "but the issue is, I'm a fat middle-aged Black woman and you're over six feet tall, your voice shouts 100 percent man, you are super protective, and you're white. I have a friend who is about my height and has a white husband about my height, and it was a whole community situation when she came back to town -- after years of living with the foolery from his side of the color line, it started over on our side, too!"
He sighed heavily.
"If I were to talk too much about how I have time to spend so much time in the park, although it is really not that much," I said, "even if I were to share what I have given up in my life to have that time, what I have given up to love my beloveds, so many people would just pile their assumptions and their resentments in because I have something they don't. Occasionally I do run into that resentment, and the occasions are growing more frequent as I progress in my explorations."
"Yet everywhere you go," he said, "you do find refuges of people who love their lives and how they are living enough to rejoice with you as your life intersects theirs."
"Yes -- I find those more and more also."
"This tropical moment is just to inspire you -- an extreme case that would be beyond your budget in real life -- to keep exploring those refuges, Frau Mathews."
His eyes glinted like a meteor had passed through them.
"Your humility protects you, Frau Mathews, in a way that I do not fully understand because I am a big European man, and if I had not wanted to walk in humility, I could have gotten away with a lot more than you ever could. You further remain ministering where keeping the peace requires you not to aggravate other people's insecurities so you can lift them up -- for now decades. Such devoted love, Frau Mathews ... it is staggering to consider."
He set his jaw.
"It is little wonder that you have no patience for commercialized shows of love on a particular day, because for decades you have lived far above that plane for everyone else. But now, Frau Mathews, I show you a vision of living above that plane for yourself, as an extension of the life you are already living ... there will be ways, within your humility as a lifestyle, to find more refuge, to be in places with people of like mind. If someday if you are granted both wealth and time, they need not be in opposition to your humble life of service. You may use them to do as you are doing and find refreshment and relief at appropriate times, and you will find people of like mind doing the same thing at every level."
I sipped my coffee and considered this new horizon ... quietly humble people of all income levels working together for good ... I knew that possibility existed, but exploring the realm as someone who could move between the levels based on finding agreement with what I was set to do, or simply in the pursuit of peaceful rest and refreshment ... a love of quiet, immense scenes of nature ... or Bach ...
"Good," my dinner companion purred, his smile and eyes lighting up even more. *"Gut ... sehr gut ... keine Angst ... in die Liebe ist keine Angst... ."
I smiled.
"There is no fear in love, for perfect love casts out fear, for fear has torment," I said, completing the quotation from Scripture in English. "You are a good and faithful echo indeed, as ever."
"Meine Pflicht, meine Ehre, mein Vergnügen!" he cried. "My duty, my honor, my pleasure -- my everlasting pleasure!"
In his delight he reached out his hands for mine and I reached back, and that attracted the attention of a much older couple who looked, and then hustled over as fast as they could and put their hands over ours.
"This love that you share -- do not let it go!" the elder gentleman said.
"Do not let this be a day only," the elder lady said. "Beauty fades, romance ebbs and flows, and eventually all that Valentine candy isn't even good for you -- but love is eternal!"
"Love is patient," the elder gentleman said, "and kind, does not seek its own, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things -- and when faith and hope are fulfilled, love will still be right there, the greatest of the three -- just don't let go. Don't let the world tell you this reason and that reason that you should put money and status higher than the love -- don't let people who don't have what you have and don't think you should have it get you distracted."
"Hold on!" the elder lady said as she and her husband squeezed our hands. "Just hold on to what is real!"
They slightly misunderstood, but this act of love from brought tears from my eyes, and also that of my dining companion ... we said thank you in our respective languages, and then all four of us had a good laugh. They apologized for butting in, but we reassured them that they were welcome, and my companion had chairs brought over for them because dessert had come and we all could share it, and ...
"Since you have blessed us with your gift of love, we also desire to bless you ... and, Frau Blumenkind, you know where to come in."
So he sang the last song of Brahms, about the same love of which this beautiful old couple had spoken to of us, and I harmonized that very last line ...
The timestamp is 13:15, but you are welcome to listen to all of Brahms's four last songs!
It was their turn to weep for joy.
"Thank you," they said. "That was so beautiful ... we try to spread love and it always comes back to us, and that definitely did. Thank you."
Hugs all around, and then they went on their way rejoicing while I rested in my companion's embrace, watching the dark sea embrace the moon while the moon caressed the waves with silver in welcoming that embrace.
When at last my companion spoke, I could tell he had just come from a height of ecstasy that had come very close to causing him to forget what the plan for the evening was ... close, but not quite ... the strength of his determination was evident even as what he said was such music that had he not kept it brief, we would not have made it away from that standing dream for hours yet.
"It is still 6:35pm in Honolulu," he said. "We will yet be on time."
The check had come with dessert; he had paid it and left enough of a blessing of a tip with it to make sure the love and rejoicing in that place continued on into the night. So down the stairs we went -- in Curaçao, I had realized by the currency he was using, and by the fact that he had ordered the chairs be brought over not in German but in Dutch. But by the time we hit the street, the tropical fragrance changed -- the first building I saw was the Neal S. Blaisdell Symphony Hall, meaning we were in Honolulu just that quick. This disoriented me ... but his arm was still around me, and he simply stopped and let me rest a moment.
Then we went in, and were soon reminded we were back in the United States. A couple also going up to their box seats were startled by what they thought was a "mismatch" in this equally well-off couple I was in. But they did not let that show for long ... just how big and tall my companion was became obvious once we were in the elevator, and also his holding me and looking down quite affectionately as I gazed back up indicated that we were not going to be bothered! They were too through when they realized we had a better box position than theirs, but --.
"Oh well," I said as he started laughing.
"You handled that like an expert, Frau Mathews!" he said.
"Well, in order to live in a city that decided to remove African Americans in 1947 --."
"Was?" he snapped. "1947 -- just two years after --!"
His voice got way up in his sudden dismay -- two years after Germany paid the cost for scapegoating Jews, San Francisco was doing the foolery. It is a sad fact recorded in the planning department vaults, and accompanied, later, by a document that has a master plan for the city that includes no African Americans by 2040, written in this century. It is 2026 now, in a city that does not know how I am still here, and does not want to be proven wrong.
The Ghost of Musical Greatness Past, having access to my memory and suddenly aware of my personal struggle on another level, was incensed. That he in mortal life had great, deep passions was obvious when that he could carry off an entire opera house as easily as he could a single listener by connecting deeply on that level. But only as Fiesco or Monterone in Verdi's operas did he give any hint of how terrifying he could be when actually provoked, and he was now fully provoked. His entire form radiated the fury of his righteous indignation -- he had glowed up like a flame, and his face and eyes spoke eloquently of what he had stopped himself -- for the sake of the structural integrity of the building -- from saying in his wrath.
But I just finished my sentence as I put my arms around him.
"I always am living in my city by looking up at the One Who loves me best, Who opens, and no man shuts, and shuts, and no man opens -- I keep my eye on Him, and follow His leading, and I go into whatever space He opens for me, knowing I am fully protected. I appreciate, you good and faithful echo, how well you made visible the invisible situation around me!"
He was thoroughly enraged, and it took a little while for him to calm down, but ... .
"It is hard to stay angry in your embrace, looking at your smiling face, even though I am angry about things around you, but I am glad you do know exactly how to keep on walking. I am glad to have made visible, just for once, for you, what the situation indeed is -- and for them, so they would not have to bump into your actual security detail!"
"Danke schön," I said, and laid my head over his heart as the last of his anger melted into the gentler side of his protective impulse.
"Meine Pflicht, meine Ehre, mein Vergnügen," he said gently as he held me close and put his massive hand gently around the back of my head like I would hold a large apple. "My duty, my honor, my pleasure."
The orchestra members came out then to tune up, but a discord reached our ears ... the couple who had been so upset by us was now quarreling with each other as they reached their box, and my companion forgot his anger of just a few moments before in his sadness.
"We say in English that misery loves company," I said, "but since we refused to be good company, it must keep its own there."
"On Valentine's Day, in anticipation of hearing some of the greatest music ever composed," he added. "Yet we showed them a more excellent way, and it is their loss that they refused it because they did not like the appearance of the package the gift came in."
His voice turned grim, and that was a deep, dark voice to have turn grim.
"There is another phrase in English that comes from the story of the Odyssey. One can be damned in the midst of abundance."
He got that look -- the unpleasant memories of his life were flashing before his eyes -- but I gently interrupted those thoughts by gently squeezing him...
"I'm safe and protected and I know that I am loved," I said as I looked up at him with a smile. "I thank the One Who sent you, and you as well."
He looked down and focused on my smile, and relaxed into my embrace.
"Look at you giving me rest," he purred. "Thank you, Frau Mathews."
"It is the least I can do, since my heart has rested in your heart's embrace so many times through your singing ... and now we will both rest in the bigger embrace of Bach, through his legacy."
"And welcome," he said. "To leave the world and its noise into music ... into the music of Bach ... this is a gift from the Blessed Hand that we must never take for granted."
"Never," I said. "Thank you for bringing me here."
"Thank you for coming."
The conductor came out, and we sat down and clapped ... and then the concert began.
