All photos by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, February 18, 20, and 26
There was much to think of in February, the first month of a new phase of my life ... much to settle in lessons even from the summer before that helped me get ready.
To be human and not to examine one's life leads to being, at least two thirds of the time, wrong ... that is, not knowing what is best, and thus doing anything else, and not to be spared the consequences even if meaning well ... or, actually knowing what is best, and choosing to do otherwise.
I thought of this while walking to the Lily Pond from the Fuchsia Dell on the non-fiction side of the fourth wall, before having surgery. That was the last day I had to do it for some time, and I knew that -- and even THAT was pressing the limits of my strength, given my actual diagnosis -- but since all downhill until the actual little climb to the Lily Pond, it was a doable loop in an hour with some resting.
After surgery I thought to myself ... no more of that for a good while ... I would have loved to have gone back to Blue Heron Lake, for indeed the shuttle would take me there, but I would be too tempted to make its lovely two-mile round. Buena Vista Hill? I long to top it ... but hiking from my home? Not before June, at the earliest. Lone Mountain? See previous answer. Alamo Square? There is a bus that goes five-sixths of the way to the top -- I would be well-advised until at least March 15 to take that bus, and then walk home afterwards. Oak Woodlands Trails in their winter roughness? No. Not until at least April.
A part of me rebels against this, of course, but I reminded myself of how much is in easy reach still, and then remembered and decided on my "easy" refuge of the summer ... the near meadows of Golden Gate Park, where in the summer I resorted after Covid-19 took even the ability to get more than a quarter-mile safely on foot for me. I was blissfully happy there in the summer ... so much so that Schubert's "Selige Welt" -- "Blessed World" came to mind ... so I determined I would return to them, and their mini redwood groves ... they too are in a valley, and they will do for "Das Tal" in this early kiss of spring...
No sooner had I decided that than spring appeared for a day, warm and sweet and blue, and since I was going across a meadow on a day when the heavens were in wondrous blue, I remembered my first European favorite bass, Martti Talvela, singing Schumann's beautiful and poignant "Stille Tränen" -- "Silent Tears."
The beloved goes out in the meadow after a night of rain, under a heaven of wondrous blue ... never knowing the anguish in the night of the one who loves her, who cries silently while she sleeps to keep the pain of his sacrifices from her so she can be happy and believe he is as well! From Martti Talvela this is especially poignant, as he died after years of heart trouble, but not before walking his beloved daughter down the isle, knowing -- for the whole convention of the choir on high that I use comes from what he said to a friend -- knowing that he would indeed that night be in rehearsal in Heaven, where there was an opening for a bass to be filled by him!
I thought about "Stille Tränen" as I made myself ready in my new blue scarf ...
... and as I thought about it, the thought expanded. I am a Christian, which means, to start, that I believe God gave His Son to suffer and die so that I would be free from having to live enslaved to my own sinful habits and the eternal penalties of them -- not that I am perfect, but I can walk by the Spirit, by faith, because of the gift Christ gives to His own in salvation, instead of just walking in accord with my own sinful nature. My freedom had a terrible cost. Christ paid it, on the cross.
Then, nearer to our own time, my African and Native and Indian ancestors paid in blood for me to exist in freedom -- centuries of resting and surviving enslavement, dispossession, and all other forms of oppression thrown at them by colonizers and slave owners and their descendants who regret not being allowed to be just that bad. Those who resisted and survived paid the price so I could be here.
My grandparents and parents, the latter of whom are still alive ... they also sacrificed heavily for my education and development in what was a dangerous neighborhood. They cried their silent tears too.
My grand old soldier ... he taught me so much ... and gave me up, refusing to make me his young bride, for my good. I know that hurt him, deeply, as it hurt me.
None of these, out of eternity into the present hour, did that for me to not do all the good I knew ... including loving them by taking care of what they care so much about: me. Learning how to be still and to graciously receive ... staying on top of medical things as they come to light ... taking time to walk and deeply rest in nature ... it is not selfish for me to take all the time I need to attend to these things, and it is also a show of gratitude to those who paid what had to be paid for me to be well and free, and a show of a good model to those younger people, now two generations deep, who are watching me, and who I am sacrificing for, but who also desire my loving presence more than anything else, and that I live and be well a long time.
For me, this understanding was a deepening of the feeling I had in remembering "Das Tal" ... of coming home to where everything one is called to is blooming, to be blessed and leave a blessing behind. Although my favorite interpretation of this is made by my favorite musician and Commendatore, Kurt Möll, my second-favorite Commendatore, Franz-Josef Selig, has made a poignant and deeply moving recording of this song as well ...
Herr Selig does the same thing here as he does as Commendatore ... so much light and shade, painted in sensitive hues throughout... one gets a sense of the joy of home in light of the need to return, and of the pains and joys along the way, and of even the realization that no place of this earth will provide a home forever, for we all must weaken and die ... and yet, the final ascent of the song is deeply welcome, for even in leaving, one might live in such a way that leaves a legacy for others to take good root in, and bloom right on.
I am the "Blumenkind" of those that came before me ... and there is nothing I desire more than to be a blessing to those who will root upon my legacy in due time ... there is no other way for me to live than in the eternal flow implied in that reality. To what else, or who else, would I fix my passions, only to lose or be lost to them, and risk the abyss? Herr Selig warns against this path as well as Herr Möll, in an equally devastating though different way ...
... he, because of his intimate pacing and volume control, gives so much of the sense of that man alone and vulnerable, having meant well, sincere in his love, but still lost in despair and still headed for the abyss, no blessing in or blooming out of it. Herr Selig's quietness also hints at how this goes on unnoticed, all around us ... how Thoreau said "most men live lives of quiet desperation" is voiced by Herr Selig, as one such man reaches the end of his rope because what he loves has no staying power -- the rope of romantic love snaps, and he has nothing else!
To consider the end of those who mean well being as tragic as that of a man such as Don Giovanni ... Herr Selig's "Der Einsame" is perhaps even more heartbreaking, and subtly troubling, than his Commendatore ... to listen to
"good men" going down to the pit, having nothing to be grateful and joyful about aside from whatever they have set their desire upon right now, with no sense of eternity before or beyond them ... Winterreise condensed to a shorter walk ... a walk to be avoided ... and why not avoid it?
To have been lovingly called away from such a path and set upon climbing when one could have been and would have been, left alone, on that path to be avoided ... to understand the price that had to be paid for one's freedom by so many for so long, and to be in a position to be able to pay that forward ... there have been moments sitting alone in my home when I have touched such heights of joy in gratitude, without regard to any other circumstances ... so although I may desire to stand again at the top of Buena Vista Hill, or walk around the loveliness of Blue Heron Lake, I need not make them places of hurt regret for me in choosing to do what I know is not good for me. I need not make for myself echoes of an abyss I am not called to, for they are not the necessities of my joy although they have been given to me for my joy, and so often I have met joy there. If I never return to them -- and someday that will happen -- I need not strangle in the darkness of despair for their loss to me.
I also need not wander in search of what can only be found in gratitude's joys ... like Schubert's "Der Wanderer," who has climbed every mountain, been to every sea, searching for that land that is his own, where his roses will bloom and his dear ones live again ... only to hear at the end, ever so compassionately and yet sadly in the voice of Franz-Josef Selig that "Where you are not, there is found happiness!"
For the Wanderer, the whole world has become echoes of the abyss, and we can consider him with compassion, remembering all the displaced and dispossessed of the earth. Schubert and Schumann and Strauss all would have known of plenty of such men in Europe's turmoil of the 19th century, not even counting how many such stories Europe's colonial cruelties were creating in the world.
I do not get the sense, either from Herr Selig's or Herr Möll's interpretations, that the Wanderer has come to this state from any evil that he has personally done, nor is there any sense of the blaspheming defiance of Winterreise. He is, nonetheless, completely lost. There is nothing of this earth that can compensate him for his losses ... and it is seems that the only voice that could be considered as from elsewhere damns him forever to misery. But there IS another Voice ... I know Him well...
Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
When I last wrote about Schubert's "Der Wanderer" for Memorial Day, 2023, I mentioned that there was a veteran on YouTube who was among the last of the wanderer class of the hobos in the United States of America ... a community was gathering around him then, and he had a home base and people who loved him ... but he had said publicly that he would remain a hobo until he died. He said the life of the rails was all that suited him. As his story continued to unfold, a lost love and a lost son came to light, and often he traveled to where his son was buried ... but always as he liked, as a hobo, unwilling and perhaps unable to conform to a society in which he had always felt like an outcast ... the world was a place of strangling conformity to him, and the life of a hobo, of being a wanderer, was his escape ...
... until it caught up with him. The end for the restless wanderer is often very hard, and that was the case for him. The friends he had made organized when he went missing, and found his body. It was very sad, for he had generations of people who loved him, from still-living parents to young children who loved his stories and his expertise about nature and the outdoors.
The above to me is a cautionary tale of some importance, owing to at last discovering what has been undermining my health while I was asymptomatic: anemia, coming to a critical state without my knowledge. All the major walks I did in 2024 after a certain point should not even have been possible. I did not know ... but I kept hearing from the middle of 2022, when this had to have started setting up: "Leave them, and REST ... leave that over there, and REST ... make time to get away in the middle of the day, and REST." Louder and louder and LOUDER ...
Come unto ME: I will give you REST!
On December 31, 2024, all the pieces came together for me to rest from even more, and I still did not know why ... but as you know, there has also been an echo in Q-Inspired since 2023 because English prose was not enough!
Nur ruhe!
Only rest!
I do not chide the American wanderer I noted in 2023 who found a hard end, running from loss and grief and a society that made no sense to him. I could have easily found his end in severely overexerting any time in late 2024, after years of loss and grief and having to leave so many circles that were toxic to me. I am not yet so well that I might not still, if I give in to temptation to do too much. There but for the grace of God go I. All I can do is be grateful, enjoy the joy of being so loved, and thus live in and not presume upon that grace ... and as I posted it in July, I must direct upward the thought that for my life itself, and for the fact that I never had even a day of severe illness to the day in January I was summoned to the emergency room to get a blood transfusion I did not even realize I needed, "For This I Give You Praise!"
With all these thoughts in mind, I was in the near meadows of Golden Gate Park, and although there was a bit of a crowd, there was enough room, because of the gratitude and joy within me making that room, for me to be perfectly contented ...
... I thought of Brahms, to whom my favorite musician had reconciled me, and whose music now yielded me so many stunning delights ... this Intermezzo attracted my attention as it so fit the day ... just a beautiful melody ...
... but I heard that bass part in there announcing its presence, about to make a dramatic entrance... there I was post-surgery still clocking what would still end up close to a mile, and on the fictional side of the fourth wall, somebody with an exceptionally deep voice was going to have something to say about that.
"Oh, you thought you were going for a walk on this lovely day without your singing sedate octogenarian pacing service, mein geliebtes Blumenkind?"
The Ghost of Musical Greatness Past walked into the mini redwood grove on a minor key, a touch of severity in his voice belied by the twinkle in his eye ... seeing that, I walked him right back out again ...
"Oh, OK, since they are tired on high of you moonlighting on my security detail, they made up a job position for you ... oh, OK!"
Out he went -- he rolled out, laughing!
"Sie gewinnen, Frau Mathews -- you win!" he said as he recovered himself. "I did not see that coming -- but you know, we sedate octogenarians do have some 'turnabout is fair play' in us! We turn slow, but --!"
It was my turn to roll laughing, because he looked barely 50, and of course, him being the bouncing bass he had been and was even more so in immortality, there was nothing slow about him, including how fast he turned that joke ... unless of course, he was walking with and gently pacing me, after surgery, serving faithfully as the echo, ever since 2023, of the Voice Who had been saying, "REST."
"Well, they had to find something to fit my limited skill set, Frau Mathews," he purred. "We sedate octogenarians from the great beyond can only do so much, but this one is always willing to do what he can."
"You are so silly," I said as I started laughing.
"Well, Martti Talvela has sung here today, and then I am delighted to see you discovering living bass Franz-Josef Selig singing lieder. You and he resonate so closely in deep but not loud emotion and compassion, and like you, he has a deep connection to the music of worship and community choir work, and there are things he has to teach that will come along those lines directly to you. No old bass already in permanent retirement need think he must put a note in -- not in the presence of Herr Selig!"
"I was indeed very glad to find Herr Selig's interpretations of lieder! I have thought that I might start with Hugo Wolf with him, for he too is a gentle guide."
"I shall be glad to listen with you on that journey!"
"You will ... I enjoy him greatly ... his name means blessed and indeed he is and is a blessing with that voice, but do you know why I even know that about him?"
"Some old professor talked too much, apparently!"
"And is greatly appreciated, enjoyed, and not at all about to be dismissed -- even if all he feels like doing is the sedate octogenarian pacing service today."
"And with pleasure, Frau Mathews -- but I shall do a little more, for I bring to you this lovely piece by Edvard Grieg ... how well it fits this day, and how we are meeting it!"
Out across the meadow -- literally across them, at a slow pace to enjoy the great beauty so often overlooked ... off the beaten path even still not far from the traffic of the city ...
... and not all that far from home, but still, on such a day, in such a different world, just floating along on Grieg and sunshine...
"Remember now, we haven't filed a flight plan with the FAA, and you know how it has been in the last few weeks in the skies!"
"Frau Mathews, I brought my extra gravity-enhancers, and you notice I am speaking to you below F2."
I almost crashed, laughing, so he just swept me off my feet -- but harmonized Grieg all the way down to an E1 -- indeed, the basso profondo indeed had the extra gravity going, which astounded and tickled me even more!
Then we came to an even lovelier place...
... and on this day I remembered there is a thing called a 360-degree camera and that my new phone accidentally can do close to that ... panoramas thus created going wonderfully wrong ... new forks in every road...
"Oh, there are some artistic possibilities in that, Frau Mathews," he said. "Time to rest and play is not just for your little students, you see!"
This reminded me of something ...
"My father had a teacher who said that if you love what you are doing, it ceases to be work any more," I said, "and in my father's retirement, he works hard in the work of his choice, but enjoys it, and I see that in you as well. It seems that you and he are in the meadow of 'Stille Tränen' as if it were your actual domain, and you invite others to join you."
It was a good thing that it was such a radiant day, for he was already glowing up so much ...
"And you, the heir of Herr Mathews and listening to his echo in that respect in German ... where are you today? From where are you writing and taking pictures?"
"You know ... " I said, and his laugh was so deep and sweet and full of joy that it seemed that light bent toward it!
"This is how it is done, Frau Mathews, at the highest level -- literally at the highest level!"
"Of course, Martti and I discussed 'Stille Tränen' in the winter of 2023, and again today ... from him you so completely understand the sacrifice made for the happiness of the beloved, and he and you are also of deeply like faith and can take that back to the Redemption with ease ... but we did wonder in the winter of 2023 how long it might take for you to remember what is written: the Redeemer did all that 'endured the cross, despising the shame,' 'for the joy that was set before Him,' also!"
"O thou good and faithful echo, you are right, and I did forget that."
"Also reconsider the question from the viewpoint of the world, and the universe, being abundant as it was made by its Creator."
"'The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof,'" I said. "It is full, and there is plenty -- O thou good and faithful echo, so it is!"
"To get back to that thought as a practical matter -- to accept it even on the basis of what can be observed in common grace -- is to look away from the world in scarcity conceived by evil men as being the only reality. The world system is a reality, no doubt about it, but I will be Captain Obvious here -- Captain Obvious of the Echo Division --."
I cracked up laughing, and he smiled and waited to finish his thought.
" -- and remind you that you are in the world system, but not of it. You are called higher.
"So, let us reconsider 'Stille Tränen,' and perhaps keep a man like him, when he loses the woman he has done all this crying and sacrificing for, out of Strauss's 'Der Einsame' -- we shall do a rescue mission in advance!
"Here are some questions that might be asked to change our thinking: How big is the meadow, who told this man he cannot also go into it, and should he consider if whoever told him that is lying?"
I looked around.
"Well, this actually is not a real meadow, and there's plenty of room even in here."
"So then, why might the character in 'Stille Tränen' not feel that he can enter the meadow, too, since there is more than enough room?"
I had to consider this for a few moments.
"He needs healing from his secret pain, for no one feels much like playing in pain," I said. "But in the reasons for that pain, many men feel that they have to be strong and stoic and silent to be respected by other and not lose opportunities in a world system that runs on scarcity. Resting and feeling joy and playing is for children to them ... crying is for women, so they do it in secret ... they keep themselves out of the meadows, in essence. It would take great healing to break that up in one's mind."
"And perhaps a determination to row toward a better world," my companion purred, and I thought again of just how many songs he had voiced of men who did have such courage to leave their world behind and go toward what was better, and how many operatic characters he was well-known for voicing who told of better worlds and invited ... Commendatore and Gurnemanz came to mind ...
"You and I resonate, Frau Mathews, as freedom singers," he said. "That is part of why I cannot get you to let go of me, just like you will not let go of your own ancient traditional songs!"
"We need all the freedom singers right now," I said.
"Indeed we do," he said. "Indeed, we do."
We walked on a little further, and I had another thought, so immense that I stopped and turned to him.
"Your two deep eyes," he said gently, "tell me you have a deep question that will take a little while to answer. Let us go back to that lovely seat we have just passed, and then we shall explore your question."
I smiled and said nothing in protest ... I had seen his eyes noting the corners as we passed them, and thus, the distance we were slowly traversing, and I knew he desired to soon call a halt and a return ... he was as gentle as he could be when occasion arose.
"I imagine you have all the local streets memorized by now," I said as we turned around.
He smiled demurely.
"You remember in my interview with August Everding -- I do have what you would call a photographic memory, and can see the music I have studied before me as if it were on the stand. It is useful when learning the streets of a new city, and measuring distances upon them."
We sat down, and I gathered my thoughts.
"You are a part of me understanding that I could be here, joyously bringing your ancient songs toward freedom alongside mine -- and of course I re-materialized you in the spirit in Q-Inspired so that you could enjoy this with me, because yes, everyone should be able to also enjoy what they have labored for. I mean by saying this from the woman's side in 'Stille Traenen,' presuming it is a woman and not a child ... if a child we do not expect any responsibility ... but if a woman, how it is it between them that they cannot be together in the meadow?"
He considered this for a long moment before answering.
"You do not understand, Frau Mathews, because you have lived so closely with your parents and grandparents and community elders, and your grand old soldier was raised the same way, and so was I. None of us had much or lived in perfect situations in our formative years, but we knew how to share and work together and walk by faith. You have had somewhat more, but you were still raised to operate the same way. You therefore do not understand a world of scarcity and competition as being the true reality, and you are someone who upon any good ground knows that others can and desires that others will attain the same blessing that you have! But you are rare ... you are in the world, but not of it.
"Most women believe in the world system as surely as most men do, and so things generally go wrong in one of two ways: she either will push him out of the meadow to get back to work out of fear that resources will run out, or will leave him for whatever she thinks are greener pastures. The whole thought for men that this may happen, by the way, is actually much greater than the incidence of it occurring ... but as you say, men keep themselves out of the meadows sometimes as well. So, we shall generalize it this way: for anyone to live in the freedom of the meadow, he or she must understand that there is abundance, and know that others there to whom he or she are called will draw from that abundance as they are called and will share with each other."
He paused, and then added, "This is why you could walk so many years with your grand old soldier, and why you were drawn to me because of my practice of personal generosity. This is also why you could walk no more with your old circle ... and why there is no bridge."
"'Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?' O thou good and faithful echo ... ."
To a person, out of all the people I had to walk away from in 2022 and 2023, there was not a one that had been added back who did not operate understanding that at least inside common grace, we all had a right to and were determined to live generously in the freedom of the meadow.
"This is also a way of reminding you, again, that you were in more danger than you ever knew among your former companions ... but also, because of the accomplishments you don't ever think about unless reminded, few felt they could successfully compete with you for anything. Intellectual and performative mastery is a defense!"
"I understand better how and why you stayed at the top of your game for so long -- not having trouble with anyone!" I said.
"Long have I waited to tell you, Frau Mathews, how important that is," he said, "because you do not even like to think of how masterful you actually are. You are a tenderhearted queen, but you are a queen, meine liebe Dame, and because you marry great power, ability, and responsibility so well, you have 35 years of sheer gravity, having started in faithful community service at nine years old. Your Father in Heaven also handles your security! Other than that, many more people would have taken your tenderheartedness as an invitation to tear you to shreds -- but what happened instead is that people latched on to your tenderness and sought to use you up. This is why you had to be called away, and why we have had so many lessons so that you can now understand how not to fall into such traps.
"Also, I say this here: the archetype of your great love is that of a holy knight, but your father Herr Mathews is the archetype of a clement king. Of course there is overlap, but the point is, think back through the loves of your life."
I did so, and smiled through the tears.
"They were all natural archetypes of clement kings, in various stages of understanding that reality ... but I didn't know any better back then either."
"Now, who are your favorite male opera characters?"
Then I started laughing.
"Commendatore, Marke, Morosus, and Gurnemanz, all portrayed by a German opera singer whose life was the epitome of the clement king archetype -- I mean, it is a double echo!"
"You are consistent, Frau Mathews, because mighty yet tenderhearted and clement queens only belong with holy knights and clement kings, and in the circles of fellow clement royalty and nobility. I do not speak of wealth or title or position. I speak as one steward of the abundant grace of life to another one, standing in a park someone was noble of mind enough not to think another row of houses should be on this to sell for profit, but that it should be a place of grass and trees and sunshine for all the people of the city, rich or poor. We are great stewards standing here among the legacy of great stewards before us. That is what I mean about the circles you are called to be in.
"One more thing, for the day is becoming so beautiful that if I do not stop you will understand why people decided among themselves long ago, 'Keep him singing, for otherwise, the professor talks too much!'"
I just about fell out laughing then, but even that was part of the lesson ... he let me down gently in dappled sunshine under a stout tree, in view of a local entertainer practicing his skills...
" ... and said, "The second verse of Psalm 23 -- what does it say?"
I thought about it, and then smiled.
"O thou good and faithful echo ... the first verse says, 'The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want,' and the second verse says, 'He makes me to lie down in green pastures.'"
"So, I suppose then that even though the hills and the lakes must wait on you to recover, Frau Mathews, you are nonetheless right where you are called to be, to rest, and enjoy."
I considered this and smiled as it dawned on me, in the near meadows of Golden Gate Park ...
"I suppose so!" I said.
"Lesson completed," he said. "This old professor can sit down, and relax, and let these lovely ladies from YouTube sing Schubert's setting of Psalm 23 to round off today's lesson."
What a surprise ... I did not even know Schubert had it in him ... but he surely did.
The old ethereal professor provided me one more object lesson after looking at the sky and checking his watch. Though it was still winter, it was late winter, and so near to my home that we could remain there until near sunset on such a spring-kissed and warm day. So, he smiled at me and then showed me how it was done ... though he technically could not sleep, he became so deeply relaxed that he drifted off to dreamland, and I decided to follow his example ... so there we were, in utter, contented rest, lessons learned.