Going to Waste

So here I am on my own blog on a New Year's Eve, mostly because I want to use a link I keep here, and I see that Pixie over at Why Architects Drink has a new post up.

(Link to said post, for your convenience.)

And I'm reading what she wrote and I'm thinking, "Hell!"  Or if you want to be Southern about it, "Hay-ell!" Because the way she's been feeling lately is the way I've been feeling.  Except my depression and anger is all tied up with the fact that I haven't been practicing as an architect these last six or seven years.  I'm not designing houses, I'm cleaning them.  And I'm not giving people design advice in the conference room of an architecture office in return for a reasonable professional compensation, I'm giving out design advice in the aisles of the Big Blue Box Store for next to nothing.

And some nights I get so angry about it I pray God to make the time go fastfastfast till I can go home, because I'm tired of acting all nicey-nice and I'm afraid that if I get one more customer asking me some bloody fool question I'm going to rip his bloody fool head off and he'll deserve it, too, for being such a bloody fool.*

Thank God it's not like that every night.  And the last night it was, a co-worker left me some chocolate and I ate some on break and came back feeling half-human.

Which is about all the anti-depressant drugs this kid can afford.  Or wants to take.

But something has to change.  I put off till the last minute doing the continuing education it would take for me to retain an active architect's license: what the hell did I need it for, the rate I've been going?  But I made the effort and got the CE hours in and some to spare.  So can I do anything with it in 2014?  It would have to be on a freelance basis.  I doubt I could convince any architecture firm in the area that I could be useful to them, especially with the economy still in the tank.

But heaven help me, I have to do something.  What I'm doing now does not pay the bills.  And it makes me feel I've wasted my education, my talents, and my life. And I can't go on feeling that I've wasted my life.

And I don't have much life left to waste.

_____________________________________________
*No, not all the customers are bloody fools.  That's the anger talking.  But some are, and when they are and I'm in that state of mind, it's scary.  Bring on the 80% cacao . .  .

"Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill!"

Haven't fallen off the edge of the world.  But things have changed in my work life, and it's not just that I have less time to blog, but also that I'm feeling less impetus to blog.

I'm getting more substitute teaching engagements since the start of the new year.  That's largely because I've been taken off the naughty list of one school I'd formerly subbed for a great deal.  I was put on their naughty list last October when the principal thought I'd said too much about why the teacher I was subbing for was out having surgery.  (No, dear readers, I didn't sign any HIPAA pledges when I took that job, and the way the other teachers were talking about her op, I didn't think it was a secret).  Principal was sure I'd offended the regular teacher, so I was out until further notice.  Further notice came the day after the January teachers' meeting, when the teacher in question asked why she hadn't seen me around for so long.  She hadn't been offended at all!  So I'm back on that school's list, and they're calling me two, three, four times a week.  That on top of the other schools that call me, too.

Then, three or so weeks ago, my friend Frieda* called and said, "I've just gotten a job working the front desk at Dick & Harry's Tax Service*.  They still need people.  Didn't you work for them before?  You should call and see if you can get on, too."

I did call, I was rehired, and currently I'm working every evening, five weeknights a week.  This week I'm on from 4:00 to 9:00.  Really fun (not) coordinating that with the subbing work, where I often don't get off till 3:30, but we manage.

So "it's work all day for the sugar in your tay," and that's about what my earnings will buy me, the pay in both of these jobs being so low.  But I have to take what I can get.

Today I did not get called in to teach.  I caught up on my sleep, and now I have to a) do housecleaning, to get rid of the sanding dust so I can refinish my stairs, and/or b) do architectural continuing ed (blast! my calendar is backed up with that!), and/or c) do my on-line study for my English teacher's certificate, and/or d) finish what I need to do with my email addresses so I can finish dumping my old DSL Internet provider, now that I've been nearly a month with the local cable people.

And am I excited about doing any of these things?  No.  My mind is obsessed with when payday will be and will it bring me enough to cover my looming bills, and damn! I'm supposed to be so educated but here I am working twelve, thirteen hours a day for peanuts, which probably won't cover my looming bills, and sometimes I just want to cry.

There is light and blessing in all this.  Like the teaching gig I had last Friday where the regular teacher wasn't leaving until lunch time and I had all morning to sit-- yes, get off my feet and sit!-- in the teachers' lounge boning up on advanced Algebra so I wouldn't look like an idiot when it came time that afternoon to teach it.  And the local Red Wing Shoe store a couple weeks ago had some nice, comfortable, lace-up black shoes on sale for $10.00 a pair, and aren't those a godsend, especially in this weather!  And yesterday the student teacher did most of the work, so the fact that I had to report to Dick & Harry's without any dinner didn't make as big a difference in my front desk performance.  Imagine if my full energies had gone to teaching and disciplining and organizing first graders all day!

Well, three hours now till I have to change my clothes and get to the tax office.  God grant I use them wisely.  But you don't blame me, do you, when I come home at 9:30 and just want to watch reruns of I Spy or Magnum, P.I. on Hulu.com?

Well, All Right

A friend who follows this blog mentioned on Facebook this evening that I'd been leaving all three of you dangling for several weeks.

All right, let's do a highlight reel.

1) Not sure what was wrong with the car, but it hasn't done it since.  The garage thinks maybe a piece of dirt stopped the fan and that's why it overheated.  They didn't charge me for checking it, which was nice.

2)  On the 19th of July I attended one of the American Cancer Society's "Look Good, Feel Better" makeup sessions.  It wasn't exactly what I expected.  I thought it'd deal specifically with how to mask the visible effects of chemotherapy, but it was more like basic this-is-how-you-put-on-makeup.  Good grief, I've known that since high school.  Well, I came home with some products I could use, so that's something.

3)  Twice now I've had to postpone my chemo treatment a week because my blood counts were too low.  I don't have much leeway to begin with, so it's not surprising that my white counts, especially, have taken a hit.  Thank God, they've come back up in time for me to get my infusions at a four week interval, with no supplementary blood-boosting drugs.  But the delays mean I won't  be finished until the 11th of October-- if I'm lucky.  It could stretch out to nearly Halloween.

4)  As far as effects go, tiredness is the main one.  It's hard to tell if I'm being lazy or if it's just chemo effect.  I know I don't get as much work done as I'd like to.  The hair, even after four treatments, isn't 100% gone, though alas, the eyebrows are flaking out a bit.  I admit I look in the mirror and see my little-old-man pate and think, "This is stupid!  I could have gone the rest of my life without this!"  But there it is.  And fortunately, I do okay with the wigs when I go out.  Otherwise, I let my head hang out around the house. And sometimes in the yard.  And the neighbors' yards.  Unless it's too hot or too chilly, that is. 

Everyone tells me how healthy I look.  This is good, I know, but sometimes I crave a little sympathy.

Or maybe I don't.  I don't like it when people patronize me over the chemo.


5)  I've been getting a shot at four different interim pastor positions the past three or four weeks.  "Three" I should say now, since one of the churches phoned me today and said they'd decided to hire someone else.  And that's the church that's given me the only real interview so far; the rest of them have been informal look-sees when I've come to supply preach.  I spent a week obsessing about that interview and getting really depressed about my prospects-- how to cover what happened in the past without making me or my former church or my presbytery look lame--, but I felt it went well on the day.  Not well enough, obviously.  But maybe it wasn't the right position for me anyway.  That church is in the middle of a worship war, with "contemporary" currently in the ascendency, and if there's anything I find to be a non-edifying, crashing bore, it's so-called contemporary worship.  I would not have been neutral, no matter how hard I tried!

I hope and pray something comes of one of these churches, since I can't support myself on substitute teaching.  (School year started here this past Tuesday, but I haven't been called in yet.)

That's good enough.  I'll try to be more diligent about posting in the future.  Besides, when you're in my position and you go silent, people might begin to worry.  I know I do.

Too Much Drama

A rant, with a moral in the tail:

Got a call early this afternoon from the mechanic's, saying my car was done and I could come get it.

I've known since late Saturday afternoon that my neighbor was right, the front brake rotors needed replaced. And since I pulled the codes off the car myself on Thursday, I knew that the check engine light was on because of something wrong with the knock sensor and because the car was misfiring on all cylinders. Yesterday, the mechanic called and said he'd located a Technical Service Bulletin from Chrysler describing this problem and recommending tackling it by replacing the sparkplugs and wires and installing (reflashing) an update onto the engine computer. This turned out to work, and now the car was fixed.

I'd picked this local garage-- I'll call them O'Brien's*-- over the dealership because the latter is several miles up the Interstate and I was nervous about driving the Little Red Dragon far and fast with an undetermined misfiring problem. True, last time I dealt with this mechanic, he'd expressed some odd and alarming opinions on the moral wrongness of customers bringing in parts for him to install, on the principle that to deprive an auto serviceman of the markup was to take food out of his children's mouths. He thought the same about shade tree mechanics who fix friends' cars very cheaply or for free: not that it might not be wise in terms of getting a good repair, but that it was actual theft from the professionals. But this time there was no question of bringing in pre-purchased parts or letting an amateur have a go at it; I needed a shop that had Chrysler diagnostic equipment and didn't require too much driving to get to, and O'Brien's fit the bill.

So I walked over to pick up my car. As I wrote out the check to pay the bill, I asked Mr. O'Brien some questions about what had been done so I understood it. Everything seemed to be amicable and informative. One thing I inquired about just before I went was, should I expect anything different about the way my PT drove at first, since I'd read that a computer reflash could necessitate its needing to "relearn" some things about how you drive and all. He told me it might be a little rough on idle for a bit, or maybe stall out when I stopped at intersections. But it'd get over that soon.

Good, that's the kind of information I needed. I took my keys and my paperwork and went out and got into my little red car. No check engine light on, great! but it was making a high-pitched jingling sort of noise!

What is this? I know it wasn't doing it when I brought it in. Was this part of the computer's relearning things? I nearly reparked it and went back into the shop to ask, but thought well, maybe it was.

I had to go by the Post Office to get stamps, and by the time I got over there I decided I had to find out. The noise could be heard on idle or while driving, and it wasn't going away. I got out my cell phone and called.

Mr. O'Brien was put on, and when I comfirmed that yes, it sounded like crickets, he said, "That's probably a belt."

"Is that part of the computer relearning things? It wasn't doing it before."

No, he said, it wouldn't have anything to do with reprogramming the computer, and I should bring it back and he could take a look at it.

So I did. By the time I got there, it wasn't jingling at idle anymore (maybe because there had been slightly-rough idle, which now had settled out), but when I revved the engine, there it was. He located the problem belt for me (found out a little later it's the one for the alternator), and that's when things got very bizarre.

I can't guarantee the chronology of the conversation, and maybe it doesn't matter. But Mr. O'Brien proceeded to inform me that he'd been very offended when I'd told him that "It wasn't doing it before," because that was as much as to accuse him of having caused the belt noise himself. That it probably was doing it before, I just hadn't noticed, and now I was noticing only because he'd worked on it. That when he used to work for a dealership, customers would bring cars back with issues like this and they'd put a new belt in for free, but he couldn't afford to lose that kind of money on things that most likely had been going on before anyway; indeed, he said, he'd noticed the noise but I hadn't mentioned it for repair, so far be it from him to run up my bill by being like the dealerships and suggesting it be replaced! And, he said, he has Asperger's Syndrome so he's very precise and does everything in a very set, determined way and now I was bringing my car back and implying that he'd done something wrong by-- by what, I'm not quite sure. Close as I could tell, he thought I was accusing him of some incompetence that made the belt suddenly start to jingle and chirp.

All through this, I'm in conciliation mode, telling him no, not at all, it's just that it was new to me and that I wanted to make sure all was well with my car before I got it too far away. I tried to adduce an example of a time when something unrelated did go wrong with a car just after I'd picked it up from the repair shop, thinking to say, "Hey, it happens, that time I was glad I brought the car back, I learned from that experience, so now I'm doing the same."

He wouldn't hear it. "That makes as much sense," Mr. O'Brien said, "as me saying I had a bad experience at the dentist when I was five years old and now I won't go to the dentist." I could not get him off his idee fixe that by noticing the belt noise I was somehow insulting or condemning him and his work. And once he mentioned his Asperger's, I went into pastoral care mode. Let's be understanding and gentle and all the rest of it.

It did no good. He kept insisting the noise had been there all along and to "prove" it, told a story of how his sister-- his own sister!-- had started hearing some noise or other right after he'd fixed her car for something, and the noise and the repair had been totally unrelated! If his own sister could do that, why then, certainly I--!

His anecdote was even less to the point than my story about my old Mazda twelve years ago in Fremont, Nebraska, but no use in mentioning that. Especially not when he was growing ever more defensively emphatic that I had deliberately insulted him by bringing the car back when he'd said it was the belt. There was nothing wrong with the belt, he said; his own car has been making noises like that for a long time, and, he was sure, so had mine!

I nearly got angry back at him as he kept on like this, imputing thoughts and motivations to me that were grossly unfair and untrue. But I remembered who I am, and I considered his Asperger's, and kept my anger down. But when he wound up by saying that he's a trained professional and he knows what he's talking about, I couldn't help it-- I said, "Well, I'm a singer, and I would notice if my car was making a high-pitched noise like that."

"You're a singer?" he said. "So am I." And he goes back into the shop and brings me a CD of country-western tunes penned and sung by his brother and himself. I haven't listened to it yet.

But back there on the street, I was so busy playing pastoral counsellor that I never got around to saying, "Never mind when the noise started, how much would it be for you to make it go away? How much just to replace the belt right now?" Maybe since he thought it was actually still good . . . He certainly never suggested that solution, he was too busy questioning my motives and assumptions.

So I took the CD in the PT and drove away. I had errands to run. The belt noise was a maddening, headache-inducing whine. At the supermarket, I decided, no, I didn't want perishables in the car until I'd dealt with this. Screw Mr. O'Brien's attitude towards customer- bought parts, I was going to the neighborhood AutoZone to do something about it.

The nice clerk there first tried to set me up with a can of belt conditioner. He even came out with me and sprayed it on.

It didn't work. The belt chirped and jingled as much as ever.

He looked more closely at it. "It could cut soon," he said. (The clerk, by his nametag and appearance, seemed Persian in origin. So it didn't surprise me that his English was a little creative.)

"You mean, break?"

"Yes. Break, cut. Especially out on the highway. It's getting worn."

Now, you could say this is just the opinion of a guy at the auto parts store. But let's say he's right. Mr. O'Brien said he didn't do anything with the belt because I hadn't mentioned it. Well, I originally booked the repair session because of the engine light only. I only mentioned the brakes because my neighbor said something to me about it later on. You mean if I hadn't said anything about the brakes, Mr. O'Brien wouldn't've fixed them, either? I'd been thinking I wouldn't go back to him because I can do without the defensiveness and the drama, but if he's going to use his Asperger's as an excuse to overlook unsafe situations, I don't want to go anywhere near his shop again.

I bought a replacement belt. The auto parts guy said it would be easy to put on, pointed out how under the hood, and even printed me out a diagram on how to do it. He said the area repair shops get their parts from them anyway, so it'd save me time if I had it already. And if the shop preferred to get it themselves, I can bring it back. Sounds fair to me.

Then I called another repair shop in town. They didn't seem to mind me bringing the belt, but they couldn't get to it till Friday. Friday! I've got places I have to get to! Maybe I know some guy that'll put it on for me?

After that, more errands (no highway driving). Noise still there, drilling into my brain. And the feeling of depression, weighing into my soul. Damn! a week later, and my car still isn't fixed, I'm having to spend more money on it, and here I can't insist on sensible treatment from the repair shop because the owner has an autism spectrum disorder? Why don't I just start whining about having cancer? (Oh, yeah. Because I don't want to go on the assumption that I still "have" cancer-- the chemo is only for "just in case"). Or maybe I can justify being a pain in the ass because I'm going in for chemo this next Monday? Does having Asperger's absolve a person from trying to see something from another's point of view, especially when the one who has it is aware of his condition? I hated being falsely accused! I hate being broke! I hate that my hair won't lie right and looks awful all the time! I got more and more depressed and had to make a special effort to smile and be kind to the people I encountered as I finished my shopping.

Getting home and making a meal of lots of fresh fruit and tons of (homegrown) lettuce elevated my mood. But now that I've had my rant, I have to remember that defensiveness is not pretty or productive, no matter what causes it. I have to buck up and remember that in the weeks to come, my feeling pleh from chemo will give me no license to inflict my discomfort on other people. It's not their fault I'm fighting cancer. May I refrain from doing drama unto others, as I would not have them do drama unto me.

Where I Was Yesterday

I planned to write this post yesterday, but got busy doing other things. Which is good.

Friday, after I got the word about my extremely-possible ovarian cancer, I was strangely free of sensations of fear. No unseen hand viciously squeezing my gut, no leaden weight at the heart, no noose at the throat. I was full of nervous energy, yes, but I channelled that into thinking and planning and letting people know.

Friday night, I actually slept pretty well. But yesterday morning I didn't feel like lying in the way I usually do, and got up at 7:00. This is good-- I can't afford to be a slugabed. What wasn't good was that shortly after I got up, even when I was just greeting my animals and going about my morning routine, it hit.

No, not dire thoughts of fear and panic. No, no wild feelings of Oh My God, O My God! No, I was hit with a sensation of oppression in my upper arms, an annoying, distracting pain that all day tried to keep me from doing what needed to be done.

Weird, really. I know it's hormonal; adrenalin, probably. But it usually takes me in the gut. Why the arms?

I don't know. All I know is that I was tempted to do the flight-avoidance thing. To go back to bed or find some computer card games online to play (I've deleted them from both my computers). But that would be silly!! The thing I most resent about facing my mortality is that I may-- I say, may!-- not have the time to do all the things I've planned and want to. And am I now going to waste a perfectly good day on absurdities? I'll save that for when I'm feeling really grotty and have no choice.

More later, but it's time for me to head to church. Blessings to all!

For the Sake of Posting

Maybe a month ago I heard a report on the news about some woman up in Canada who was on disability for depression. Her insurance company was planning to end her payouts because they'd come across photos of her on Facebook, attending a party and engaging in whatever other fun and frivolity. The insurance company said, "See! That proves you can get out and have a good time! You're not depressed at all! So get back to work!" The woman herself says her doctor told her to get out and mix and mingle, for the sake of her emotional health.

I don't know this woman. I haven't even seen the pictures. I don't know if she really is a party girl greasing off her fellow premiums-payers, or if in the midst of the social whirl she painfully maintains a pasted-on smile, in "Tears of a Clown" fashion. But this story aptly illustrates the hang-up I've fought for years over the issue of depression. The idea is, if I'm depressed about something, I'm obliged to go on feeling depressed about it until the problem is Absolutely, Totally, Thoroughly Solved. So if I go showing any signs of cheerfulness, the bad situation can't be real. But I know in myself that it's very, very real, so I must go around feeling as morose as possible.

Happily, at my age I've gained some perspective, not to mention stronger faith, and for the most part I've outgrown this emotional quirk. Nevertheless, it has really operated in keeping me from posting anything on this blog since early October. After all, the problem of my having to put my architecture license on inactive status is a serious, life-affecting matter. And I haven't solved it yet; at least, not in the sense of getting all the required continuing ed in before the end of the year. So how could I write frivolous posts about fall colors or cooking or what-have-you and still have anybody believe that the license quandary is serious to me?

But it's getting to the point where not posting is a problem in itself: I've had readers (well, maybe one) thinking of organizing a virtual search party.

So here's a post for the sake of posting. Maybe one of these days I'll write more about the rigors and joys of substitute teaching. And about what I've been doing to get ready for Christmas. But right now, one of the thrills of subbing is that it induces me to get up very early in the morning and also to get sleepy in the evening ditto. So before I write total gibberish . . .

Living Exegesis

The other day, in my regular rota of Bible reading, the Old Testament passage happened to be Proverbs 3, which includes the verses

5Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.

A couple days later, the Psalm selection was No. 37, which in part says

3Trust in the Lord and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
4Delight yourself in the Lord
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

and

25I was young and now I am old,
yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken
or their children begging bread.

I've pursued my current plan of Bible reading since the year 2000 or so. So I've read these passages repeatedly the past nine and a half years. I've read them with openness, with edification, with acceptance.

But this past week when these verses came up, they evoked feelings of resentment, rejection, and fear.

For why?

Because given my situation in these economically-parlous times, they swept me back to the financially-strapped late '70s when I was subsisting as a newly-minted Bachelor of Architecture in the beautiful but heedless city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In that town and that economy I was unemployed more often than not. Frequently I had no idea where money for groceries was coming from, let alone the rent for my studio apartment. And acquaintances from the church I was attending, people who knew the paucity of my resources, would bombard me with these verses. It was their way of "ministering" to me. These verses were supposed to make everything All Better.

But they didn't. They made me feel alienated, excluded, and condemned.

Why should they? I was a Christian, after all. They should have filled me with hope and confidence in the Lord. Was I just hard of heart? Maybe a little, yes. But there was more to my desolation than than that.

These verses fell flat because they came alone. They weren't accompanied by the exegesis of my acquaintances' lives. How these people related to me did nothing to show me the true meaning of these texts or to discover to me the goodness and grace of Almighty God. They were too busy to be my friends, to just sit around and talk about everyday stuff as we got to know one another. No, I'd have chapter and verse references given to me at the last minute at the end of a Bible study. Or I'd find the text scotch-taped to my apartment door with no sign that the visit was about anything else.

These people had not yet earned the right to drop random exhortatory verses on me. I wanted friends and conversation and relationships, and what I got was Proverbs and Psalms used like robot arms to keep me at a distance. I needed information and referrals and connections on possible jobs, and they gave me Biblical magic formulas about how if I was righteous and godly enough, the positions and pay would simply come.

It felt like what it says in the Letter from James,

2:15 Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?

James could have added "emotional needs" as well. There is a time and a place to feed a Christian brother or sister from the Word, but it must never come alone. It's possible that a non-believer can also gain comfort from a quotation from the Scriptures, but there it's even more crucial that it be accompanied by the exegesis of our lives.

I've been thinking since last week on how that living exegesis would "read," about the overall love and grace of a Christian friend's conduct that would guarantee that Scripture snippets were received as the comfort they were meant to be. I need to contemplate further before I could venture to say anything about it, but I know that sort of "love with skin on" is vitally essential.

By today, I can again read the Proverbs 3 and Psalm 37 passages and see and feel their assurance and hope. My upset last week wasn't really about the verses per se, it was frustration and anger at myself that here it is thirty years later and I'm again in the same stinky financial position. But that's a different subject, and going and doing something useful now might have go some ways towards maybe getting myself out of it . . .

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Twenty-one

Monday, 26 December, 1988
St. Stephen’s Day
Löhenthal* to Hapsburg to Königsfelden to Zürich to Löhenthal

I’d intended to take off for Florence this morning but it didn’t seem time yet to go. And Lukas’s* parents suggested a trip along a scenic route in the process of returning Frau Heimdorfer* to Zürich.

So we visited the castle which is the actual first seat of the Hapsburg family (who were originally from Alsace-Lorraine, it turns out) and then a church where one of the later Hapsburgs was assassinated,† Königsfelden. It was closed and we couldn’t go in.

After dropping Granny off, Herr Renzberger* took us up to a restaurant overlooking Zürich for coffee and cake. Unfortunately yesterday was much nicer; today’s fog rather obscured the view, a fact Lukas’s mother continued to apologise for.

Thereafter we drove around the city of Zürich a bit, looking at their Christmas decorations.

Then we headed back to Löhenthal. A couple times Max* got a little spacy at the wheel and let the car drift over the righthand white line. "Achtung, Max!" says Greti*, and each time he insists he’s awake . . .

That's right, Herr Renzberger, keep the car on the road . . . I may have been getting more and more depressed today but it would not be a good day to die. Any way you look at it, I couldn’t and wouldn’t choose Lukas for my leading man in a tragic and romantic death scene, especially the way he was behaving. It’d be absurd.

On our return I got out my train schedule and began to figure out what’s happening in the next week and a half. I’ve decided to go back to Oxford the 6th. My train pass ends that day anyway.

They asked me when I was leaving and seemed surprised when I said tomorrow. But I think it’s a good idea. If I stay any longer I’m liable to allow myself to blow up at Lukas when he says or does (or doesn’t do) some little thing, just to try to get some interaction out of him.

I went to his room this morning and talked to him about his thesis paper on pastoral counselling. He didn’t invite me in and we conducted the conversation with me standing in the doorway. Still, happily, I got him to do the talking. But it felt more like an interview than a conversation.

And I discovered he’s not the person to ask when trying to find out how he knows he has a call to the ministry. That sort of thing apparently isn’t Done in the Reformed church. They seem more hyper-intellectual than a pile of bleeding Presbyterians.

Maybe I’ll ask Nigel*. It’s important, because I’m looking for that sort of certainty for myself.

Did something decadent after everyone went to bed. Pulled out one of Lukas’s English language books and read it through. A work of fiction, not all that well written, but still I needed something of the sort.

Yeah, I know that sounds strange. I don't mean I needed a badly-written book; what I needed what something in English that gave me something to think about besides Lukas's inexplicable behaviour and how uncomfortable it's making me.

It was an older book called In His Steps by a guy named Charles Sheldon. It starts out all right, with a pastor and some of his church members resolving to live their lives according to the maxim, "What would Jesus do?" But the author has everyone in the town eventually jumping on board and the whole town being gloriously transformed and the movement eventually spreading to Chicago and points beyond. Sure, it'd be nice, but is it real? I mean, even if some people could be consistent about keeping this up, is it really believable that there would be no hold-outs at all?

By the time I finished it, it was making me uncomfortable in its own way. If you can think of God as the Author of human history, it's almost like Sheldon is standing there confronting the Lord with his hands on his hips, saying, "Hey, God, I can make my characters be totally virtuous and godly-- why can't You?"

But as I say, it was a change.
______________________
†I've learned subsequently that the Habsburg in question wasn't actually murdered in the church building. King Albert I was killed on that particular spot in 1308, and the church was later erected over the site in his honor.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Nineteen

Saturday, 24 December, 1988
Christmas Eve
Löhenthal*, Switzerland

As for what transpired today, I got up around 9:00, took a shower, and appeared upstairs. Everyone else had already eaten but Mrs. Renzberger* produced breakfast for me. Instant guilt, even though she’d said for me to sleep as long as I liked.

The family put up the Christmas tree today. Lukas* and I did the decorating. He put on the red candles in their clip-on holders and showed me how they also use these hanging fireworks-like sparklers that one can light just for fun. I started in on the ornaments. They were, characteristically, heavy clear stained glass balls, each of all one color; though some had designs and textures molded or blown into them, most were smooth. I’m afraid I left a memorial to myself behind-- I shortened up most of the strings on the balls I hung, to keep them from sitting on branches below.

There were also a few handmade decorations and contributions from family friends, which Lukas told me the story of. And a contribution of a red-orange tail feather from Kapten Blood*, the West African parrot.

Didn’t do anything terribly useful after that except look at a French Gothic book Lukas pulled off the shelf for me, till time to go fetch his maternal grandmother from her apartment at an old-age complex near Zürich.

I went with him and sat there in Granny's front room, feeling very dull, as if I hadn’t a great deal to say. But silence can be a virtue, can’t it?

(On the way over I did ask about his mother and he said don’t worry, I’m not being any trouble. Well, if you say so.)

His grandmother, Frau Heimdorfer*, treated us to coffee (tea) in the complex snack bar and then we drove back to Löhenthal. I sat in the back seat, contemplated the scenery, and idly let the German conversation in the front seat wash over me.

When we returned I had just enough time to wrap my present for the family before time for supper and time to meet Lukas’s middle brother Thaddeaus*.

Dinner was all sorts of charcuterie, better than what I had in France, despite Greti’s* constant concern that I wouldn’t like it. Table conversation started out in English and a little French but gradually went predominantly into Swiss German. It occurred to me I didn’t mind, greatly. It relieved me from the necessity of having to be clever myself. And it reminded me a lot of the Coverdale College* dining hall, where due to the noise I can’t understand anything being said around me anyway. I found I enjoyed the sound of Lukas speaking German. The Swiss do it more softly and gently than the Germans do and his voice in his native language is pleasant in itself.

I wasn’t totally left out, though. Talked about England a bit, since everyone there had been there.

After dinner the tree candles were lit and the family assembled in the living room. Lukas officiated and set the mood by having the "Pastoral Symphony" played on the stereo (Handel’s, from the Messiah). Then he read the Christmas story, according to Luke, through the annunciation to the shepherds, from the NIV out of consideration to moi-même. After that, we lit the candles we had been given, passing the flame and with it a wish for peace around the circle. Then each person put his or her candle on the tree.

Then, in a move designed to destroy my peace and everyone else’s, Lukas’ mother asked me to sing a carol or something else for Christmas. Oy vay. Seems dear Lukas had given his mother a proper buildup for my vocal abilities. And, she said, none of her Kinder will sing anymore. They did to a certain age but then refused. So I was elected.

Deciding it was appropriate after the text about the angels, I gave a verse of "Angels We Have Heard on High," to everyone’s seeming satisfaction.

But I wasn’t off the hook yet. Frau Renzberger declared that after she read the company a story I was to sing again. Panic!

Fortunately the story was long. In German, of course. I caught words here and there. As explained to me afterwards, it was about a former political prisoner who had the meaning of Christmas and freedom suddenly come together for him on simultaneously hearing Handel and being given a drink of warm milk. The homely comfort and the glory of it combined . . .

I’m not sure why I did what I did then. Yes, I do, too. Instead of a traditional American or British Christmas carol, I, after some preliminary fumbling around for the proper key (I couldn’t trust myself not to crack on the high f''), sang Schubert’s "Du Bist die Ruh’." I did it because it’s in German. And I did it especially because I remembered what Lily Michaels* [a little girl I used to babysit] once said, that it reminded her of Jesus. So it seemed more in the tone of the story just read than a conventional carol would have been.

I sang with my eyes shut to keep off the nerves (I know, Dr. Smith† said never do that) and only stumbled over the words once. Still, I’m no Dame Janet Baker and maybe I shouldn’t’ve tried it. One gets that feeling when the predominant response is, "Oh, we know how difficult it is to sing before people!"

These preliminaries over, it was time for presents. They told me that if the family is going to Christmas Eve service each person usually just opens one or two, often those given by friends they’ll be seeing at church. But tonight things were running late and Thaddeaus was taking the only car back to Neigendorf*, where he lives. That meant everyone would have to walk and Grandmother wasn’t up to it. Leaving her at home alone wouldn’t’ve done, either.

So church was punted for the evening and everything was opened. Lots of socks; Lukas and his brother gave each other calendars; the former brought all sorts of things from Oxford. And there were two gifts for me. One was a dark blue-black scarf with a-- what do you call it?--oil swirl design running through it. Turns out Lukas had suggested it and his mother had picked it out. Funny, because we’d been talking about the Oxford fashion for that sort of thing at dinner and Mr. L. Renzberger had not betrayed a clue. My other present was an assortment of Swiss chocolates. Good. I can serve them for tea in my room at Coverdale.

Mine for them was hiding under the tree and thus was one of the last opened. My drawing of the Hobbit House went over rather better than my singing did, I think. And it seems to be rather appropriate, since most of the walls of the house are hung with contributions from friends and family. I immediately told them I’d need to take it back to Oxford to get it framed, but Lukas’s father said no, no, they’d get it done.

Maybe that’s better anyway. They can choose the frame style and mat color to match their décor-- or maybe choose not to hang it at all.

After presents were all opened there was more wine and more cookies and playing with the bird, who’d been let out of his cage. Me, I did not venture to pet him. Would like to keep my fingers.

The household retired to bed around 11:00, whereupon I discovered something very awkward-- Lukas’s mother had been kind enough to wash all my dirty clothes today, but she doesn’t have a clothes dryer.‡ Therefore my flannel nightgown was still very wet and I had no idea where my cotton boatneck shirt, which would’ve done to sleep in, had been hung to dry, let alone the underwear which I would need in the morning.

I finally decided to make do sleeping in my bathrobe, not being comfortable sleeping in nothing, but it was a pis aller. I’m afraid I retired in a very uncomfortable state, especially inside me: I wish I were pretty, I wish I could sing properly, I wish now I were ten years younger and could go back and do everything right, I wish I never had to cause anyone any trouble . . .
____________________________
†My voice teacher at KU
‡They had the typical European drying room, where wet or spin-dried semi-wet clothes could be hung on racks or laid flat on slatted wooden shelves and take advantage of the heat emanating from the not-highly-efficient, uninsulated furnace and water heater.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Eighteen

Friday, 23 December, 1988
Dijon to Pontarlier to Bern to Löhenthal*

Got up at 4:45 like a good child. Good thing I didn’t rely on the wakeup call the desk lady said she’d give me. It never materialized.

Dreamed again of doing backflips all night. Must be something about the bed. Too soft.

Down to the hotel lobby by 5:20. Nobody was there, there was no sign of any number to call for a cab, and there was no switch for the hall where the phone was. Wasn’t even sure what to do with the key. Decided just to hang it on the hook under my room number, and get down to the street.

No sign of cabs there. So, again, I carried the bags. At least they were lighter now. One cab I saw, passed me, going pretty fast. Everyone in Dijon drives fast, it seems.

Anyway, made it to the 5:58 train in decent time, thank God. First change in Dôle, about thirty-five minutes later. Had a bit of anxiety when the train stopped at another small town two minutes before due time in Dôle and I couldn’t see the station sign. But I decided Dôle had to be bigger. And it was.

Train to Pontarlier from there. Hour and a half ride. The conductor or whoever he was joined me in the 1st Class coach (I was the only one there) and wanted to talk all the way in. At least he was friendly and soldiered on despite my bad French, even though he kept me from working on my journal. He says they're planning to build a tunnel under the English Channel (La Manche). First I've heard of it-- I hope it won't mean the ferries will stop running. He also told me there was snow on the ground at Pontarlier. Oh! I hadn’t considered that possibility.

And as the sun began to rise I could see out the window that lo, he was right. First real snow I’ve seen all season.

Over two and a half hours to while away in Pontarlier, and that worked out all right. I left my bags in the ticket agent’s office (gratis) and headed for town. Found a patisserie open and went in and had fresh warm rolls and a pot of tea, sitting down like a civilized person.

While in the washroom there I noticed on a town map they had posted on the wall that this town sports a Rue Berlioz. This I had to see. So I hiked over across their bit of river, on sidewalks that had either been shovelled or else on which the snow was good and packed.

Rue Berlioz is residential one side and has the town swimming pool on the other. Not terribly relevant, but not so different from Rue G. Fauré or Rue Moliere a block or so over. I did admire the street sign, the very fact of it, though. If I were into kiping street signs that’s one that would disappear fast.

Yes, and I’d violate at least three of the Ten Commandments in the process, too.

Well, time for me to turn to more uplifting things. Back to the commercial part of town and searched for a place to sell me some ribbon for that bottle of champagne for Lukas’s* family. The fabric kind would look best, I decided. So I got a meter of red sateen and a meter of nice white cotton lace, which would do nicely.

Back towards the station then, but got rather turned around because the street where I’d gotten the ribbon diverged away from my goal. I was across the river again and over by the local Nestlé plant when I realized this was getting me nowhere. Backtracked, found the signs, and decided I had time to go to the last patisserie I’d passed and spend some of the last of my French coinage on a Jule log cake and one last meringue. Would’ve spent more but thought I might need some money for Customs.

Turned out I didn’t. The inspectors came by on the train. I told them about the champagne and they asked, only one? I said yes, they asked if I had any tobacco, I said no, and that was that. Bon voyage.

Takes no time at all to get into Switzerland from there. Very beautiful today with the snow on the mountains and fields and trees. And the black crows flying across added just the right touch to the monochromatic scene.

The people on the train were obviously Swiss and I could discern the difference from the French. More athletic-looking, less consciously fashionable.

As for marking my national origins, not one person in the last two weeks has nailed me for an American. English, Dutch, or German, but never American. Funny, especially after the Coverdale* pantomime.†

Snow disappeared by Neuchatel and Bern. Pity.

Bern train station is very big and very busy. Had a devil of a time finding the WC and then it was all pay toilets. Forget it.‡

But the currency exchange was easier and I got change for the phone from the Swiss money I’d brought. And I was able to exchange my French money, from the half-franc pieces on up. Didn’t think I’d be able to.

Swiss franc is about $1.47 these days. Bit different from France.

Called Lukas. I’d planned what I’d say in German if his mother had answered, but he did himself. I was speaking French and English and German all jumbled up together but he said from now on I was to drop the French (though he understands that language quite well, too).
He gave me directions on the best train to take and told me he’d meet me on the platform at Olten, especially since the exits lead two different directions.

All the places on the train that goes through there were reserved. But when I told the conductor I was getting off in Olten (told him in very bad German, I’m afraid) he let me stay where I was.

Did the bow for the champagne just before I got off. No time for it to get too squashed that way.

Lukas was not right there when I got down. I got the feeling he was probably down at the other end looking among the passengers from the second class cars. I looked a bit and thought I saw him, then he turned and saw me and came back down the platform.

And it hit me that I’d forgotten how damned good-looking he is. I admit that just now anyone familiar would seem good looking to me but I think a great deal of this perception was objective.

He hoisted my bag and carried it out to the car. But before he closed the trunk on it and my backpack I produced the bottle of champagne. He seemed well-pleased.

I did not give him a hug on the platform. I wanted to and felt somehow the decision was up to me. But I was too shy and the critical moment passed. What I did do is talk too much. I did not tell him that I’d gotten so depressed that being anywhere sometimes seems pointless or that occasionally I’ve taken out my surreptitious store of photographs of Nigel Richards* just to remind myself that there are such charming and intelligent people around to someday again enjoy. But since he asked I did tell him I was rather tired of travelling and wouldn’t mind going back to Oxford early.

As for him, he’s been seeing his friends since he’s gotten back. I told him to be sure and go anywhere he’d been invited in the next two-three days and never mind me.

I told him about various things that’ve happened to me in France and he pointed out salient features in the landscape. If I had to capture it with anything I’d say the country around Löhenthal is like central Missouri near the Ozarks, except that the hills are more rugged here. But the village itself is built on rolling hills.

The Renzberger* family house is a compact modern place with the main living spaces on the second level. The room I was given is off the entry hall, downstairs. Lukas’ mother keeps talking about how small it all is, though, but it doesn’t seem as crowded as my mother’s place in Houston.

Almost as soon as I arrived, Frau Renzberger said to me, "You must call your mother in America and tell her you are safe."

I was perplexed. Why should I call Mom? I’m over thirty; I don’t normally report in to her whenever I go from place to place. I said, "Uh, thank you, but my mom knows I’m travelling in Europe during the vacation."

"No, you must call. She might think you changed your mind and decided to come home for Christmas."

"No, I’d’ve told her if I was doing that."

"But you must call her. She might worry you were on that airplane that crashed on the 21st."

Now she had my attention. "What airplane?"

Hadn’t I heard? And she told me about a PanAm jet on its way to America that started out in Frankfurt and picked up passengers in London and then was blown out of the sky over Scotland. Terrorists, they think it was. Everyone killed, of course, and a lot of people on the ground. A terrible thing. I must call my mother.

"All right," I agreed. "I’ll call her collect."

"No, no, you just use our phone. Just call."

So I did. Mom had not been worrying that I might’ve changed my mind and planned to come to Houston for Christmas and she hadn’t even thought of me in connection with the airplane bombing. But she was very glad to talk to me and know I was well. I told her to expect the postcard and rang off. Didn’t want to run up charges on the Renzbergers’ dime.

Lukas’ mother fed me a nice lunch of eggs and ham and stollen. As she began to cook she said, "Don’t worry, these aren’t salmonella eggs!"

I was perplexed yet again. "What?"

"Salmonella," she explained patiently. "They have found salmonella in the eggs in Great Britain. It is a very big scandal. It is on all the news. Haven’t you heard about it?"

No, I had not. Something else I’d missed, wandering around the provinces of France!

After I ate Lukas and I talked a bit in the front room. He’s going back to Coverdale on the 6th.

We took a walk around the village as the sun was going down. We still managed to see quite a bit. His church (Reformed) and the Catholic church and the antique houses and the new modern-style apartment project that nobody likes. I was sorry to have to tell him it did have its good points architecturally and could be a lot worse.

Talked some more back at the house about Swiss environmental controls and so forth. Very strict, you have to turn off your engine at stoplights.

Then his father called and asked him to come fetch him, since it was nearly 7:00 and he’d missed the last train. So Lukas’ mother, Greti*, came and told me about her husband’s job at the surveying instruments plant. He’s a personnel manager and has a very stressful position.

Supper was boiled potatoes with all sorts of cheese. Quite good, and there were Christmas cookies after. Both of Lukas’s parents know English and they made an effort to speak in that language. I found myself conversing with them a great deal.

Nevertheless I feel a bit ambivalent about being here, especially as Frau Renzberger, Greti, is one of those people who insists she can and will do all the work, you run along and play, and you wonder if she really means it. And of course, I want to do everything right and be liked and don’t know if insisting or retiring gracefully is the better tack.

I tell you, I just can’t relax anywhere. Which maybe explains why I had to listen to Schubert on my headphones in order to relax enough to get to sleep tonight . . .
_________________________
†The parody lyrics to "Three Little Maids" that my two fellow-students and I had sung in our panto bit were all about the characters' being boastful, obnoxious Americans.
‡As far back as high school I'd developed an antipathy towards paying to use the restroom. Seemed immoral somehow. Like making people pay to breathe.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Seven

Monday, 12 December, 1988
La Côte St. André to Toulouse

ON THE TRAIN, ALMOST TO TOULOUSE, 5:30 PM-- Not sure why, but I feel rather scared. Maybe because it's almost dark and it's raining outside. No real reason to be scared. Toulouse is the end of the line so it's not like I'll miss my stop. And I lucked out in Valence and got this train, which wasn't listed in the Cook Guide. It's one of those that splits. Part went to Nice, part to Toulouse. Happened in Avignon. And hey, I did manage that all right . . . Taking this kept me from needing to change trains twice more. Arrival time about the same.

All sorts of geography since 9:00 this morning. From the foothills at La Côte to the Alps at Grenoble to the Mediterranean at Sète. And now the rugged wine region of the Midi.

Weather tried to clear up for awhile, but I think it's hopeless. Must be monsoon season.


HÔTEL ST. ANTOINE, TOULOUSE, 6:45 PM--

"Aye, now am I in Arden, the more fool I.
When I was at home I was in a better place,
But travellers must be content."†

Took the first stab at a hotel from the Let's Go France: the Hôtel St. Antoine. Yes, the neighborhood looks lively and interesting but they neglected to mention that the corrugated-plastic-covered indoor courtyard affords the only "exterior" light to many of the rooms. And the hotel front door stays open all night, and do I really want to leave my stuff here while I make my day trips to my monasteries?

And have you noticed how the prices are always higher than in the book? This one is at 85F.

Well, I've only paid for one night. I could scout around in the morning.

Meanwhile, I'd like a good cry. It's not so much being here as a stranger in a strange land, it's more the feeling of not having a real home anywhere, not even in Kansas City. Home is someone to go to, and at my age, mothers don't count.

At this point, I think I wish that after I see or talk to Friedl* in Stuttgart I could punt the whole deal and go back to Coverdale* early.


8:15 PM-- Went out for a bit. Pretty shop windows but I wasn't up to really admiring anything. Nor to wanting to go into any of the cafés for dinner. Back to the hotel to consume the cheese and pâté I bought this morning in La Côte.

And to be professionally depressed. I know that it's really very bad. That I should be making the most of this wonderful opportunity, etc., etc. But I keep thinking, what's it all for? What's life for except to be shared? And when you're like me and always taking in and never giving out, because you have no one to give to . . . it all seems pretty pointless.

I find the bathroom here has no lock. The WC in the public corridor, I mean. And the dingy "white" (sorta) chenille (of course) bedspread has funny dark curly hairs all over the topside of it. I'm not looking forward to seeing what the sheets look like underneath-- much less, sleeping between them. The plastic-covered courtyard two floors below is lit with fluorescent lamps that glare into my room, and no telling when I'll be able to get to sleep, even when I do work up the nerve to get into this dubious bed . . . I wonder what it'd do to my bills come summer if for the sake of my sanity I removed to a place a little more like civilization? And put it on my Visa?
___________________________
†Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II, Scene iv

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Six

Sunday, 11 December, 1988
La Côte St. André

HÔTEL FRANCE-- Hector’s birthday dawned cloudy and gray, which has become typical . . . The sun peeked out only once: oddly, when I was reading in the Mémoires about what a sunny spring day it was when he had his first Communion.

That was after church, when I was waiting for the hotel dining room to open for Sunday dinner.

The salle à manger was filled with jolly family parties this afternoon. Interestingly, at a nearby table there was a young man who had a look of la famille Berlioz about him, especially about the nose and mouth and in his abundant mop of curling light brown hair. But he lacked Hector’s poetry and gravity of countenance. I wonder if there are collateral lines extant around here . . .

I also noticed what I think was the cause of that squeaking noise I heard last night. They have a set of Western-salon swinging louvre doors between the kitchen and dining room, and they give out a creech every time a waiter or waitress passes through.

I shall say something about dinner, since I can’t afford many such, at 125F plus wine. It began with an amuse-guele in an egg cup. Layered, with aspic glaze. First bit tasted of chicken stock then as you ate lower with the tiny spoon there was a kind of vegetable puree mixed in. Carrot and tomato, I think.

Then came a nice bit of pâté chaud en croûte.

The fish course was a cold lobster pâté with a dollop of creme dressing with chives. The slice of pâté was very prettily decorated with chives and red and black caviar. On the side was a decorative lattice of haricots verts with tiny carrot balls inside the squares. A garnish more than anything, but it was cute. This was all quite delicious.

The only real disappointment was the main course. It was bits of duck that came drowned in a brown sauce, served in a copper skillet. The meat was rather overdone and the sauce reminded me too much of the omnipresent stuff the cooks at Coverdale* make from a mix. There were scalloped potatoes on the side and they did come off, however.

I’d pretty well eaten myself into a coma by then but still sampled four kinds of fromage off the cheese board.

And then there were little bonbon affairs and then the dessert I chose, a passion fruit mousse. Thought that was appropriate for celebrating Hector’s birthday . . .

Couldn’t finish any of these, and the waitress asked if I wanted to take it with me. With my bad French I gave her the impression I didn’t and as ungodly stuffed as I was I didn’t make any effort to correct that. Rather wish I had, now.

Chose a white Savoie for the wine. Fine with the lobster pâté but I think a red would have worked better with the duck.

I’m afraid I let my gourmandizing laissez-faire run away with me, however. I know the French take their eating seriously, especially Sunday dinner, and I can spend three hours over a multi-course meal with the best of them, which this afternoon I did. However, my sitting there patiently between courses letting the waiting folk assume I had nothing to do here in La Côte except pack in their cooking really reamed me for time. I barely was able to see the Musée Berlioz and then get back to the church for the concert. And I was late at that, making it for only the last two Faurés. They were the pieces I wanted to hear, but still I had no time to wander around the town and take pictures, at all. And the bus leaves at 9:13 AM tomorrow, which in this land of eternal daylight savings time means it will be just barely light.

As Mr. Chenley† said in his letter, the director of the Musée was most friendly and courteous. He even came downstairs (after I had explained that I was a member of the London Berlioz Society) to where I was looking at the chronology to give me a keyring and medal made for the 1969 centenary of Hector’s death.

What he did not give me was his name, nor I mine. For that matter, I am not even signed in here at the hotel. Madame says last night, oh, it can wait till morning. Very nice and trusting, but I don’t really care for the idea that if I croaked up here this evening they’d only know who I was by rummaging through my baggage.

Anyway, at the Musée it’s hard to tell what room is what, as there’s no way of knowing if the furniture is arranged as it was in Berlioz’s time or if it was just put in to look pretty.‡ I did ask which one was where Dr. Berlioz taught his son Latin. It’s the room opposite the kitchen.

There’s a chair in there that was Hector’s. Forgive me, mon bien-aime, but I’m afraid I was so far within myself that it was only my intellect that moved itself to realize, "He actually sat there."

It’s a charming house, however. Very nice marble fireplaces. And a stone sink in the kitchen. And plaster walls with painted designs.

The music isn’t piped anywhere but into the reception room, to the left of the entry, but you can hear it dimly upstairs. Bits of Harold, the Hamlet Funeral March, the Waverly and Le Corsair overtures . . . Nothing vocal or they might’ve gotten something live.

I had Volume I of my 1878 edition of the Mémoires with me, and showed it to the people on the desk. I didn’t understand all their comments but I gathered it was a reasonably good find.

They gave me a copy of the Bulletin of the French Society. And I bought a monograph on Hector’s childhood and adolescence (plus a few postcards). Tout en française, à bien sûr, meaning I’m in for the long haul with this language . . . but I would dearly love to have a companion with me to whom I could speak English and who could maybe supplement my French . . .

Got back to the hotel (where I dropped off my camera) then over to the church just before they were to do the Cantique de Jean Racine. The director of the Musée was there and very kindly made sure I got in on a student ticket and found me a seat closer to the front. The choir, who I think are called "À Coeur Joie," and the orchestra, the Orchestre de Chambre du Dauphine, did a positively luminous job on the prayer. The Fauré Requiem was lovely, too, but the men were just a tad harsh in places and the baritone soloist was choppy in his phrasing. Still, they did lots better than we did in Hector’s Te Deum last Saturday. And the audience liked it. Set up a rhythmic clapping afterwards . . . but there were to be no encores ce soir.

The acoustics in the eglise St.-André are pretty good. Apparently the nave used to have a wooden roof but it’s rough plaster now. The aisles are ribbed groin vaulted. The nave piers are great fat round Romanesque ones but the arches are all pointed. The architecture is in general rather klutzy and uncoordinated (nothing aligns or matches), but it’s solid and substantial nonetheless.

In spite of or because of what I experienced this afternoon and evening, I’m afraid I feel a bit depressed. The weather has a lot to do with it and so does the language. I can get my physical needs met in it but none of my emotional ones. I hope I pop out of this before the 23rd or else I’m going to make a pest of myself when I see Lukas*. He’s liable to get a hug whether he wants one or not.

Perhaps I would feel differently if I’d been more inspired by what I’ve seen today. But perhaps the voice and presence of men of vision speak more loudly in their works than in the sites and artifacts that knew them in their physical presence. Meaning I wasn’t as moved as I’d expected to be seeing the house where Berlioz grew up and learned Virgil and the first elements of music.

But I just had a rather alarming thought. Over the last fourteen and a half years since I learned and sang the Requiem, Hector's music has become internalized for me. It's become part of my personality as much as of his, and to a degree that’s also happened with the places and things he described in the Mémoires. So when I see them in person and their reality doesn’t fit the concept I had of them in my head, they seem somewhat irrelevant. Worse, they seem to take this person to whom my soul feels so close and remove him from me, to make him a stranger like all the strangers here.

Fortunately, I brought the music along. Oh God, let it not abandon me!

I think I should take advantage of the bathtub again this evening. Heaven knows when I shall have another chance . . .

A silly note here. My missing glove you know about. But here’s the further tally of items lost so far: My luggage keys and their neck chain, pulled off somewhere between Caen and Chartres (nothing was locked, fortunately). My Youth Hostel pass which I left at the desk at Chartres (they’re supposed to be sending it to the PO at Toulouse, poste restante). And I appear to have left my slip at the Auberge in Chartres as well. Now this is really too bad. It was good enough for me to wear but with its shot elastic and safety pins, it’s really no good to anyone else. I shall have to buy another, too. Pestiferous.

I can't hear that squeaky door below me tonight, so I guess the restaurant isn't open Sunday evenings. That's a blessing, at least.
__________________________
†The then-secretary of the London Berlioz Society
‡The Musée was renovated in 2002-03 for the Berlioz birth bicentennial, so this state of affairs may well have changed.

Demoralizing

My 2008 Christmas letter morphed into a 2009 Epiphany letter, and I've spent the day personalizing them and addressing the envelopes, finally to get them sent out across the globe along with copies of my latest Christmas carol.

Being a prudent person (sometimes), I'm checking the addresses of my British and European friends, especially if I haven't heard from them in a year or two. Or five. Or ten.

The Internet is a marvellous tool for the purpose. If you have enough information on a person to avoid outrageous plunges into mistaken identity, you can track down about anyone, worldwide.

And I have to say many of my Oxford former fellow-students and friends have emerged as an illustrious bunch. The man I've tagged as Friedl* is the European coordinator of a major Protestant ecumenical alliance. Another man coaches fencing teams that have taken international championships. Others have posts at prestigious universities and have written enough books on meaty topics to supply half the missing couch legs in Christendom. They shine and shine, whereas I--?

I'm sitting here with no vocation because my church authorities in their wisdom think my next post should be an "easy" one, and easy posts aren't exactly current in the PC(USA)!

It's my own fault, really. I could claim gender discrimination, but plenty of women are wildly successful. I could say I'd do brilliantly were I simply given the chance, but why must the chance be "given" to me? I could argue that I wasn't raised to be ambitious or to have wide horizons, but what did I ever do to fight back against those assumptions?

No, while my grad school colleagues have used their guts and gone on to be wonders, I am a gutless wonder.

And I hope I get a fine sense of accomplishment from getting these letters out. Because unless I think hard about what I should and ought and can make of my life in 2009, that's about the level of fulfillment I can expect.

My Great Britannic Adventure, Day Ten

Sunday, 26 March, 1989
Iona
Day Ten, Easter Sunday

Odd thing at breakfast. For some reason they toast only white bread here, and put it out on toast racks to get cold, while the wheat bread sits in the basket untoasted. A couple days ago I located the toaster in the kitchen and as it worked like the kind we have at Coverdale* I’ve been nipping back to do myself some wheat toast, properly hot. This morning I took orders for some others at the table and came back to do them, seven slices in all. Jeannie Brownlea*, one of the older members of the MacLeod Center party, was back there on the same errand. I told her what I was there for and she said, "I’ve got six in here already. Is that enough?"

"No, I need seven."

"But I’ve got six in here."

"That’s all right, but I need seven. I’ll do more."

"There’s no more wheat bread."

"Oh. Well. Well, don’t worry about it. We’ll make do."

"Is six enough?"

"Well, we wanted seven . . . "

I haven’t recalled this word for word, I’m sure. The point is that she kept making all sorts of suggestions that simply ignored the mathematical realities (especially if she’d been planning any of the wheat toast she was making to go to her own table) and I could not make her understand otherwise.

Whereupon she rounds on me and says, "I think you hate me. I can tell these things and I really think you hate me."

The uncomfortable thing is that I am not entirely innocent of negative attitudes in her regard; she is in her late 60s or so and has the look of the kind of woman who appears in Presbyterianews as having loudly supported some outmoded and anti-Christian liberal cause at the last General Assembly. And I confess I find her hovering, birdlike intensity is a bit wearing. But I also know that many people who have at first struck me unfavorably eventually have been revealed as worthy of esteem. And even if not, "hate" is too personal, energised, and involved a word for her in this situation.

The joke is, that my "hating" her is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. For now I do want to avoid her, if only because she’s the uncomfortable type of person who takes a conversation onto a personal level in the most inappropriate circumstances. If she were my age I would tell her so. But because of her years I need to keep my distance-- and keep my mouth shut.

After breakfast somebody came in and said we were supposed to be doing toilets right then, just like yesterday and the day before. Not bloody likely. I have to get dressed for church.

Wore the gray corduroy skirt and the silk blouse, with silk longies under. Bright pink wool Shetland sweater over, but the only real concession I made to possible foul weather was donning my black suede boots instead of dress flats over my white WinterAlls stockings. Dammit, it’s Easter and I am not wearing my blue corduroy jeans to church. Especially because I am not feeling the impact of the occasion, it’s essential I keep up the ceremonies, to prevent me from degenerating entirely.

Karen* and Therese* conspired to put up my hair and I donned my blue silk Liberty scarf. When I assayed the makeup Karen* said, "Are you trying to seduce the priest?"

"I’m trying to figure out if there is a priest around here!" Three days of services already and I still don’t know who’s in charge.

More half-baked drama in the cloister beforehand, a somewhat silly updating of the Road to Emmaus story. But I expect that by now.

And there was actually a sermon during the service proper, by a big mucky-muck of the Community who came in from Glasgow or somewhere. Full of the meaning of Easter as it bore on all sorts of bad social and political situations. Not bad for its kind, very applicable and cogent, but I’m starving for some Scriptural exposition. Then he ended up referring to the Holy Spirit as "she" again and what could I do but put up with it?

To do him justice he did mention the plight of people around us, but I-- I feel I have no right to feel any hurt, having been in no wars and no long term deprivation . . . Not physically, at least. Marie* was talking last night (after she’d decided it was her fault Seamus* was acting like a jerk) about the need not to want things as we’d like them . . . Right. So let’s forget about loving or being loved and become Stoics or Buddhists. There is a Christian renunciation but how it works is a mystery to me.

I thought as hard as I could about Nigel*, down in S--, in church, maybe with Emily*? trying to cope with the rotten situation going on in his family, and I was thinking Bless him, bless him, O Lord; since I can receive no blessing, grace him with my share even now . . .

But more I am aware of Lukas*, and unavoidably think of the song "Easy to Be Hard":

How can people have no feelings?
How can they ignore their friends?
Easy to be hard,
Easy to be cold.

’Specially people who care about strangers,
Who care about evil, and social injustice!
Do you only care about the bleeding crowd?
How about a needing friend?
I need a friend . . .

And here it is Easter, and there he is, one of three pairs who will administer the Sacrament, and here I am, feeling cold and dead and entombed still, wishing I were a million miles away. But I am gripped cruelly by the stranglehold of present reality, seeing that though we celebrate Christ’s resurrection every Easter, that each Easter I rise with Him less and less, till some time soon I will revive not at all and stay closed in the tomb forever.

And then, O God, the three pairs took up their stations and we were instructed to receive from those closest, and I was in the aisle seat in the crossing, and Lukas* and his partner were assigned to the crossing. I couldn’t convince myself that he hadn’t seen me sitting there, thus freeing me to receive down front. Doing it under his eye would have been a demonstration of personal feeling that even I, degenerate though I am, recognised to be dreadfully out of place.

So I was doomed to be where I was. I let many people into the line ahead of me, trying to put it off as long as possible. But it couldn’t be avoided.

The girl who was distributing the bread gave me much too big a piece. But I confess I probably would’ve choked on it anyway, however small, my mouth was so dry. There was no time to get it down before I’d stepped over and stood in front of-- whom? My friend? Don’t make miserable jokes. This time I won’t comprehend.

I didn’t want to look at him but I had to, to keep from dropping or spilling the chalice. And as I received the wine he stood there with his hands outstretched as if in blessing. And he looked straight into my eyes, the most intimate of smiles in his own, as if he were saying, "Take, drink, I share this with you!"

And I don’t know what mine said back, but they wanted to scream, "Lukas Renzberger*, are you trying to kill me? What is this mockery? You pretend to offer me Communion-- why can’t you maintain it in our daily lives?"

My misery was such that I could hardly stand. I felt very, precipitously, close to committing the unforgivable sin of falling down crying before him, as if somehow I could beg and plead the caring, considerate Coverdale* version of him to please, please take me in his arms and let me cry out all the hurt and turmoil-- not as prelude to any claim upon him, but as a support, till I could stand alone again.

But I controlled myself long enough to get back to my seat, though I couldn’t produce the words of the Communion hymn. I dared not cry; he was too close. I was too exposed.

Then the service was over and everyone went back out into the cloister. The fiddle played, the flutes piped, the little choir sang. And those who were moved to, danced around the daffodil-bedecked cross that had been placed against the Lipschitz sculpture at the cloister garth’s center. I stood there woodenly looking on, but forced myself to understand that if Lukas* should happen to see me there alone, he would probably conclude that I had come up to Iona just to be with him, and was refusing now to be with any other.

So I exerted myself to put on a social façade, a process aided by the suggestion? command? made inside the church that when the remains of the Communion bread went around we were to share it with someone we didn’t know. Fortunately I didn’t have to choose with whom in all that vast crowd of strangers I would share with; an abbey staff person named Fiona*-- I think she’s in the choir-- came up and offered me a bit of hers. There were enough safe topics to talk about there, so that was ok until I felt I’d put in my time and could leave.

There was a seminar afterwards, back at the Center. I was a good girl and went, though for a moment it threatened to be disastrous. The topic today was Joy, and the woman leading was eliciting things each of us were feeling joyful about. I was afraid we were going to have to go around and speak each in turn, and I was hovering so close to the surface of brutal honesty that I wouldn’t’ve made things very pretty.

But thank God, the discussion got off on the difference between joy and happiness, especially as it related to the case of the Tzubeki* family, who are here in Scotland studying in Edinburgh, and trying to get political asylum from South Africa. So Caroline Tzubeki* kept the floor most of the time, talking about life in Soweto, which I found a salutary distraction in more ways than one.

It’s a real temptation for me to want to say to her, "What are you complaining about? You’ve got your nice husband and your beautiful little girl. You don’t have to face your problems alone!" Which shows you what a selfish degenerate I’ve become, and where I think the answer to all my problems lies . . .

Wrote a poem about this morning at Communion during the seminar. Always helps, turning hurt into art. That is if it is art. Maybe that’s what I’ll find out if I can get a creative writing tutor next term. I don’t want my work merely to be the emotional and verbal equivalent of a trip to the toilet. And I’ve seen much so-called poetry that so obviously is.

Easter dinner was pleasant. Great triumph of sentiment over principle-- we had ham. And it was good ham, too.

And they’d scrounged some more construction lumber scraps to build the fire with. I know that’s full of creosote-causing preservatives and isn’t half so hotly-burning as coal, but it has the blessed advantage of being a heck of a lot easier on the nose and the lungs, especially as this fireplace here doesn’t draw worth a poop. (Practically brand-new and there’s soot all the way up the chimney breast.) This weekend’s the first time I’ve ever experienced a coal fire, and I regret to say that it smells like what we would at home call a very bad case of pollution. I can’t believe people put up with it.

But it was wood at dinner today, and that was a relief.

Yesterday evening in the laundry room the housekeeper told me that due to the Easter Monday bank holiday there’ll be only one bus across Mull tomorrow. And to get it we’ll have to catch the Iona ferry at 5:30 in the morning. At dinner, then, I discussed with one of the men here the possibility of hitching a lift with him across Mull a little later, since he brought his car as far as Fionnphort. He says it depends on whether the Mull to Oban ferry is running more than once tomorrow.

To me, it depends upon what Lukas’s* plans are, for in this I do want to accord my actions to his. Perhaps he just wants to spend all the time he can now with his new friends. But when everyone leaves there’s a chance we can have a nice companionable chat on the bus, my tensions towards him can be relaxed, and I won’t go off feeling as I did after I left him in Switzerland last December. And I might find out what happened in Liverpool. There is to be a ceildhe tonight here; I could make myself inquire casually after his plans then.

Wrote postcards to friends in the States after dinner. Funny, but I forgot to take them to the postbox at the abbey when I went over there to buy my obligatory Iona sweatshirt. Not 100% sure why I got one of those, but I did. Burgundy red, medium. And a detailed map of the island. It’ll help me label my slides later.

Still overcast but the wind has died down considerably today. So around four o’clock I set out to do a bit of the hillwalking I actually came to Iona for. Left my skirt on-- a romantic fancy, I suppose-- and simply pulled the blue hiking socks over my winter weight stockings.

Set off more or less to the west. I was actually aiming for the high point north of the MacLeod Center but the fences kept getting in my way. I am told that since this is National Trust land it’s ok to walk anywhere, but you’d never know it from the lack of gates and stiles. There were a lot of other people about, so if they could find ways through, so could I.

Going out was definitely a good idea. I don’t say anything so silly as that the necessity of choosing to which tussock or stone to step next puts one’s interpersonal problems into perspective. But the mental and physical occupation does blunt some of the emotional sting as you run over the problems in your head.

Thinking about it thus, it seems to me that the best explanation may be that Lukas* is one of those people who assigns others to specific times and places, and if a friend steps out of that frame they’re out of place and can legitimately be ignored. As soon as they put themselves back, all again is well. Because I cannot come up with anything I have done to offend him and I refuse to believe he’s being calculatedly mean. I do think he’s being thoughtlessly rude, though. And it doesn’t become him at all.

The barren yet varied landscape with its muted tones and textures played harmony to my overall melancholy, which thankfully was able to be expressed in music. Bless you, Lord, for allowing me my top notes and good wind today, so that I could produce a satisfactory and sustained sound despite the scrambling around I was doing. It was even more satisfactory in that after awhile, as I moved further inland, there was absolutely no one else around to hear me, except for the sheep. They paid strict attention, wanting to make sure this strange noisy creature meant them no harm, and they’d stop grazing and stare and stare until satisfied I was harmless.

Sur les monts les plus sauvages,
Que ne suis-je un simple pasteur?

I tried to sing some Easter hymns but I kept getting the verses scrambled. And so fell back on Berlioz and Schubert. Dear Hector! Why are you dead and gone? I think you would’ve so much enjoyed walking these hills . . . You might even have been able to deal with me. But thank God, your music goes with me, even if you cannot.

There’s so much amazing vegetation out on the moors. There is a lot of a low-growing evergreen sort of groundcover, whose new growth comes up red. And this soft black moss, like velvet, that grows on the rocks. I don’t know if its color comes from the peaty soil (i.e., it’d be green elsewhere) or if it is an example of planned symbiosis between plant and site. Whichever it is, it's marvellous in its subtle beauty.

I wandered as far as the sea at the Mhachair on the west side of the island. The sun was peeking in and out, laying silver bands of brilliance upon the water. Somebody had stamped his initials in the wet sand of the beach, which was a pity. But still I could enjoy the silence that was only augmented by the surging of the waves and the high mewling cries of the gulls.

It was getting up towards 6:00 by now but I wasn’t particularly concerned, since Summer Time came on last night. Still, I felt I’d better head back. Did indulge in a scenario of what if I were benighted and the gales came back and . . . But I decided it wouldn’t be feasible to perish out there tonight. I hadn’t any paper or pen with me to write and apologise to my mother for being such a bother-- and to thank Nigel* (in a discreet manner of course) for how good he’s been to me. As for Herr Renzberger*, he wouldn’t get any coverage, and good enough for him, too.

After awhile, though, increasing fatigue made undivided attention to picking my footing and making sure I was headed in the right direction supersede any such thoughts. The ground, understandably, was thoroughly soaked and two or three times, despite my best care, I slipped on grassy slopes and arose with a glaring souvenir of bog mud on my left side and back. (This was deliberate-- the right side, where I carry my cameras, must be protected.)

Thought I’d make for the beach on the north end of the island and follow it round to the road I took yesterday. But when I got up there I was further to the west of it than I thought and only steep rocks led to the sea. So I headed for the next landmark I knew, the great high point of the Dun, I think it’s called. Wanted to go up it before; now it was the best idea since from its top I’d be able to see the abbey and the Center and I’d know exactly where I was. And so I did eventually reach the summit, and added my stone to its cairn (no one has told me so, but that seemed like the proper thing to do).

Couldn’t stay up there admiring the view, though, for inevitably it began to rain. Straight down rain, thankfully, but not what you want to stand about in anyway. My shoes were long since thoroughly soaked and now the rest of me had a chance to join the party, if I didn’t get moving.

Carefully down the slope, through a few more bogs, across another burn or two, and then, finally, through a gate into a farmer’s field that was so thoroughly squelching with mud that there wasn’t any point in being careful about it. Then out the gate to the road and on through the rain to shelter as quickly as possible.

But I still had breath for what was important, and be hanged to any German-speakers who might hear me as I drew near to the abbey:

Du holde Kunst, in wieviel grauen Stunden
Wo mich des Lebens wilder Kreis umstrickt,
Hast du mein Herz im warmer Liebe entzunden,
Hast mich in eine bessre Welt entrückt,
In eine bessre Welt entrückt!

It was past 7:30 when I got back. There was a wedding in the abbey church at 6:00 with a reception after that that everyone was invited to, which of course I’d missed. But I can go to weddings anywhere. Only in Scotland can I have the exquisite fulfillment of slogging through peat bogs and being a better person for the experience.

First item of importance, take a shower. Second thing, wash out the filthy shoes and clothes and put them in the drying room. And hope they’re ready to be packed by tomorrow.

Changed into my other skirt and made my appearance at the ceildhe after 9:00 (it started at 8:30). By then I was so tired I didn’t really care, but had decided enough of this crap, I had to talk to Lukas*.

The dances were all of the country variety, but unlike at Coverdale* at Christmas nobody taught them. It was like my home church choir director and the "Hallelujah Chorus"-- no rehearsal time because of course you’re born knowing it. It was pretty funny, because the PA system went down and you couldn’t hear the fiddle or guitars at all, but only the thump of the tambour and the shouts of the dancers counting steps in largely-vain attempts to keep themselves straight.

I didn’t dance; you needed a partner and I was too physically tired to make the effort to choose somebody to ask. Lukas* was keeping himself thoroughly occupied on the floor, a fact which at another time I would’ve witnessed with vicarious pleasure and satisfaction. Just now, however, it only filled me with the cynical sense that well, our little world of this weekend is yet proceeding according to its own established order . . .

But I did get a chance to talk to him a little while he was sitting one out. A bit of chitchat about the dancing, then a casual question as to whether he was leaving tomorrow morning or staying till later. He replied that it was tomorrow morning or nothing, so I kept my mouth shut about the possibilities of rides across Mull later in the day. If I appear on the jetty in the midst of the rest of the sleep-benumbed throng tomorrow at 5:30 AM, he will have no reason to impugn my motives.

I told him I’d just been on a three and a half hour hike around the island. He immediately countered with the statement that last Wednesday he, along with the rest of the abbey group, had gone on a six-hour "pilgrimage" around Iona, visiting all the famous hermitages and other religious sites, and, in the process, establishing a wonderful bond among them all. That, I thought, was tolerably obvious.

I wanted to say something that would reveal even to me myself that I could rejoice with him in this, but I couldn’t manage it. So I sufficed with something on the order of "That’s nice," and said we at the Center weren’t so fortunate, as having to spend so much time in services and other activities we hadn’t much chance to form interpersonal relationships. "I’m afraid there was rather more program than I’d bargained for, though I suppose I should’ve expected it . . . "

"But you didn’t have to attend all those things! You could have done other things if you’d liked!"

Oh? Maybe so, but that’s not the way I was raised.

The last dance was played around 10:40 and then the abbey group members took turns taking funny pictures of their assemblage. It briefly flitted through my mind to offer to take one of them all to give to Lukas* at Coverdale*. But just as quickly I knew that’d be meddling impertinence. Besides, I’m sure he’s already got someone pledged to send him a copy of theirs.

So I took off for the laundry room to see to the last bit of wash that was still soaking in the sink, and so much for my first Scottish ceildhe . . .