Today has been a day of accepting the fact that our hopes for a full family Christmas cannot materialise, that various other arrangements such as Litchfield Cathedral lights and Chatsworth decorations are probably not going to happen. A couple of meals out
we hoped might occur now will not and the small print of government Tier 3 restrictions has ruled out a few more treats, More significantly we attended a deeply moving funeral for a very special person – a subscriber to this blog, incidentally, and often the first to read it late each night. As we drove home Nature again demonstrated its spectacular power to move, impress and cheer, with a sunset of livid red streaks and furrows of purple funnelling all our present woes toward a molten furnace on the horizon. The quotation that entered my mind at that point I thought must be Kant or Kierkegaard or some other great philosophical figure, but on reflection I realised that it was from ‘Frozen’ – Let it go, let it go, let it go.
So though I felt very disappointed with myself for even knowing those lines they are the right philosophy for me at the moment. Someone also sent me the advice today, “If you want to make God laugh, show him your plans.” It’s simply not feasible at the moment to invest heavily in future plans and in future uncertainties. This is not the same as doing nothing but it’s more practising tactics for that great game of hopscotch which is the coming winter, hopping sideways when you thought you were going to jump forward, balancing on one leg when you would prefer to be on two.
It seems a lot of people have been having a bad week and I suspect uncertainty has had a lot to do with it. There are occasions when uncertainty is worse than bad news. So zooming with friends tonight was a good antidote and sharing music across the Atlantic demonstrated that music can combine people in harmony across oceans and pandemics. Musicians have been finding ways of out-manoeuvring Covid, whether by putting socks over their euphoniums or singing in sextets outside.
It was only while I was strumming away and warbling in the ether that I noticed the words I was singing from John Kirkpatrick’s ‘Chariots’ Hear it as well on the Melrose Quartet ‘Rudolph Variations’:
So a song can give hope in the depths of all danger
And a line of pure melody soar in your soul
So sing your songs well and sing your songs sweetly
And swear that your singing it never shall cease