The thing about having a life of your own: you get to choose what you do, and what not ... like the trees in San Francisco that have decided it is still a lovely autumn...
The thing about not having a life of your own: you depend on whoever you depend on to give you direction ... and that is where a lot of people actually do live.
The difference between Schubert's Winterreise and Schumann's Dichterleid or Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen -- Songs of a Traveling Journeyman -- is that Schumann and Mahler's characters take their lives back at the end, while Schubert's character presumably dies in the winter because he picks another person to depend on -- the also soon-to-die-from-exposure hurdy-gurdy man -- instead of standing up to the journey of doing life after loss and grief alone. All three characters are alone for most of their run in song; two find the strength to keep going in themselves, and presumably can reach new horizons.
I look back now over years 41-44, and realize: the strength to go alone, even in sorrow, puts me closest to Mahler's grieving journeyman, who decides he will go forward carrying both his love and sorrow, and then finds comfort among the trees and wakes up one day and realizes that things are all right again, not knowing how that happened exactly. I can tell him ... he grew bigger than his grief, and healed ... it is not that the love and sorrow went away ... it is that he grew to accept life beyond it. He -- sung beautifully by baritone Thomas Quasthoff here -- is the most connected to the world of nature; even while grieving, he takes his morning walks ... Schöne Welt! -- "Lovely world!" he says, many times ...
... even though, for the time being, he can find no happiness in this lovely world.
But he keeps walking, and one day he walks away from the entire region that reminds him of his beloved, and in that choice, finds peace -- everything in the new world he comes to -- love, sorrow, life, and dream -- standing in for death -- is all right. He can bear it all ... in his new horizons.
I also chose Jessye Norman singing these because I am a woman ... here is No. 2 ...
... and No. 4 will come later!
Schubert and Schumann and Mahler might not have foreseen a woman of their time being able to do the walkaways that I have, and frankly, most women today don't think they can. I only had to leave 12,000 behind, counting both real world and offline, and in that time period, only about a dozen, across all those spheres, walked away! But all of us made it to new horizons and can bless each other as occasion arises. The people and circles we left? Sometimes news reaches me, and it grieves me, deeply. But I don't go looking and I have taught myself not to linger in the grief when it finds me -- to feel it, to acknowledge it, to weep for what could have been, yes -- but then to turn my face into the light again.
Also, because of devoting myself to my parents' needs, I get to see in real time what I already knew to be true: the unspeakable power of love, applied consistently and determinedly. This is what my parents gave me, growing up: to receive it back and being able to rest in it and be cared for is healing them. Despite their advanced age, and the fact that there are some problems that cannot be changed, they are healing from the acute problems of last year. There are new problems. They are still getting older. But they are at peace, resting in my faithful love for them. My sister is back in town and adjusting her work schedule, giving them more peace and rest and me relief ... and thus, the circle of consistent love, and its power, has grown.
As I look across my life over the last decade, from age 35, I realized I walked away from all the inconsistent situations ... because love is not inconsistent. People are, which means, they are not yet understanding how to embody love as opposed to everything else. Growth is required ... but growth is also chosen ... or not. When not, I gotta hit the road.
My grand old soldier is a consistent man ... he is not the only who ever loved me. He was the one who was consistent ... and the one who said, "The day is coming when I will consistently be a great burden to you ... go in peace and love, my darling ... I refuse to not allow you, in your relative youth, not to achieve a partnership that can support you, long-term." He made room for someone else to be the consistent love of the future, after setting a high standard for what that would look like ... and also, made room for me, having known such a love, to be content in the knowledge and move forward alone, as long as is necessary, which may be the rest of my mortal life. I dare not lower myself, knowing better.
My associates in work and investing? Consistent. My friends here on Hive ... well, you don't stay around here for too long without a level of consistency and determination.
My life has its theme: love, consistent and determined, not often on display to impress the world, given to whom it is given, withdrawn where it is rejected, and forever moving forward.
Now, OF COURSE, this is not what the world recognizes when it thinks about the power of love ... on the fictional side of the fourth wall I was walking in Golden Gate Park to the south of Alvord Lake and encountered the fan base of K.M. Altesrouge ... they generally represent those who do not have a life of their own, but are chasing celebrities to get a piece of a life ... chasing down the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past, who is a main character capable of growth, and has a life of his own ... it was not his will to be singing in the winter through the afternoon and early evening this year, and he had made his decision without any input from the fan base, nor said when he was coming back.
So, he had become even more of a mystery to them, and they were hanging on to the glimpses of what he was doing with his time in the winter ...
"People, I was on Haight Street just four blocks away -- but he would sit that woman he was singing to under the one tree left that still had leaves on it, so I could see him -- like a whole beam of sunshine with the voice of thunder, singing his entire heart out in that song by Wolf in which he tells the lady in the song that the light that has changed his life is in her eyes, and the journey that can be taken is not in him to do alone --
-- but all I saw of her was a glimpse of pink and burgundy! And then, some bus driver decided he couldn't wait and actually jumped the curb in all that traffic and so couldn't get down right away, so I had to back way up, and by the time all that cleared up, they were gone!"
"That poor man -- just out here drunk with love over some modern woman -- we gotta get to him and settle him down!" another said.
"Drunk? No," the first man said. "That man is on fire, and it's been getting hotter and hotter for a while."
"You know what -- yeah, because we started noticing in late 2023 -- he came out here and started setting us all on fire around the beginning of November, and then things calmed down for a while in 2024 but that fire never went out," another said.
"I think something went wrong in 2025 -- at the beginning -- but not between them -- life was happening," another said. "His song selections changed a little; he was more pensive."
"Yes, and he brightened up later in the year ... but that means that man is living on her calendar!" another said.
"Which is why y'all need to get a life!" another admirer but not a fan base member said. "It's too late -- if the man is still on fire after two years, as long as that woman can stoke it up, he's not going to hear anything y'all are saying! And besides: which of you is going to go confront him? Which of you is going to bell that particular lion of a cat?"
Several members of the fan base blushed.
"Yeah, that's what I thought! Y'all better stop meddling and get a life! K.M. Altesrouge is a kind man indeed, but he is like to burn any and all of y'all up if you try to get in where you don't fit in! Can you imagine that voice, enraged -- and what is he, well over six feet and almost as broad?"
"Oh, no -- not much in this world worth getting a man like that mad," one of the more sensible members of the fan base said.
"If only he and she were younger and on social media," another said. "Ain't no way some young woman wouldn't have posted a catch like him up, and then we coulda have found it!"
"Fun fact!" the admirer said. "Lotta young women with German and Nordic boyfriends and husbands online -- those men don't want to be posted up, and so they don't get posted up! Everybody doesn't need to perform love for you people!"
"OK, but then, what are they even doing?" another said.
And then, in a quiet moment ...
"Ssssssssh!" another member of the fan base said. "Do y'all hear that?"
Under the sound of the noise of the park, there was a rumble ... a calm but immense undertone to the ambient sound in the park ... it stopped, and then started again ... it was K.M. Altesrouge on approach, in conversation.
"Oh my -- find a place to stand -- he's coming and she might be with him!" one said.
"Let's not be standing here waiting -- find something to look like you are doing!" another said, and they scattered into eavesdropping ranges leaving the admirer to shake her head and go on about her business.
Presently, the celebrity in question appeared, and I know there was great disappointment because he was in deep conversation with a young man.
"I want to believe," the young man was saying, "but it's like a man can't afford it in this world -- you gotta hold something back for yourself, not give it all, because these women will destroy you."
"Excuse me, young man," the ethereal basso profondo said gently, "but being a German, I was not informed of the change in laws under the new administration. You said the women will destroy you. Are you indeed allowed multiple wives here now?"
The younger man flushed.
"No, not legally anyhow," he said.
"Well, then, it might be easier to work within the prevailing laws and not worry about multiple women; you only need to build love with one at a time, that way."
"A single woman can destroy you -- that's what I meant."
"I apologize, young man -- my English is not what it was forty years ago. When you mean destroyed in English, what do you mean?"
"She can take all your stuff in divorce, make up stories about what you did to her and cause you to lose your job, your reputation, your money!"
"Oh ... but where was the part about destroying you, since you are not your 'stuff'?"
The young man turned bright red, but then seemed to relax a little into the compassionate look of his walking companion.
"I was young, and now am old," the older man said gently, "and this I know for certain. The power of fear is not as great as people think it is, but it is powerful enough that so long as you indulge in it, you will never know the power of love."
"Well, look, Herr Altesrouge, you are an old man, and people believed all that stuff back then!"
"You forget where I am from, young man. Germany was not exactly sweetness and light in the 20th century, and what I say bears out there as well. The fear of not getting the place one feels one is entitled to in the world ... the fear of being left back when others are moving ahead ... the fear of others, close by, and imagining them as one's enemy ... the things in the human heart of that nature can destroy a relationship as surely as they destroyed Germany."
"I hadn't thought about it like that," the young man said.
"Tell me something, young man. What brings you joy?"
"Uh ... what?"
"What brings you joy? What could you do, where could you go, where you would not get tired and the very presence or action seems to give you strength?"
"I've never had that experience in my entire adult life," the young man said. "Both my parents died in an accident when I was 14, and I've been struggling to survive ever since. I've got a great job now, nice apartment, and I still feel like that."
"I am sorry to hear that, young man. I know that is the situation for many, and when people feel that no one in the world cares about them, it is very hard for them to know where they will find the strength to care for anyone else."
"Yeah ... that's it. It's like I can't afford another loss. I just can't."
"But do you see, young man, that this is something you must solve for yourself, and no woman is responsible?"
The young man was quiet for a long moment.
"You know, I never thought about that, but yeah ... I'm afraid of losing everything."
"And, you are trying to navigate adding a woman when you are already afraid of losing what you have -- you would add her to the fear of loss as well."
"Yeah, one more thing to worry about -- I see where you are leading me, Herr Altesrouge."
"Tell me this, young man. Why do you listen to me singing so often?"
"Well, I mean you can really sing -- I don't even speak a lick of German or Italian, and I feel something when you sing!"
"And what might that be, young man?"
"Uh ... peace, and joy, and ... ."
"Love, young man. I love music and I love to sing, and in the days of my career, I loved the people I sang with, and my audiences. I was a professor for many years and a private teacher for many years as well, and I loved my students dearly. But away from the lights of the stage, there were many others I loved as well, so I made my life an even legacy. Do you think I am a fearful man?"
"Not at all -- the way you just roll out into this park and start singing --no!"
"It is not that I do not get nervous -- I remember a concert -- it was Beethoven's 'Missa Solemnis' when I was about your age ... there were so many other basses for such a moment greater in name than mine, but a conductor with some considerable influence believed in me ...
(He was too humble to mention that the conductor was Leonard Bernstein, but indeed, that was who called him!)
"... and there were so many other people I had to come through for ... the fear was there, but I had to focus on the love of music, of singing, and those I loved who loved and believed in me ... and that is what you have to do as a man who loves."
"OK, but, that's not the same as being with a woman."
"Young man, how you operate is how you operate. If you do not build a life based on the principle of consistently walking in love, then you won't be able to just turn that on when there is a woman you are interested in. But, I tell you a secret: you can assess a woman for the same consistency of life. Just understand that if she doesn't see the same, she is going to leave you and go where there is consistency. Love is so consistent it is eternal!"
"OK, so why are you single, Herr Altesrouge? I don't see a ring!"
The pain on the older man's face was instant and palpable.
"Der Tod -- Death. Nothing else could have torn me from the beloved of my heart. Love is eternal. Mortal life is not."
"I'm so sorry, Herr Altesrouge ... my condolences to you," the younger man said.
I thought here ... the younger man was of course making the natural incorrect assumption ... but looking at it from the point of view of the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past ... he had to watch his wife watch him die. That had to be pain on another level, and something people rarely think about that the dying go through ... the pain they experience because of the pain they know their loved ones are in, losing them. I understood my grand old soldier's decision better ... he put an end to YEARS of that mutual suffering in advance. And, to a point, watching my parents slowly leaving me and them watching me watch them ... it is a level of shared grief as well as shared love.
But ...
"It was worth it all!" the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past said as he removed his ethereal handkerchief for himself. "To the last moment that I could tell her I loved her, and remember with her the life we had shared and loved together ... it was worth every moment!"
His voice nearly broke, but he stopped and covered his face for a long moment.
"You really loved her, and again, I'm so sorry, sir," the young man said.
"Thank you -- Vielen Dank, young man," he said after about a minute of recovery. "There was great pain there, but there were also some wonderful memories."
"You're not mad with me?" the young man said.
"Not at all -- I thank you for the kindness of your condolences, and for giving me those sweet moments of memory -- the pain is the cost of the blessing, but nothing in this world is perfect."
"I understand what you are saying now, sir. You just took the fear from me, because of your love for your wife."
"It is written, young man: 'perfect love casts out fear, because fear hath torment.' I do not need to torment myself or anyone else."
"Which is why you practice walking in love," the young man said. "I see it now, Herr Altesrouge -- you are a large man with an even bigger voice and you could have easily created fear all around you, but you made a choice."
"And I could have stooped and shrunk and been afraid as well, young man, but that was not how I was called, and also, not my choice."
"Do you think you will ever find love again, Herr Altesrouge?"
"Find it?" he said with a chuckle. "Young man, listen to me. Love is. You walk in it, or you do not. Separation in this world is inevitable at times, but if you are still standing, you walk on in love, and those meant to walk with you will meet you in the way. At this point in my existence, I have no fear. I have no doubt. My life is therefore open to be filled by what I have chosen, and been chosen for."
"Wow, Herr Altesrouge. That was a lot deeper than I expected to go, but it kinda makes sense. I just never heard or saw anyone before -- I mean, you've definitely lived up to it this year I've been seeing you in the park. I've seen you do it, and I do know a few other good examples. I could learn ... I don't have your talent in music, but I could be more generous ... I could consider sharing more ... I just don't know if it is going to get me the woman of my dreams."
"Young man, nothing is guaranteed in terms of outcomes, but I will tell you this: the journey is its own reward, and you may find, in the course of it, that you will meet people that are beyond your wildest dreams, and that they will gladly walk alongside you. I am an old man. I have never seen it be otherwise."
"And then, maybe I wouldn't need to be afraid, if that is the mind of the people who are going to be around me," the young man said.
"Vigilance is never out of order, young man, but living in love means, by definition, that you no longer have to live in fear."
"I'm going to need to walk some more and think about all this, Herr Altesrouge."
"The morning still has some good walking time in it, my young friend."
So at that point, they walked on, and the fan base came back together.
"OK, that was deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep," one said. "The mind and heart of K.M. Altesrouge are deep!"
"We learned a few things," another said. "He's a wealthy widower, and a lot of German tourists come to San Francisco, and so he decided to check it out, liked it here, and started his new life over here, and although he went way out in left field about finding love again, he didn't deny it!"
"I didn't get that he was wealthy," another said.
"Man, the way the man passed the money that he made out here back to the people last year -- the money that he made last year to be passing it back -- you don't think he was pulling that in his career?" the second one said.
"Well, yeah," the third one said, "basses generally sing supporting roles in opera, but if he did a lot of them well, he wouldn't get famous, but he could have made a lot of money, and if he had the right wife who wasn't spending it all up, yeah, he could be rich."
"Doesn't seem to be that he would have been with a woman like that, and remember her so powerfully," the first one said.
"Right -- because he wouldn't have the free-hearted habits he does, supporting a big spender," the second one said.
"That also means the new woman isn't like that either," the third one said, "unless she just put the screws to him this winter."
"No," the first one said, "because he would not still be so passionate about her, last week. That man is on fire for that woman, and if she is keeping that fire going, she must think a lot like he does. I wonder if, away from here, they do good work together."
"We have so much more we need to find out," the third one said.
"Well, he will sing it to us, whenever he comes back," the second one said.
"What if he doesn't -- what if this woman completely carries him away?" the third one said. "What are we going to do?"
This is where I walked away, sad, because this is the thing about not having a life of your own. You do not just give someone else -- someone else who may move on, someone else who may die -- the power to end you. You make them the excuse for you, through just long neglect or by one desperate act, to destroy yourself because you can't make a life out of someone else's. This is the warning that Kurt Möll gave me, in the worst years of my grief, through his singing of Strauss's "Der Einsame," as the character describes his dark circumstances, blames the woman who left him, says all the sweet light of love has gone out of his life -- meaning he does not have love within himself, of course -- and chooses to step into the abyss that opens at his feet ...
... much like the character in Schubert's Winterreise, having seen three suns in the sky and wished that they all would go out because they don't belong to him in the previous song, chooses the freezing hurdy-gurdy man as the next subject of his obsession to get his will done, and thus seals his own fate, never to come out of that winter.
All I could do in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 was walk away -- not in hate, but in love -- ... to find that somehow, at some point, like Mahler's character who keeps walking and walking in Creation and seeing that the seasons change, new flowers bloom, and new horizons open, that somehow it has has become all right again. I have healed. I understand now.
In going on with my solo walk, my path came within earshot of the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past with his further warning to the young man. The direction in which one walks is important.
"If you walk in love, then you will have it. If you walk in fear and pride and hate, love will evade you. But know this: whatever way you walk will be your portion. Choose wisely."
