The above picture was taken a few days before all of San Francisco, a city without much air conditioning, went on a long strange journey of its own: six days above 85 degrees, beginning October 1. Three days, even in the summer, is about as much as we usually get ... but seven days before the fog comes in ... on October 8, the day I begin to write this, the fog has finally arrived in the evening.
So then, in the interim days I have been enjoying days like this still ... every street is full of automatic autumn-magic ...
... and yet, the wideness of the space around me ... the solitude in the midst of the world full of people ... as if somehow I had been set apart to enjoy these things alone ... as spring and autumn were coming together....
... and even summer, clearly unwilling to depart, nestled in the shadow of autumn gold...
Late September through late October often feature San Francisco's warmest days, so spring often breaks out again before December settles in ... so this was not unfamiliar ... and yet I knew, having never been so alone in the midst of the world, that this was new ground ... like the music of Gordon Jacob, both so familiar in some ways, and yet, very much of the 20th century, and so still quite modern ...
Such a way to think of an autumn journey ... ein Herbstreise, as a certain spectral basso profundo resident here in Q-Inspired pointed out last October. But on that day I had to go to the top of Buena Vista Hill, able to get no further from the pit of despair in my neck of the woods than that height -- it was clear where I was going, and why ... but as it was the previous week, I was un-moored, going whither I could not entirely see ... I did not realize yet that there was a bend in the road, and thus, I could not see around the curve, yet ...
... but there was a beauty to the wideness of the "field" to which I had now come, and it came to me in hearing "Feldsamkeit" by Brahms, in the beautiful warm tones of a mezzo-soprano ... again, not my first choice, for everyone knows my preference for bass, and my favorite here is the late Hans Hotter (because, of course, I have not yet found my favorite singing it) ... but Anna Lucia Richter has a lovely voice, and surprised me ... and the music video portion covered many of my feelings ...
I had to remember ... I was not abandoned ... I chose to climb away from all that I loved over a decade to be alone, in the heights. I could not have articulated it, but take Brahms's broad plain in "Mit vierzig Jahren" and presume it is the broad vast field of "Feldsamkeit," so quiet, and so peaceful, and so restful that the singer imagines she is already dead to the world and floating in the heavens among the untroubled and lovely clouds.
Having had a year of considering these things as they occur in Brahms -- "Todessehen," the night sky is in thought, but it is the same idea -- to be in the heavens is to be at peace and rest ... and perhaps, to be without distraction without and within, and walking in view of those things is perhaps part of the process of being set apart in the sense that the word holy means.
For I could have gotten caught up in any number of things in the streets of San Francisco, and online ... Web 2 is always beckoning with foolishness, and it takes extraordinary discipline not to be pulled back into time-wasting there and just focus on the best conversations, information-gathering, and work. That discipline, over time, means I purposefully do not know this things that are engaging the crowd ... but that means I have room enough to consider other things, in depth and height ...
It was during the earlier of these walks, also, that I came to terms with the reality that I had not entirely chosen solitude ... I had once been happy in duotude, if you will, but, my grand old soldier was both older and wiser than I was ... 19 years is a long time for anyone, but with a significant age gap ... he refused to burden me, and still refuses ... the love is still there, and is deep ... and I can see his wisdom quite clearly now. Autumn is a good season, with its clear, late, ripened golden perspective to remove all rose-colored glasses.
At last I gave voice to my broken heart, here on Hive ... I have a few friends on Web2 that I let hear it as well ... I had been thinking of recording "The Autumn Leaves" for half a year, but I am a composer. I am a composer. It was time for me to step into my power, to express a story of love no one else has to tell.
Little did I know, though, that I was being led to look back fondly on my most loving memories ...
-- to mourn, to lament, to determine I would cherish and keep what was real --
-- and there was so much ... basso is the voice of love to me for almost 20 full years of reasons --
-- my grand old soldier shed so much light and love upon life itself, as only autumn, having seen the most of the year, and in light that winter must come, has bounty and wisdom to look back and share with spring --
-- and as now he prepares to meet that winter that for him, in the end, will dawn in eternal spring --
-- he also was the first bass to bring thunder and fire against injustice in my hearing, and upon his model, I have become colossal with my contralto in the same way when need be. Though we were never married, and have no offspring, I realize that he chose to make me the keeper of his complete legacy anyhow ... so if I am now in solitude, it is solitude blessed by that duotude.
It was very good that I had time to realize all that, and be reminded also by the voice of another bass ... room and warmth to consider such things without distraction is what you get once you have struck out from dim, foggy, chokingly damp and dim lands to the one boat that has all sail ready by some miracle not given you from those held as gods in that place, but from beyond and above there ...
-- and to be alone, because you alone had the calling to get in the boat, though alone, does not change the fact that although it turns out there is no blessed isle as one thought, no stopping place as if one's journey upward can be finished in this earth, still under the heavens, one is still blessed in a blessed world...
... and I needed to know all of that because the curve I was on, not sure and not able to see my way, was a circle. It took 27 months to get right back to June 18 and 19, 2022 ... when the people that did the foolery that caused me to have to leave so much that I loved thought they could just ease on out and do all that again, and worse, to a new group of people. Literally, they repeated the foolishness, 27 months and two weeks to the day.
Someone got word to me. I went, I checked, I went through being 27 months of triggered and hurt, and then made myself ready and whipped around that circle.
19 years ... a bass who loved me and spoke thunder and fire, and sang with me of victory over oppression in the Negro Spiritual ... his echo in German, singing fire and thunder and triumph over oppression for those who just go forth to it ... only to have gone full circle to 2022's issues ... because sometimes, even if you have done all you can to pull people from the pit, and even if you are past that aspect of the matter, you still have to circle back because you are the only one who, having been through the agony, having been through the loss, having been placed in a higher place, having been fed from the Blessed Hand, having been comforted and strengthened, can be called on, because you are the only one who now can bear the heat of finishing the job.
Those who will not come from the pit's edge sometimes have to be put in to save others, and sometimes the very hand that wishes to save is also the only one that can be delegated to go on and drag them past the edge and throw them in ... as it was said about Kurt Möll's Commendatore in this recording, it was not something he wanted to do ... but as he says to Don Giovanni, "Now you know your duty." So does the Commendatore, after Don Giovanni refused his duty to all good and righteousness to repent. So did I, after 27 months, and the same people deciding to do the same foolery to a new set of people. No. Not on my watch. After 27 months -- ah, tempo piu non v'ie! There is no more time!
However, there is a price to be paid for that ... 18 months ago when Q-Inspired hosted "The Ballad of the Three Commendatores," when it was time for me to let go and climb, I saw what that looked like ...
I heard exceptionally heavy footsteps, a wheeze, and a groan, and then the Commendatore struggled into my box in a state that followed logically from what I had seen last of him on stage. His front was scorched and cracking, and the odor of rotten eggs – the sulfur of brimstone – lingered around him. I nearly fell out of my chair in shock.
So I knew ... but then, knowing is just not enough to be ready ... when you literally still hoped against hope for better for everyone involved, and have to cast your own hopes into the pit with those who just refused to come up to them ... you just can't get ready for that. Combined with the physical heat of the same time period, the misery I felt after that came to a high, high pitch. I'm a contralto. I don't do high pitches all that well.
Still, just as Commendatore finishes the job and everyone else in the opera is free to do better in their lives, there was instant sign that my actions had brought hope to many ... this was a bonus to me. I knew that I had done what I had been commanded to do, and that was my comfort and consolation ... to see the beginning of the fruit I did not ask, nor can I set my hope upon it because the problem is, I still don't know if any of the people relieved actually are ready to climb. They may, to follow Schubert again for a little while, choose to follow some other erring light ... when people have put in 27 months more in going astray, they are used to it ... "Bin gewohnt das Irregehen" -- "I am used to error-going" has become their portion.
Notably, the character in Winterreise climbs down to get out of the valley ... to a place of rest where he finds none in "Rast," down to "Der Wegweiser" in which he realizes he cannot turn back, down to "Das Wirtshaus" where there is no room for him at the inn even when the inn is a graveyard, and finally down to "Der Leiermann," the tragic end in which both there are forever past help or hope, the one only desiring the other to center and validate him with his equally lost music, his attendant crow -- per the earlier song "Die Krahe" -- and the hurdy gurdy man's attendant wild dogs just waiting for both to fall.
What has changed since this time in 2023, and April 2023, six months before that, is that I know hope in and for people's ability to change when they have demonstrated none such thus far is itself an erring light. It is as though a mountain guide, seeing from afar off that a bear was threatening a group of people lower, used her voice to create an avalanche that frightened off the bear. The people would be saved from the bear on that occasion ... but unless they choose to climb, up they will not be coming, and if they choose to linger there carelessly in an area known for bears, another bear may come or the same bear might come back.
Therefore it was necessary for me to resolve in my heart, and say aloud to those around me: "I will not be doing this again; in the future I will refer you to what I have done so you may know what to do." I refuse to be pulled back into the drama. I refuse.
Which, of course means ... oh, it would have been so easy to play the champion and stay, and become part of the problem but at the least have the company of the people making the right noises now for a little while ... but no. I know what I must do, and that I must do it. As I went forth in 2022, I have turned away yet again to return to my solitary climb.
Because it has been so physically hot, it occurred to me that it would be better for me to walk in the early morning ... but the shade in Golden Gate Park can be very deep, so not too early for a woman alone... but early enough to begin my day in some relief, some tranquility and peace ... and as I was setting out the few things I intended to carry, somebody remembered how much I like Italian prunes and brought me breakfast.
"For fair lady might desire refreshing provisions, and also the company of a strong knight," came the well-known voice.
He already had me laughing and I had to laugh some more because of costuming decisions ... the Commendatore meeting Gurnemanz from Parsifal, thus giving us a Marble Knight in the merging of two of his best-known roles.
"Well, no one is going to jump out of the shadows at me now -- not that it was likely, but, danke schön anyway," I said as I walked into the open arms of the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past. "You are spoiling me, though."
"Frau Mathews, to the victors go the spoils, as much in English as in German."
I had to think about that ... English was his second language ... but I had the feeling he had purred the definitions of "spoil" together on purpose ... this was a gentle correction.
"You have been far too long exposed as an adult to men who know treating a woman well consistently will spoil their plans to exploit her as they do everything and everyone else," he said. "But you have never given yourself to such men because you know better. I continue the work with you your father and grand old soldier began. I am also their echo, as you are on the journey in solitude to maintain and even raise those standards for yourself without regard to ever permitting a mortal man to do so again. You are to be treated like a daughter of the Most High, and more than a conqueror -- for so you are -- and thus also, to humbly but firmly consider yourself."
His imperative was gentle, but firm ... and then he chuckled ...
"And your dietary tastes are as humble as old Gurnemanz's ... for in Parsifal he said he and the other knights were living off the land. Plums are still in season, Frau Mathews, and you think a small branch's worth of them a great bounty!"
"But they are!" I said.
"They are, to one contented to eat of the summer's bounty, fed by the Blessed Hand - they are objectively, since common grace is anything but common," he purred. "However, what has it cost you to have that perspective?"
"Almost everyone I loved, in a decade," I said.
I burst into tears ... I needed that relief and did not know it ... that voice just opened space for me, in its warmth and gentleness, to so be relieved.
"My honor, my duty, my pleasure, since November 2021," he said, wrapping his voice at its gentlest around me. "You are safe, and you are loved, far more than you can know here in this earth, but, I do my best as the echo from whence that decree has come."
"You have done a magnificent job," I said. "Danke schön, danke schön, danke schön."
A moment later, I felt an ethereal tear hit my scalp.
"I will never forget, Frau Mathews, that one of the reasons you re-materialized me in Q-Inspired was so that you could thank me in person, and not wait until you walk over from your alto seat on high when you get there. I ... I regret, deeply, that the world is such that there are so few around you who know how to live in such a way so that your solitude would not be so necessary. I rejoice, just as deeply, that my legacy of love is permitted to be a bit lower than that of an angel, but perhaps a bit higher than a cricket, to comfort you."
"Well, there is nothing like a basso profondo for depth of everything, particularly if his heart is deep with love," I said, looking up with a smile because I knew he was referencing a song that I loved in his voice, and I knew from his smile that he was going to sing it.
Schubert's "Der Einsame" is an evening song, but nonetheless made my morning and lifted all sadness from me ... a solitary man considers his day and his life, pursuing the good, learning from the bad in order to put it away and do better the next day, warm and safe in his autumn solitude, and cheered by the crickets drawn to the warmth of his fireplace -- grace for grace, for they stay alive and their singing reminds him neither he nor they are truly alone in the world.
(The timestamp is 12:12)
As ever, my pain management specialist knew his job -- that black velvet anesthesia of a voice is completely undefeated! What pain -- what heat of the day, guarded by the whole midnight from it?
"Well, Frau Mathews, at least you can walk in my shadow as the shadows lift among the trees -- but I am otherwise not authorized about anything regarding the weather. Trinken Sie mehr Wasser und mehr Wasser nehmen Sie mit."
Then he shook his head and smiled.
"I spoke to you as though you were my very own Fraulein Möll, getting ready to go with her father on a hike -- drink more water, meine Tochter, and take more water with you."
The gardeners in Golden Gate Park are highly intelligent, changing the watering cycle to avoid the middle of hot days and avoid burning the leaves in addition to getting the plants the water they needed early to withstand the heat ... hence my companion's imperatives in two languages. He was right!
As we walked into the park, still not in the heat of the day and being cooled from below, I thought of the rarity of my morning walks, and how, once away from those commuting to work and really only in the company of those who were not working at that time, those living quietly in the park, or those passing through so they could get to walk in a calm state of mind (really, that was even me because work awaited me at a later time), Beethoven's beautiful "Elegischer Gesang," his Elegy Song, came back to me ... it seemed that this morning had been set apart for everyone to whom it was given, who sought its deep, gold-dappled peace ...
There in the Fuchsia Dell at morning ...
... "zu heilig für den Schmerz" ... too holy for the pain ...
"For indeed, Frau Mathews, you did what you had to do, and again you made a full end ... du hast vollendet!
Having gone a full circle and made a full end because I had again stepped away, refusing to stay and go around again ...
"Think of it in this way, Frau Mathews ... your old circle and your new circle interacted ... but remember, although the Commendatore's earthly journey ended in Act 1 of Don Giovanni, his journey would intersect one more time with that of Earth's affairs. But then, the Commendatore returned to dine above. Where are we this fine morning, Frau Mathews?"
"Oh," I said. "Eating Italian prunes in this blessed Fuchsia Dell, in sweet peace. Unbound, untroubled, and unbothered."
"Because you were called into conflict, and called to peace once again, and were completely obedient, indeed, this place for you is zu heilig für den Schmerz ... rest here, Frau Mathews."
He expertly sang the bass of "Elegischer Gesang" as I drifted into complete relaxation, my memory filling in the gaps of the rest of the harmony... and then felt like walking a little in the still-considerable shade.
"I will say this October what there was not time to say last October ... it is exceedingly pleasant to be walking here on an October morning, for to a German this is wondrously warm for October."
"I do not even remember what the mornings were like last year at this time ... but I do remember the weather by December ... I suppose I began coming to myself at that point."
"You did ... the worst was over last October. I could see you healing, but the matter was too delicate to remark on then. But not now ... it is a new season for you indeed, in which you still may bloom, mein geliebtes Blumenkind."
"I commend you in that you truly have learned your lessons from the winter and spring ... you did not allow your human pride to disguise itself in your compassion and cause you to over-invest your energy. You did what was needed, and stepped back, and did not linger in hopes that suddenly people would be inspired to do what they have shown no inclination to do."
"I have indeed learned my lesson," I said. "Those whom I love there I still love, but setting my heart and my hope upon them would be idolatry. Dogs return to their own vomit. Criminals return to the scene of the crime. The desperate return to places where they have been hurt hoping to find what good they may. I am none of those things, by the grace of God, so I may not live like I am. Even if I am to remain Die Einsame Frau, the Solitary Woman, upholding my responsibilities and returning to my own company, it is not like I have not been prepared, for my grand old soldier is such a man."
"Ah, Frau Mathews, you realize the value of those lessons."
An ethereal tear came to his eyes.
"I heard your latest composition, Frau Mathews, firmly within your own traditions of jazz, and yet with the sweetness of the wind of Bruckner's Benedictus from his F minor Mass, blowing through like a gentle breeze through autumn leaves. I had hoped you were thinking about making new music as you were sharing in memory your favorite contraltos ... for as I have been saying, it is your time ... but also, Frau Mathews, without regard to anything else, you have a most lovely voice, and 'I Remember the Love' is a lovely song. You mourned your 'duotude' and accepted your solitude, and did so in the most authentic and beautiful way possible."
"I was sitting in my chair in the early heat, having decided not to cover 'The Autumn Leaves' for Hive Open Mic ... and indeed, the wind from Bruckner's Benedictus was blowing by Eden Ahbez's 'Nature Boy' and Duke Ellington's 'Fleurette Africaine' ... I was just cooing in the chair as the melody came out after all that ... but my voice was not recovered completely, so I chose to do what Cole and Ellington would have done with that piano."
"But also with a generously powerful F3, Madame Contralto, after a long, angular line not that many people could keep tuned," he purred on an F2. "You boldly rolled down into Cole's range before ascending to your own heights, and I see you have remembered the coloratura tips you received from your own teacher, wonderful soprano Dr. Helen Dilworth, and observed me using in Monteverdi as Seneca!"
"I am endeavoring to use all my lessons well," I said, and he smiled.
"The time in solitude, Frau Mathews, is blessing you, in that you have time to deeply consider and synthesize so much."
"It is. I have been walking toward this place in my life for 26 years."
"And, for a time, the 'duotude' of a close friend, or even one who became a great love, was a portion of that walk. Now, tell me this: can you see around any curve?"
"No."
"Now, observe carefully what I say here, and that I do not contradict any law in the heavens above and the earth beneath: even the most straight and narrow way on Earth is forever on a curve, and as least as far we may look in the second heaven -- that is, our observable universe, there are orbits in orbits, so time and space itself is curved, and no one may see around a curve, while in its geometric plane. One has to look from above, and it is not given to us mortals to do that -- and even when the stereotypical fortune teller tries, remember: he or she looks into a crystal ball, as if able to look down upon the entire sphere -- and that is an inadvertent though misapplied hint to the truth."
"A paradox," I said, "and a deep one."
"Of course, Madame Contralto," he purred. "We love depth, do we not?"
"We do," I purred back.
As we walked on, I considered what he said carefully -- it was indeed a paradox without contradiction, but just required a full knowledge of things natural and spiritual. The journey in which I had chosen to walk, abide, and adorn myself was simply not one that one took with delusions of godhood, but revealed how far one truly would always be from that, for on the straightest, highest, and narrowest path available in the universe, the laws of the universe said one would still be operating in a curve ... and so would never see over any horizon, nor around any corner ... would never see the future while it was the future, and could never have the assurance of any outcome except those assured by universal laws, or that I could take by faith because I believed in the power and goodness of the one who made such a promise.
This is what makes doing the right thing for any reason or reward but that it is right such a dicey affair: no one is entitled or assured or has command of any outcome, including the appreciation of other people.
Now, in a positive daily sense, I knew this: I'm on Hive. I release my work to the blockchain, having absolutely no control over who will bless it. As an artist in general, I know I have my idea about what works I think are good but can't control what becomes popular. An entitled attitude about either of these realities only sets one up for disappointment, because no matter how much work I put in, that doesn't assure me control of outcomes.
Still deeper ... what do you do when you cannot have the outcome in love that you want, but the love is still there? I knew this because my grand old soldier and I, as much as we can, as often as we can, still show as much love as we can to other. We remember. We honor. We still love. Every occasion to do so is a blessing.
"And, then, Frau Mathews, one has to consider: the straightest and narrowest paths will pass through many terrains, and there are contrasts of light and shade further affecting our ability to see ... but if you consider that as much as we go on in our human pride about having control of our lives, no one can see around the curve, and simply accept it, you will not feel as much tension about where you are going. You know where you are going, so far as natural universal laws and the promises of Him Who has called you are concerned ... as far tomorrow, or even the next minute, no one knows, so you need not be troubled by that. You did not know a full circle would bring you back to all the people you left, only for you to have to leave them again.
"Talk about a plot twist," I said.
"A twist is a curve, Frau Mathews."
"You know ... ." I said, and then laughed. "I suppose we all do know these things."
"And the blessing of being Die Einsame Frau is that you have time to think and journal and write and Hive -- yes, I am turning that into a verb like you young people do -- and actually know what you know."
"I cannot gainsay it," I said. "In fact, I no longer even wish to. Had I wanted to be centered again in my old crowd, I could have. The temptation is gone from me."
"I believe you are experiencing what the old theologians called sanctification -- you are being made holy ... and so becoming, to borrow one last time from Beethoven, too holy for the pain that would occur if you went back.
"So, you have had a very hard week, Frau Mathews, and yet a very productive one ... light and shade. You have walked in solitude when not discharging your responsibilities, seeing around no curve, nor needing to. When you were offered a chance to return to your old crowd, you walked on. You may remain in solitude for many years hence ... or, around the next bend, or the next, there may be new loving community, or someone with whom you may enjoy 'duotude,' and that, if it is the right man at the right time for both your lives, may not be a romantic comedy of errors."
I laughed at his gentle callback to the previous week, not realizing ... those prunes and that Berliner Döner and the Berliner doughnut and the coffee that came later were modest in cost, but the old comedian of the opera stage was up to something, just around the bend, or the next one ...
"In the meantime," he said, his smile sweetly concealing any hint to his future plans, "what are you called to do?"
"Walk on," I said. "Walk, abide, adorn, repeat."
"That is all," he said, "and it is enough. Es ist genug."
"Es ist genug -- it is enough," I said, and we walked on in the glory of the gold-dappled morning.
