Sunday, January 22, 2012

A Song Echoing in the Darkness

This is our fourth night without power. Nick has school tomorrow and Mike will be going to work. I'll miss them even though this has stopped feeling like a vacation and become a feat of endurance for the three of us. Most of our friends have power back and they're all talking about the storm and losing power in the past tense. The rest of us look and feel beleaguered. It's easy to see who we all are.

When we stopped by for much needed showers, I can't tell you how much I envied that our friends don't have to pour four gallons of water into the back of the toilet every time they flush. Its really heavy. I envied their casual use of lights, more than one for each room. I envied their hot water, setting it hot and letting it warm my bones.

I am tired of having to bank up the fire at 3:00 am because I wake up cold, of having to put water on to boil twenty minutes before I can have some tea, of wandering through semi-darkness trying to find where I put the things I need or even functioning enough to roast hot dogs and fresh vegetables on the grill.

Today, I emptied the fridge and both freezers. Oh man, I threw away a lot of food. It was sad. Thankfully, we had been trying to use up what was in the deep freeze and I hadn't restocked it completely yet.

I did go to church this morning. It was good for my morale. The turnout for choir was small and the woman who plays piano was absent. I had an impulse to sing in church today but I didn't plan what happened. I sang the 'Ave Maria.' Oh, I know you might want to know which one and I can't remember or find my music to look it up. It's the one I sing in the shower. It's the one that almost always synchronizes with rap music because the beat is right and the contrast is stunning. It's the song I sing when I need to be comforted. So I just got up at the offering and offered to sing. I forgot what my hair must have looked like and I closed my eyes and sang, listening for that resonance in the old church and using it to widen my voice. My favorite place to sing is in a parking garage, but that always raises the question of sanity, so I work with the sound I get out of our little church. There is a small echo there, but it is enough.

For some reason, I played the piano too. There was no one to play a prelude or a postlude. I couldn't remember any of my old pieces except for the 'Fur Elise' and that made me feel as though I were in seventh grade again. So I noodled around at the beginning and at the end of the services. I used a lot of seventh and ninths in my chords, so I could play anything with the rest of the notes. It was kind of fun and I was too worn down to be nervous. Someone actually asked me who wrote that piece. Ha! I did.

I played for the other people who still didn't have power to their homes. I sang because I know how hard it is to feel cold so much of the time and to have to haul water and wood. I played because I knew they might have to sit in the near-darkness for just a few more nights and I wanted my music to echo, even in a small way, in their hearts.

Thank you for listening, jb

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