Brunch with Sides of Bach, Schubert, and Big Thoughts About (Maybe) Making New Friends

As I was closing last week's post, I thought of a big question, and that question connects to something I realize about myself, contemplating the pre-Easter church music rehearsals that come every year: I much prefer a rehearsal to a performance. Not that they are opposed to each other, but that to me, the greatest performances are a sharing of a snapshot of the greatness achieved in the preparation of the musicians with the music, the message, the purpose of the event, and each other.

I know, for example, that this presentation of a work of Bach is something that is the culmination of work that is not just a one-time effort and will await another special occasion. This is many generations of people living lives of dedication and devotion, and working in community at this particular time to get this to come together.

So, I have accepted that I am completely out of step with the performative culture I live in, and thus when Covid-19 ended my life as a public musician in my community, I accepted that as well. There are connections I still mourn ... some mentors with whom I shared a life's work and who did not come back ... but the rest of it I do not miss at all. I do my work where there is continuity and growth, and *nowhere else," small though this circle is right now.

Which brought me back to a question of two weeks ago...

I wondered about something ... a question way too large for the end of a walk, though ... but I thought about it ... as I dreamed of golden auroras burning rather fiercely at the edges of a night dark as black velvet, spangled with all the Milky Way for jewels. It was something he had said earlier ... "Every performer plays a little bit more to a more appreciative audience!" ... and a faint insight into the nature of masculinity to the highest levels. Something about keeping that time ... but it would wait another week to explore.

It has waited another two ... but what I realized in that time was:

1. All investors look for growth, and longer-term investors look for continuity and consistency

2. My alone time in nature is where the One Who has called me invests most directly, there being far fewer distractions, and my showing up consistently for now YEARS is how I have been blessed the most.

The Ghost of Musical Greatness Past was onto something -- he was being humorous about it, having been in his mortal years an honest man in every respect but stealing hearts and shows from the operatic stage, but he had cleverly revealed to me how strong relationships and communities are built for the long-term ... and why, in a highly performative but shallow culture, it made sense that I had achieved broadly spread community while doing my consistent things in the city and the wider world, but also made sense that I had to leave all associations without depth, continuity, and consistency except in producing drama. That's not the return on my life's investment that I want.

In real life, if I walk seven days, I walk alone ... that would leave maybe one day that I could go do something else in that time slot to see if a community friend might be more ... no one has passed the test for a decade, but that was because I walked with them ... I do not want anyone else in that space, but a cup of tea or coffee in the park or outdoors at a little cafe ... early brunch ... as the days get longer and stay long, perhaps indeed Kaffee und Kuchen type things when I have time for an afternoon or early evening break though brief ... kurz ...

"You called, Frau Mathews?"

"Okay, I know I think in German with an accent, too, but kurz, not Kurt."

"Well, you know, the late octogenarian hearing is not what it used to be, Frau Mathews."

Whereupon having achieved me laughing from this witty interplay, the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past appeared on the 88th anniversary of his birthday, grinning like any happy birthday boy, and looking nearer 50 than 90.

"Costuming on high is, admittedly, amazing, Frau Mathews!"

"Alles gute zum Geburtstag," I said, and walked to him with open arms as I continued to laugh.

"Vielen Dank, mein geliebtes Blumenkind," he said. "To come from all the joy I live in to see you also sharing in it as you get understanding adds greatly to my joy -- and I hasten to say I need nothing else. I do have a request, however."

"Ask."

"I would love to take you to brunch."

"What in the world -- how did you -- well, you are a figment of my imagination so I suppose you do know what I think when you pay attention."

"More importantly, Frau Mathews, I'm just the echo of the guidance you are already receiving from the One Who called you. I thanked you for giving me more room to do that work in blessing you, and so you are not fussing about brunch ... but in doing that you are also making more room for Him to do His work, including introducing you to new community. Brunch may be part of that, perhaps."

I thought back ... he had gotten me out to dinner and a concert this year already ... slowly he was adding to my deck of activities in which people just came together and enjoyed the good things of life.

"Something that I love, mein geliebtes Blumenkind ... watching your immense mind working because your face is so expressive," he said, and I laughed.

"I left doing all this kind of thing 20 years ago," I said, "but it was because I didn't know how to get away from drama people. It would be a different thing now that I know what I am looking for and what to be found by."

"Natürlich, Frau Mathews, so, it will be good to get back in practice, and know a few places that you can recommend. I do not say, given how particular you are, that you should even share these places with anyone until you have vetted them -- consider that a man has to be the literary ghost of a world-famous opera star to even get you to a restaurant --."

I laughed, but he had a point. My grand old soldier had left a hole in my life widened by Covid-19 that I had not been interested in filling in a lot of ways ... indoor activities and I had parted ways except when my sister and I went to our local arcade three or four times a year.

Meanwhile, that sentence he had just put forth deserved completing.

"-- And with him paying, even on his birthday," I retorted, and it was his turn to roll laughing, but the old comedian of the operatic stage would not be outdone!

"Natürlich, meine liebe Dame! What do you think I have done all that singing in the park for, and have all this money my pockets are burning holes in? I mean my comeback this week has people literally throwing money at me -- I ought to take the winter off next year, too, and now you know why I used to take a year off at a time -- except that you're not going to let me take you out enough to not overfill the safe I have in my earthly changing room of an apartment! You might want to take just a little inspiration from the women in my family, who had absolutely no problem spending my money -- just a little!"

So I was rolling laughing again, of course ...

"To share joy in a lovely day is among life's greatest blessings," he purred with an immense smile. "And this is part of the lesson, believe it or not."

I thought of this as we set off across the near meadows of Golden Gate Park, and then diverged ... I have lived in my city all my life, but can still be continually surprised... like hearing Maya Kimura play Bach on the koto and realizing a whole new level of loveliness I never could have guessed existed ... the back story of this piece is Bach coming to terms with his life as a widower ... his grief, his rage, his remembering his wife with love, his recognition that she is in the heights of joy of heaven ... but that he is not, and must keep himself and their children going ... and his acceptance of his whole new life with the determination to do what he must ... it is all there and translates to a whole new sound world...

When you write something for the violin, and three centuries later someone comes along and wants to play it on the koto ... sometimes you cannot have certain wonderful experiences without other people's time and perspective to share with.

My companion started playfully humming Schubert's "Aus Heliopolis 2" to remind me: the happy ending comes when the character on his long quest all the way from "Aus Heliopolis 1" finally reaches his destination and meets the company of all those who did the same and finds out that there, in the support that fellowship, the works that are supposed to come forth from him will. Of course, because I am prolific, and more so alone, I missed that entirely at first.

"In that respect, Frau Mathews, you have been gifted in a most unusual way for a longer, harder journey -- for in maturity, have you ever been fully supported in fellowship?"

"Not by mortals, no."

"Most people would break just from the grief of that ... but you were gifted to know young what Bach and Bruckner also knew: an audience of One is enough. That said, if you are being led to have more mortals around after all the climbing you have done and are continuing to do, you might as well aim for this particular happy ending."

Then he stretched out that voice ... he had been playfully warming up ...

So then we got around the corner to the restaurant in question as it was just opening, meaning that the workers were all outside trying to figure out where that voice was coming from -- because, remember, he was a world-famous opera star and there was a good reason for that! He made sure that he had gotten around the corner before nailing that last note, and danced with me right down to the restaurant so I would be laughing at his silliness and everyone at the restaurant would be caught up in our shared joy ... they were dazed and amazed, indeed.

"It's his birthday," I said.

"And a happy one at that!" he said, and then laughed an immense laugh.

And this is how, since we were first there, and everyone else ran into these workers dazed by joy and caught up in it, he just took the place over and turned a European bistro into a brunch party scene!

"You know, Frau Blumenkind," he purred at some point, "I'm just showing you another way to think about building supportive community."

"What?" I said, and he laughed again and it rolled across the now-full restaurant ... the joy was drawing people in, in droves.

"Think about it," he said to me. "I am a basso profondo. Only occasionally -- and really, Admiral Morosus is a basso buffo part -- did I ever have first billing. How in the world did I become famous? I am not the most handsome, nor did I have the most beautiful voice to most, nor was Italian a specialty. Now, in your case you have no desire to be famous, but you may end up that way anyhow because that is not entirely your choice to make -- if you meet enough people in both your powers and your joy combined, you will get there!

"But before that, Frau Mathews, I show you a path to community that you might not otherwise consider. Temperamentally we are very different: you can be hilarious, but you are serious of mind, and there is a certain level of intellectual and spiritual depth you require. So am I, actually -- but again, temperamentally, I am more extroverted than you, so people were often surprised to sit down and have me quite accidentally put them out in the weeds ... ."

"Yeah, sitting up in 1988 predicting what I would be doing composing on the computer in 2026 while talking about what Wagner probably would have done in 1867," I said as I started laughing. "You're dangerous on a birthday -- those young men at the radio station never did recover over the course of that interview!"

"Which is why, for my 88th birthday, I'm talking to someone who can keep up with me -- and that's the other side of it, Frau Mathews. Joy plus power plus alignment -- that's the combination!"

"Oh," I said, and he let me contemplate this for a few moments.

"I said to you some time ago that light can only be concealed by greater light ... but it is also possible to think of that kind of stellar situation as a constellation," he said.

"You keep trying to get me in these stellar situations!" I said.

To my surprise, he did not smile, but settled his face into great seriousness, and descended right into the double-deep gravity of his voice.

"You are what you are, mein kleiner Stern," he said, "and we will not sit here today and pretend otherwise because on the non-fiction side of the fourth wall, when you walked by this restaurant, you and that big deep voice, though in your more introverted way, still dazzled the gentleman setting up to open just as much as I dazzled the whole staff. Had you come down the block singing a joyful Negro Spiritual, you would have achieved much the same result that I did -- and you know it. No fame necessary. You have the same gifts."

This stunned me into silence, and he let me sit in that thought for a long time before speaking more gently, rising into his low middle range.

"I have said it to you before: you will be loved as you are, or you will not be truly loved at all. I add to it that you will find proper community as you are, or you will never find it at all."

Then he smiled gently, and brought his voice into his shining middle range.

"But I have been showing you from the beginning how you might take joy in who you are, and that joy will shine out to those who should be with you -- because I ask again: why am I world-famous, rarely having a lead role, taking years off from the stage entirely? Why do you even know me?"

"Oh ... your joy."

"Now you see," he said. "I took such joy in what I am and what I am able to do that it drew people to me, caused them to want to work with me and bring me from the humblest roles I sang with joy to the tippity-top of the worlds of the classical singer! This is how I found the support, the mutual fellowship, the worldwide broad community -- and you, being more introverted, still find that your joy in bustling to and fro caring for your affairs and those of your family has given you broad community, so already, within the space of your personality, you are tracking my track. I think the challenge may be for you that you are a multi-faceted creative, and I'm just a singer."

"Just a singer?" I cried.

"That is," he said, "it was a bit easier for me to communicate and everyone else to understand what I needed on a public level because of having a single primary facet -- a singer. Those who knew me better got to know that I could act and teach and play a few instruments, and so forth. But for you, this will never work, because even if we just put all the ways you are a musician in one category, there's also author, fractal artist, investor, Bible teacher, powerful community activist, and devoted family woman."

He smiled gently.

"That actually sounds like it would be exhausting," he said, "if you ever had to give yourself a complete introduction."

"'Singer' is a whole lot easier," I said, "although my guess is that by the time you reached a certain age, that was tiresome to recite too, because of the depth in that one area as opposed to the spread."

"So, what you eventually learn how to do," he said as his smile widened, "is let your reputation precede you, but also, your joy introduce you, your mastery secure you, and your generosity and love endear you -- and where you meet what you come with, there remain.

"A long curriculum vitae or resume will get you in the door to be considered for a position, but we are speaking of finding community. I refused to be tiresome to myself and others, having found a more excellent way -- and this way preserves humility, because you realize those accolades and awards and that increasingly long list of accomplishments are not what makes you valuable to the community around you. To be loved and supported for who you are completely removes the need to try to put what you have done up for the world's validation."

"OK; this is a lot," I said, "but I do see, though dimly, how this can work."

"It will become clearer to you as you grow to it," he said gently. "For now, consider that you never have to do all that explaining about what you can do and have done. In community, that can be discovered at need. Also remember, because you have many facets, you can be at home in many rooms as opposed to thinking of how to find a single room that can hold you. The lesson of "Selige Welt" comes to mind here -- there isn't a blessed isle, but you can trust that whatever land you are brought to is for you, and it just might be an island chain."

He sang at the level of conversation, but people close by still stopped what they were doing in astonishment for that minute because the beauty of his voice still cut through all the noise around us ... but I closed my eyes and just took it in, understanding that song in a new way, and while I was in that moment, I had another thought.

"It amazes me, in studying your biography, that you could be in all the top rooms for a singer such as yourself, and there are two things lacking that is so often in the stories of great stars: envy and jealousy from you I did not expect, but you also did not seem to be a focal point of those from other people."

He considered this for a long moment.

"This is a deep matter to consider, Frau Mathews, but I will introduce the lesson today: this is the bright side of 'Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap.' It is not possible for envy and jealousy to dominate in an environment of joy, gratitude, and love. It is also not possible for people caught up in joy to also be overtaken with jealousy and envy at the same time, so if people associate you with joy, it will be very hard for them to simultaneously envy you. They can be jealous of you out of fear of losing you and the joy you bring, however, and that is why this is a deep matter to consider."

He paused, and then I saw his gaze flatten out ... and then I knew my impression of his life was very wrong. But then he shook his head and smiled.

"Nicht heute -- not today, Frau Mathews. For today we shall linger long in the joy, and in this joyous lesson of how to come into community. I reiterate: let your reputation precede you, but also, your joy introduce you, your mastery secure you, and your generosity and love endear you, and where you meet what you come with, there remain -- and if you can get good food and drink there, definitely stay!"

"You're such an old German," I said with a laugh, and he lit up with joy and then lit up with joy again as our food arrived.

"Natürlich!" he cried, and then turned to our server: "Vielen Dank!"

"So, how exactly are you going to manage this?" I said after the server had gone. "Don't you remember that you no longer dine on the food of earth?"

"Oh, the kitchen on high has already swapped this out for me, and someone in need will be be directed here and find that their to-go order is exceptionally generous today, thereby also blessing the restaurant's reputation as well as that person and perhaps even another person with whom they might share that double portion."

"You are beginning to remind me of a certain landowner in Scripture who had a party, and wanted everyone around to come in," I said.

"Well," he said with a smile, "that means I am doing my echo work well, mein geliebtes Blumenkind. After 88 years in existence, and nine of them where I ought not be tripping over my mortality, I ought to be a little good at something, after all."

I laughed so hard at this as he grinned like every happy old birthday boy.

"Alles gute zum Geburtstag," I said at last as I lifted my glass of orange juice.

"Danke, mein geliebtes Blumenkind," he purred, and gently touched his glass to mine.