"The Eisenblumenkinding," Week 5: Invisibility Comes With the Protection Package, As It Happens (Mercer and Mancini, Berg, Stolz, Strauss)

Shakespeare said it well: "To sleep, perchance to dream" ... and just like Hamlet's father in Hamlet, there are some literary ghosts who just make it their business to come blow your mind and redirect your life.

Poor Hamlet didn't get any sleep that night, but I had good sleep last week because my brain shut things down before getting totally shut down trying to process the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past deciding that he was just going to put Hamlet's father to shame. It's one thing when you can convince your son he needs to avenge you against your own brother and wife. It's another thing when you inform your Iron Flower Child, working hard to toughen up to head off needless grief in the world, that she is, in fact, already invisible, and has the next thing to learn exactly reversed.

Precision is important, Frau Mathews. It is not that you can be invisible. You are, by calling. Carry less, say less, and enjoy the privilege, while using quiet observation with prayer to discern whether at any time you should make yourself visible.

But that was not even enough, for he uttered this at first as a joke...

As the Invisible Bass, I'm always perfectly transparent!

... but then tied the concept of choosing invisibility as a form of revealing truth later with this stunning thought:

The person who does this best in Scripture is John the Baptist, and in opera the best character, in sitting down and going to sleep instead of trying to reclaim a time of life that has passed for him, is Admiral Morosus.

And all that in that knockout beauty of a speaking voice, on top of everything else ... so at about there I saw stars in a clear blue day, and the sky became transparent, a blue sheen on a black midnight spangled with the Milky Way for light ... in the Knockout Zone I could see both the day sky and the night sky at once, for that last bit opened things all the way up and even hinted at matters extending beyond the first and second heaven into the third!

But this is also to say that I had already fallen out, and was dreaming ... my brain opted to stop right there and put my body to bed, and the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past found me a lullaby to fit once he had carried me home ... my favorite song by Johnny Mercer, arranged here by Henry Mancini, sung by Audrey Hepburn ... while invisible to the world, one might as well cross Moon River in style...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uirBWk-qd9A

I always loved the opening of "Moon River" ... as a child I loved looking up into the night sky, and moonlight flooding those spaces in my house where windows are not closed always and still delights me. In fact, on a moonlight night, I will still sometimes throw open my curtains and marvel at that midnight blue that is like the day sky putting a sheen on that of the night, with the moon glowing in silver sweetness ... and on such nights I will put on my favorite basses ... but let's back up ... the idea of being alone and walking along the moonlight's path ... perhaps even in the valley in which Golden Gate Park sits by night, seeing the tops of the nearby hills shining in silver amidst curtains of mist, and the lights of the city distantly twinkling but no longer disturbing the dreamlike beauty of the world in pure peace ... and to this I would gladly do as soprano Jessye Norman commands to all hearing Alban Berg's "Nacht": "Drink, solitary soul -- give attention!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBAgKkk8odI

I am not afraid to venture forth to such adventures, but I am conscious of my responsibilities and thus content to go in song, and so woke up in the morning after dreaming through all the spaces opened by Mancini and Mercer and Berg. You can see how my mind was not even by then in its ordinary frame, because I just opened up a post without bass anywhere in the picture ... just like my whole walk one day ended up being sitting here at a pier, with no trees in the picture ... sometimes, weird things happen in one's own head... but at least in San Francisco, you still get a lovely picture on San Francisco's Embarcadero when you get tired of summer fog and retreat as far east as you can go without getting wet ...

Because not in that ordinary frame, I realized something that is truth hidden in plain sight: everyone starts out invisible, in their mother's womb. So much of human striving from there -- so much of life -- is coming forth, being discovered, being known, being seen. Growing old and dying contains so much of going the other way: leaving the stage, being forgotten sometimes even to the self, and again being invisible, the soul at last leaving the physical body, and that body committed to the tomb. From womb to tomb: one long arc of going from and to being invisible in the world.

But since this is the case, visibility can be seen as tenuous at best. We pray that every child have family that loves them, but this is not always the case, and very quickly children can be lost to caring eyes and seen only as a burden at best and chattel at worst, never equipped to be otherwise for the rest of their lives. Adults, too, can be lost -- relationships, tenuous as they are, may be few and fragile. Old age again highlights this kind of tragedy, but it can happen for a variety of reasons ... Schubert and Schumann's and Brahms's several Wanderers and Foreigners with no way home highlight aspects of this ... and while Robert Stolz gives us a gentle view of this, with a man remembering the linden tree in his father's house and the young lady that loved him then, but wondering if he will ever get home again ... Karl Ridderbusch sings this so well...

... Richard Strauss goes to the opposite end and shows us a man bereft of the last light in his life, in such darkness that to him the only solution is more darkness, to step off into eternal night... Franz-Josef Selig is not as mighty as my favorite bass, but the everyday man who perishes out of our sight daily deserves a hearing and kind consideration, and Herr Selig makes him known.

And then one has the case of the musician, or more strictly the creative of any kind, in search of an audience and all that audience will bring with its recognition. One might also say in the age of social media, almost everyone is seeking an audience, constantly seeking affirmation that they are seen, and seen as they want to be seen, and if so, not fully known but loved at least for what they show, not who they actually are off screen. This also intensifies the reality that a lot of people in their everyday lives and in their relationships are just putting on a show, hoping to be affirmed for the show before the lights go off, and they sink totally into the obscurity from which their true selves have never dared come out of.

But many people end the striving not always in despair, but by coming to know and accept who they are, and getting comfortable with that reality no matter the opinions of everyone else. That can be part of our human journey no matter our belief systems; it is a gift of common grace to be able to realize being visible to one's self, such that we can be honest about how we feel and relate to the person in the mirror separate from the ideas and opinions of everyone else.

And then, there is the life of the Christian, born again ... known and seen in all aspects, offered and receiving forgiveness for sin in Christ, because He by His death paid the price for those sins and rose again to justify those who believe on Him. Most of the time the thought stops there... but if followed out with study, one discovers one is seen, and known, and loved, and there is no longer any need to strive for any of that assurance and acceptance from the world.

From all that it can be considered that since most people remain invisible to the vast majority of the world all their lives, those who no longer feel the need to compete and compare for attention and visibility can be seen as choosing to remain invisible, and going on with all joys of life not visible to those busier with attention-seeking.

It would also follow from there that if those not needing to compete and compare did in their time attain the spotlights of life, they would not be compelled by unmet needs to be seen, known, and loved to go too early to acclaim, or stay too long. They might also feel a predominance of different, more positive emotions at such attainment ... gratitude, humility, joy ... and be willing to be in service to others with their gifts, both in the process of their time in the spotlight, and in addition to or instead of that time.

And then, they might also be able to be transparent, to not see human foibles and weak spots in themselves and others as a reason to shun or be shunned, and be able therefore to share and bless on a deeper level than many. They might also be able fulfill the purpose to which they have been given their moment, not obscure that behind the needs of their egos for attention or lose that in their conflicts with other attention-seekers.

Upon having that thought, I realized why it is so often said that individuals and organizations have at times have "lost the plot" ... in the midst of their own needs and concerns, they have forgotten whatever greater purpose there is in the matters at hand.

I also thought then why I was called to children and elders, with their great fundamental needs ... because I do not feel the need to compete with them, love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, patience, faith, meekness (humility plus strength) and self-control can expand to fill the space. The elders who I revere the most modeled this, and so I keep finding their echoes across time and space.

But it is also certain that in a competitive, attention-seeking culture, eaten up with finding every means to judge others as less worthy, eaten up with the pursuit of money for status purposes, people who are operating in such a way that permits this will be less and less understood, known, and thus, seen in the wider world.

In other words, at age 44, having walked in this way all my life in the world, I am invisible to its pursuits and recognition, and not even needing or wanting to become visible.

There was an immense, deep bass chuckle...

"Frau Mathews, es habe ich dich gesagt!"

"OK, so we are going to let you be the most insufferable invisible basso profondo buffo I-told-you-so today on your entrance -- Sie gewinnen -- you win!"

"And in victory, I am a gracious victor -- Wir gewinnen, Frau Mathews."

He materialized and dazzled me with his immense smile, sitting in a face so radiant with joy that although he was trying a little at the appearance of age, he was a white-haired 50 at best.

"I confess that costuming is laughing with great abandon at the whole idea that I was aiming for 60-ish in appearance owing to the gravity of the conversation," he said. "Jerome Hines, however, offered this: 'That young lady is beginning to talk and think more and more like she is here, so since you will be truly at home with her, you don't need to 'dress up' so much."

He was quietly attired in a dark green summer suit with a matching windbreaker, and that green was tamping down the glow just a little, but it was still apparent that he was radiantly happy.

"You indeed look like Herr Altesrouge, Old Blush in bloom," I said.

Again, he radiantly smiled ... now he could light up a room in mortal life with that, but at this point it was becoming ridiculous ... it was like the sun was rising indoors.

"My joy in your spring, in seeing you blossom as you have, is very, very great," he said. "I am pacing myself, already, because I think Q-Inspired's extra gravity enhancers need a bit of a rest."

"Oh, we loaded up a bunch of extra graviton cylinders this week," I said. "I am going to need you, though, to stop putting me into the Knockout Zone with your sheer intellect."

He laughed.

"That was not what I intended to do, but I certainly was delighted to see your mind has expanded to starting a post with an alto, which you are, and a soprano."

"I never knew Audrey Hepburn could sing like that," I said. "What a delight ... and of course, Jessye Norman."

He smiled yet again.

"No one can fault you for taste," he said. "Yours is excellent. We old ethereal basses are glad to get in where we fit in, what with Karl Ridderbusch being heard, and Franz-Josef Selig still in the earth!"

"Oh stop it -- you're the reason I came back to this side of my musical life -- take a bow once in a while, and be thanked!"

He bowed, and then embraced me and danced me clear around the room.

"Likewise, Frau Mathews, be thanked -- habe Dank -- for bringing me and my colleagues of many generations to a whole new world, this international music community on Hive. We might not have made it to Web 3 without you! You have my eternal gratitude!

His voice was getting on up there, but then he stopped with a smile.

"Your neighbors do not need their house falling off the foundation again, to say nothing of me testing the bedrock your home sits on. I have some things in mind ... but I need to pace myself, so, your choice of where we go first."

"Actually, I have a whole afternoon of walking work to do -- not the most inspiring walking now that the fog has come in, but necessary."

"Ah, the infamous 'June gloom' ... San Francisco's summer fog," he said. "Well, Frau Mathews, your sedate ethereal octogenarian walking partner can provide a little bit of a windbreak, carry packages, and perhaps offer a bit of inspiring conversation until the sun comes out."

"And probably charm the sun right out with that voice," I said, and he chuckled.

"No one on high is foolish enough to let me do anything with the weather, Frau Mathews, but you can hand me all of those packages. A little lower than an angel, a little higher than a cricket though with a deeper voice -- that's enough for me. And, until the sun shines, I'll just do the best I can with what I've got to keep you warm."

Oh, that smile, with that huge, purring voice! He had plenty to work with -- I felt warmer already!

So, off we went ... workaday walking world, but spring was still lovely in the streets of San Francisco ...

... and it was not overly windy, so not actually unpleasant. The streets were less full than they would be on sunny days, and that to me was kind of a blessing. As ever I sought the quieter routes, and set my paths through parks, and this led to my walking partner's first comment.

"Frau Mathews, you are well-practiced at only being visible in the busy streets of your city when absolutely necessary! I am intrigued at how you practice invisibility, daily!"

"Now that you mention it," I said. "I sit in my house and remain invisible during the busiest times in the main streets, and plan to bunch up tasks and locations so that most of my walking time is in the calmest route I can find. I do choose not to show up for the crowd, and that was my choice long before Covid ... it was something my grand old soldier and I had in common."

"Ich sehe," he said, having forgotten his English for the moment ... that was a hint to the fact that he was thinking deeply.

"I observe, mein geliebtes Blumenkind," he said gently after another few moments, "that you are happiest, even on workaday walking days, on the streets in which your fellow blooms will not be trampled down."

The sun, hearing that voice, peeked out ...

"My stage timing is still pretty good, at least," he said, and broke his own grave mood with a laugh.

The sun was not out long, but it had its representatives on the ground, too ...

"We found your fellows, mein goldenes Blumenkind," he purred, "loving the sunshine as you do! I am so tempted to pretend I am a singing heliotrope and break out in Schubert's Aus Heliopolises -- Heliopolisii? -- just how would you pluralize that in English?"

"Now see here, Herr Basso Profondo Buffo, out here breaking German and Latin!" I said but gave up and laughed at his ridiculousness all the way down the street and across it in time to catch the coming bus and cut a little time off the rest of my trip.

Having saved a bit of time riding a main street, I had time to walk over Alamo Square Hill to my next stop. The sun had gone back behind the fog, but it was still not unpleasant outside because the afternoon wind had not yet come in.

My ethereal walking partner had been quiet after his comedic forays in the sunshine ... his thoughts were deep and grave, but as he said earlier, he had been pacing himself, and was still doing so, just not the way he originally intended.

"A pfennig for your thoughts?" I said as we went up, and his grave mood disappeared in a laugh.

"Now that is some monetary history between German and English -- very good, Frau Mathews!"

Then he stopped and looked at me intently.

"I have a deep and grave rhetorical question to ask you that had not occurred to me before today, and in observing how you move through the world when not out in the parks. But first ... this is a lovely place to stop for a moment."

"There is a bench right behind us...

"... and what do you observe about this place?"

I considered the place for a moment.

"It is a double windbreak; it is much warmer here," I said.

"And what about lines of sight?"

"It is one of the least visible spots -- even from the top of the hill, and certainly from the bottom, we cannot be seen. One has to be pretty much in the path to see anyone on it here."

He smiled gently...

"Oh, I see what you are saying ... we are only visible in the path to those also on it. This is an analogy for the life to which I am called."

"We can proceed further, Frau Mathews. Suppose it was a violently windy day, but we nonetheless had to get across the hill. Suppose me leading you across. What path do you think I would choose?"

"This one, because there is a windbreak not only here, but a little up ahead."

"Would you be visible from the street side there?"

"No."

"We proceed a little further, Frau Mathews -- from there, there are no further windbreaks, but across we would still have to go, either north --

"-- or up over the hill to the east, totally exposed, but still, what do you think I would do?"

"Well, we still gotta get over it."

"And this is why you need this lesson, Frau Mathews. Your whole life since 2022 has been one great journey of understanding your privileges, the hard way -- but there was no other way since you honestly, to age 41, did not consciously know any better. I am not even questioning that. We are just following the analogy up the hill, and even though at this point you would be totally exposed to the elements alone, with me here, that cannot be."

He stepped into the wind, and then wrapped his arms around me from behind.

"This would be slow going," he said, "but I can keep you protected from the wind in this way, all the way east, and with a sidestep on my position, can even protect you going northward. Now, to the windward side, facing the street, would you be visible?"

"No -- the size differential between us is too large."

"And this is where I remind you, Frau Mathews, that I'm just the echo."

I had to think about this for a few moments, and then realized what he was communicating to me: as I walked in the way I was called, the protection package often included being less and less visible to everyone not in the same path of life -- but even when in the spotlight, I would still be protected in the way I was going.

"Tell me something else -- would there be a crowd? For that matter, is there now on this not unpleasant but gray day?"

"No and no."

"Yet you chose this path, Frau Mathews, as you always choose such a way if you can."

"Yes and yes."

We walked on in silence for a little while, but then he stopped, and sighed, and I followed his eyes downward.

"Such full, fresh beauty, in the wrong place," he said. "It is a tragedy that often happens, and is better avoided before the fact. So much better would it be to see this among its fellow beauties, visible, though out of reach."

Then he turned to me, and placed his hands upon my shoulders as he softly cried out: "Ach, mein geliebtes Blumenkind!" and then stopped and walked away for a few moments before returning, controlled, but the timbre of his voice showing the emotion he was controlling was intense.

"Had you known consciously at 41 what you do now about yourself and your calling, would you have walked into that crowd of 2022?"

"No," I said.

"Next week it will be three years to the day that you acted on what you subconsciously knew and followed the call out of all that ... but it has taken almost a full three years for all of it to play out. Because of this, Frau Mathews, I am duty-bound to tell you my entire thought that I have held to since the last spring. Indeed 'there is no bridge,' and that was all that you could bear ... but, mein Eisenblumenkind, you must stick your iron resolve to this point: there is no bridge. There never was, nor ever will be."

Circumstances have borne this out, as of May of this year.

"To no crowd, Frau Mathews, are you called. Subconsciously, you have known almost all your life. Now, understand."

"Yes, sir," I said, realizing that at that moment he was indeed being the echo of an absolute command ... his voice had reached its utmost gravity, befitting the gravity of what was being communicated. And then, with the same gravity, he reached out for me, and echoed that utmost love as a great gust of wind did reach our position ... but I felt little of it because of his full embrace, as tender as it was immense and strong.

Presently I felt one large ethereal tear splash into my hair before cool breezing itself into a mini-rainbow.

"Ach, Frau Mathews, meine liebe Dame ... I am doing the best I can as a mere finite human ... if only I could better convey to you the love for you, back of me ... the desire to guide, to protect, to cherish ... this wind is nothing compared to what is pressing upon my heart, for you, from up back of me ... but there are things that cannot be accurately conveyed through any other person but must be learned directly. What I speak of will be more and more known to you as your understanding increases and your willingness to be led continues ... far beyond any echo, you will know!"

His voice nearly broke in his sudden passion, but he, master of pacing himself, controlled his emotion, keeping his voice at its best.

"I have not yet done my utmost human best for you, Frau Mathews, but I will."

"For when you sing, I understand," I said, and leaned into his voice as I had a thousand times before ... as he sang of learning how to live at last in joy and peace, in the love of the beloveds to whom one is called, past all the striving to be whatever the world says one must be. Now, I understood even better ... and for those four minutes, all in the universe that opposed such a life was as invisible to me as I was to it.

Now I hadn't accounted for what my declaration and leaning into him was going to do for him ... to love so much, to desire to communicate it, to be understood and loved and trusted in return ... he was still just a human man, and an excitable one as they go. So, when I opened my eyes, I found out he had sung us clear out of Earth's gravity. We were passing the moon, and seeing what life is like on Jupiter and Mars, as another old song goes. The music of the spheres had picked up on Strauss's beautiful happy ending, and was ringing all its golden, bass-voiced bells.

"I see you managed to find us some sunshine anyway because you know Blumenkinds, even iron ones, do need their sunshine," I teased. "Danke schön!"

All those contralto bells started ringing out there in harmony... and those bass bells seemed to double in their intensity. I just leaned in and rested in it, and the more I did, the sweeter all those bells seemed to become.

Now at some point we had to come back to Earth, and did so on the eastern side of Alamo Square, out of the wind. Yet even going down the hill at last, I knew he was still seeing stars, for his eyes were all lit up with golden light, and our time in the sun had left him so radiant that it was a good thing the sun peeked out just then. Those golden bells were still ringing in his voice when he spoke or laughed, and it seemed that he kept hearing those contralto bells every time I opened my mouth to everybody we were still meeting as I finished up the work of the day.

Work gets really easy when everybody you have to work with starts hearing deep-voiced joy bells in contralto and bass harmony the instant you arrive ... we just put folks in orbit for a little while and got things done, all the way back around the hill to my home.

"Now, next week I want you to plan carefully, Frau Mathews ... next Thursday is exactly the three-year mark to you deciding to leave the crowd of 2022, a leaving that was just complete this May. I desire that you be gentle to yourself next week. Give yourself time to rest, journal, walk, and do all the things you may be in need of in such a solemn time of remembrance. June 19 also is Juneteenth, the day in 1865 on which chattel slavery for your ancestors officially ended, and thus also an important day of remembrance."

"That was why I chose it in 2022," I said. "Time to go out free ... thus I have been walking up the freedom way, these three years."

"And in that way it is given you to rest and reflect and refresh yourself," he said. "I greatly desire to create such an experience for you."

"I am willing, and thank you," I said. "I think it would be best for me to take such rest next week. I understand now that resting from the striving, of being invisible to the workaday world when not actually called into it, is part of the protection package for me. I may as well start consciously practicing, and you are indeed making it easy."

He glowed up so intensely I still marvel that he did not leave a scorch mark on my stairs, but his voice and clasp of my hand was all tender warmth before he departed.

The next day while I was out walking in Golden Gate Park, I heard of some things that happened at the Music Concourse the previous day ... apparently, K.M. Altesrouge had outdone himself again.

"Listen, if that man isn't on something, we need to get him on something so he doesn't sing himself clear up out of here, and if he is on something, we need to find out what that is and get on it too, because it's out of this world!"

"I keep telling y'all -- there's nothing like love in this world or out of it!"

They had figured it out, so, since they didn't need my input, I just walked on rejoicing.