Dear Reader:

Well, gracious.   I just fell off the end of the blog world for a while there, didn't I?   These last two weeks.  Crikey.  I don't know what to tell you, dear reader.   It's been intense.   Whew.  But, I slowed down today.   I really couldn't until today.   I played at my teacher's memorial concert yesterday and every bit of emotional energy that wasn't working at warp speed to keep myself still employed and exhibiting a modicum of parental responsibility and doing my daily depression-lifting emotional calisthenics was focused like a laser on practicing Debussy.

I won't take you through an exhaustive emotional compendium of all the things I felt yesterday because no one is interested in that, but I will say that I am beginning to see what Stephen Colbert meant when he wrote, in a recent GQ interview, about learning to love loss and grief.   His father and brothers died when he was 10 and it was an incredible formative event for him.   My grief at losing a dear mentor, teacher, kindred spirit, support and deeply connected friend was not of the same ilk, I know, but I will say that the grief I feel at her absence, which has not - I don't care what anyone says about these things - lessened, is now a part of me for which I feel gratitude.   At first, it was alien to me.   I was angry at it, and it seemed so separate from me.   I didn't know why I had to lose someone who had become such an integral part of my life - a person to whom I would turn in my darkest and brightest moments, sure of a steady, unchanging concern and love for my well-being and joy in my successes and hard-won growth.  Now, I realize, as I was surrounded by so many people who loved and knew Christine yesterday and surrounded by the music-making which formed the fabric of her life (and mine), that the space that this grief occupies in my heart is a reminder of how lovely she was and how thoroughly she knew and loved me.   To be connected to another human at such a deep level is a privilege - one that, I think, not everyone knows.   And so, her loss, while still capable of making me feel deep sadness, also reminds me of what is important to me in this life.   That I continue to shine my light on myself, on my children, on my students, on my friends and family, on strangers.  That I continue to seek out and cultivate connection beyond the surfaces of things.   As I played at this concert and heard others play and saw a video of one of her last performances, I was struck by a palpable sense of her presence.   I was full of fear to play in front of that audience as an example of her teaching.  Mainly because I didn't feel worthy to be an example of the work of such an amazing teacher, but I could almost hear her telling me that I just needed to show them how much I loved the music, how much I loved her.  That's all that mattered in my performance.   It's only the Love that counts in the final analysis.   So, I did.   And, yes, I am certain she smiled to hear it.   Certain.   Because I will ALWAYS know how much she cared about me.  That is a gift that will never leave me.  

It was especially meaningful for me to hear my student (who also studied with Christine after studying with me) read this lovely poem at the concert:

What I Have Learned So Far

Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world?  Because properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause?  I don't think so.

All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance.  The gospel of
light is the crossroads of --- indolence, or action.

Be ignited, or be gone.

-----Mary Oliver

Christine, you will always remind me to "be ignited" because any life worth living has to be full of the intense joys and griefs that come with attending, properly, to this shining world....  I promise to try and never let my light go out.   Yours is still shining for me, and, I'm sure, will help light the way when things get dark for me.   I hope mine will help light the way for others coming along behind, too.

I am grateful, as always, dear reader, that you have spent some time on my words here on this blog.   I do promise that future posts will provide more lightness.   It's inevitable.   I just wanted to get these thoughts down before they blew away in the quotidian concerns of my daily life.   I wanted to properly attend to this moment in time.

Thanks for reading!