Inhabiting Time

A question made me stop in the middle of the trottoir today as I walked towards my office, listening to a podcast by Melvyn Bragg, "History of ideas". His guests, distinguished neuroscientists and philosophers and writers, were discussing a really "hot" topic : "What does it mean to be me?". I remember various club members quite struggling with the question, personally and now some of us, professionally, so of course I was all ears.

One of the guests said at some point, talking about the moment when she thought she emerged as a distinct person: "I was wondering how I could inhabit fully the limited time I was given".

To inhabit time fully; that's the way I have never thought about life! Much in it has been about space, but actually little, about time. Yet, as I am growing older (yes I know, I am the eternal youngest of the lot anyway), inhabiting time sounds quite meaningful to me. Aren't we included in God's creation, aren't we participating in it by inhabiting fully that little slot we are born into?

Britten - Abraham and Isaac (listening notes)

All in all, Pears/Procter is probably the best version I have heard so far, although I do like Mark Padmore / Iestin Davies  very much, mainly for Padmore's part, which is dramatically just perfect, and also for their strange, alien, other-worldly God, who sounds very post-modern. Pears/Procter's God is also other-worldly, in a different way, and Britten playing piano makes it much more present; shame that Pears is not perfectly convincing all the time as Padmore is. The most disappointing was Pears/Baker version, I hate to say; as much as I love Dame Janet, these two voices just don't work well together here. Their God has too much of the other two protagonists; "too human", I would say... Well maybe they have (or had) a point after all. 

The text is available here - and it's really best heard with the text in hand of course. Listening to it again and again, I thought that I have always assumed that God expected Abraham to comply with His stated will -- to sacrifice Isaac unquestioningly, as the Patriarch was ready to do. But what if it was the other way round? What if God asked Abraham to kill his "dear darling" hoping that Abraham will see the absurdity of the request and show mercy towards Isaac? And then when God saw that this was not going to happen, He had to cancel it all, and to send an emergency sacrificial animal to Abraham; the imbecile was going literally to kill his son indeed... I guess this isn't impossible; after all, He desires "not sacrifice but mercy"... 

And on the other hand, the entire piece reminds me of Roublev's Trinity, that perfect harmony of love / will, between God (Holy Spirit), Abraham (Father) and Isaac (Son), even to and beyond the absurd... This is admirable, and so beautiful that actually this is THE reason why I will return again and again to this music. 

About grieving

Stumbled on something about grieving today. That it is bottomless, of course; but more importantly, that it is about being painfully confronted to the reality that will never be the same, hit it as a sparrow hits a transparent window pane, struggle with it and fight it, resent it, hate it, and be exhausted; and eventually, accept it – in peace, I want to hope. Grieving, for me at least, is about recovery, resurrection of a capacity for love, dead with my loved one; the liveliest part of me, the most life-giving, the most overflowing has become distant memory, and that is what feels like being dead. 

And this is why I could not grieve in London: there was nothing to hit against, no reality to overcome, no things-without-Ed to make peace with – just brand new, meaningless void of an anonymous existence. I could have gone to the planet Mars, it wouldn't have been different… No wonder I ended up choking. But now real griefworks commence; now my pain has a sparring partner: this city which keeps track of my long forgotten trajectories, this flower shop we loved, this cafe we used to go for a beer. Getting back here did not make this pain less acute – just possible. But at least, I can make some sense of it. 

Desolatio (A new song in the voice of Mary Magdalene - music hopefully to follow in time)

Desolatio

(A Holy Saturday lament)

Where now have you gone to?

How are we still here?

Lacking our lives’ purpose

Beyond doubt and fear

Desolatio

Beauty now is silenced

Where now is your spirit?

How do things carry on?

Life has lost its meaning

All our hope has gone

Desolatio

Where now is your spirit?

Just a deadweight body

Lying in a cave

How can such lost promise

Ever really save?

Desolatio

Beauty now is silenced

What were all those sayings?

What now do they mean?

All things pass away now

Like they’ve never been

Desolatio

Where now is your spirit?

Beauty now is silenced

He will walk no more

Full hearts are now emptied

Of the hope they stored

Desolatio

Beauty now is silenced

So I must anoint him

Over his body run

Oil and tears and spices

Lost most lovely one

Desolatio

Beauty now is silenced

On thinking

I have to persist. I have to keep asking questions and articulate answers. Until death takes me the other side of the veil, I have to try to think. Better than I used to, clearer, deeper. I need to do a lot of footwork; hours and hours of deliberate practice; I want my thinking as beautiful and as meaningful as music. I want to understand reality, human being, death, suffering, beauty, love, sacrifice, happiness. I have to learn these things, and go beyond learning. And this takes thinking with my heart, with my blood and bowels, with my wounds and infirmities, with my grief, rage, shame, thankfulness, tenderness, wonder, with oil pastels and pencils as much as with my brains. I don't know where it will take me, I do not pretend to be able to answer the questions I ask. I don't even know if I am capable of travelling this way. Maybe it is too late, now. Maybe it doesn't matter. I don't know... But I have to try. 

Heart (Vikram Seth) : I wish I knew

I wake at three, in some slight pain.

I hear no sound of clock or rain, 

No chorus of the stars, no gong, 

Mosquito, siren, horn or plane.

Only my heart beats slow and strong. 

I listen to its certain song.

It does not sympathize but strives

To beat all night and all day long.

Whether my spirit soars or dives,

My blood, at its compulsion, drives 

Through its elastic chambers, through 

My arteries, my veins, my lives.

Above all, to my heart I’m true. 

It does not tell me what to do. 

It beats, I live, it beats again. 

For what? I wish I knew it knew.

Beautiful poem, set in music by Alec Roth and sung by the excellent Mark Padmore, whose fine, light, aerial tenor makes it sound contemporary and timeless. I couldn't find it on YouTube, you have to buy the album... Or pay for Amazon Prime. But every note and every word are worth it. 

Joseph Brodsky, A Song

This poem is on the tip of my tongue for a couple of days. Sharing just to get rid of it, if not of the underlying condition. 

I wish you were here, dear,
I wish you were here.
I wish you sat on the sofa
and I sat near.
The handkerchief could be yours,
the tear could be mine, chin bound.
Though it could be, of course,
the other way around.


I wish you were here, dear,
I wish you were here.
I wish we were in my car,
and you'd shift the gear.
We'd find ourselves elsewhere,
on an unknown shore.
Or else we'd repair
to where we've been before.


I wish you were here, dear,
I wish you were here.
I wish I knew no astronomy
when stars appear,
when the moon skims the water
that sighs and shifts in its slumber.
I wish it were still a quarter
to dial your number.


I wish you were here, dear,
in this hemisphere,
as I sit on the porch
sipping a beer.
It's evening; the sun is setting,
boys shout and gulls are crying.
What's the point of forgetting
if it's followed by dying?