Well, I blew it with March. I wasn’t able to even think, let alone write a coherent blog. So here it is with the last week of April approaching and I am just beginning to write again.
During the whole of March I was sick. Heart, lungs, stenosis in my neck, a bad cold and/or flu and, of course, my hand. I had to take water pills to get rid of fluid around my lungs which worked, but made frequent trips to the bathroom a necessity. My neck was very painful, and limited in motion from side to side and up and down. We tried codeine – I was allergic to it. Then a higher dose of valium which didn’t work, then vicodin which mad the pain at least manageable. Next my therapy picked up again to restore mobility in my hand which was ravaged by a cranky cat. And finally, since my heart was beating very irregularly at 130 bpm, I ended up having a cardio-version at the end of March. The doctor sort of “jump starts” the heart with an electric pulse which is supposed to lower the heart rate and make it regular again. It did, and by this time my cold was gone, so life was returning in time for the Easter rush.
April to me is Easter. I prepare and rehearse the music for five services and supervise the other services to make sure everything is in place and ready to go for Holy Week and Easter Sunday. Thankfully I was now well enough, though somewhat weak, to accomplish these tasks. Every year I look forward to the day after Easter, “decompression Monday.” And, by a series of miracles, I made it! So this week I am cleaning up my desk, tables, floor, and every place that had music piled high upon it. Little by little things are getting back to normal during “decompression week.” Once again life returns. Now I can get back to my usual routine of preparations and rehearsals, writing and arranging, and, hopefully to my next CD that I am roughly two months behind on.
There is a definite similarity between the Easter theme of Resurrection and daily life returning. For me, both involve musical themes. There is hope, there is love, there is the work of discovering new ways of configuring notes and rhythms and styles. Much of the time like working a giant puzzle. You don’t know what you have until it is all together and finished.
So now we look forward to May with its holidays and gardening and warmth. And yet again we get to sing and invent new songs and music. We need to sing more. People don’t sing naturally any more for happiness or just the love of it. Pause a while and think about this (while humming a tune) and consider the joy of what you are doing.