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Now that we’ve alighted, briefly, in this rain-soaked corner of Scotland, we pause to reassess our lives:

RAIN-SOAKED. Well, yes. Rain. We do live in Scotland. Somehow, it seems part of us forgot this, and when we struggled up the hill from the parking garage for our last Choral Classics concert of the season, where were our coats, boots, and brollies? In a box, that’s where, headed for sunnier climes. As the gusting wind blew apart carefully styled hair and the rain dampened cardigan-clad bodies (no coats, scarves, hats. ::sigh::), we quietly despaired.

Good thing the church was so nice (we had a sit-down tea, complete with tea sets and little sandwiches), and the acoustics so grand (it was, by far, the best Classics concert we’ve given; even singing hymns in that sanctuary must be wonderful). The minister was, amusingly, from Texas, which we heard in his first twangy words, as he remarked that the weather “separated the men from the boys,” we thought, “Oh, yes, not a phrase one hears in Scotland much at all.” All in all, despite starting out so drenched and gloomy and windblown, it wasn’t a half-bad day after all.

The rain does mean that Scotland is giving us QUITE a send-off — it’s easier to have no regrets about leaving a place when it’s in the low forties and one is being lashed with freezing rain, is it not? It snowed in Aberdeen this week, but elsewhere –somewhere — Spring is happening, and with it come new thoughts and new places… and…

New words: no matter that we’re set to be leaving these shores in three weeks, there are still new and useful Ulster-Scots words coming up in conversation — skelf is the latest, which is a splinter. Not just any splinter, mind — these are the wee and nearly invisible sort which torture and annoy. (Wean is not a new word… but it might be a new pronunciation for you – think we’uns.)

And, lest you think the learning is going all one way, D’s coworker, Thing 1, asked a rather conversation stopping “what’s molasses?” the other day, whilst the two of them were discussing baking bread. This bemused D. for quite some time until he remembered that treacle is a cousin of our molasses, and what Thing 1 would be more familiar with. It’s not, of course, the same, but that’s neither here nor there…

And so, we spend our last few weeks here, exploring another tiny piece of Scotland. Kilsyth is wee – the whole town of the downtown is maybe about a mile across, and there are rows of houses on the hills. We truly are in Antonine’s backyard, as the Antonine Wall is little over a mile to the north of the town.

We’re staying in a stylish little place – a house which has sat empty on the market for eighteen months, which has been hastily equipped with necessities so we can live here – and even have a few friends over (sitting on the floor) for some last quiet farewell dinners. And the farewells keep coming – we’ve laid out a calendar and have tea meetings, lunches, brunches and suppers all the way to the weekend before we depart. T. is being fêted by her section the Tuesday after the concert, and is looking forward to hearing stories of what they’ll be getting up to this summer — which she’s dubbed “the Second Sessions.” The plan is for the second sopranos to be taking group voice lessons all summer (with wine and cheese, of course) in preparation for the coming choral season and the German tour. Some good times will be had, which she will be sad to miss.

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” – Maya Angelou

And as we prepare for that very last concert of the season, our director gave us the exciting news of a trip to Leipzig Germany, planned for 2013! We have been asked to go along as “augmenters,” the helpful choir “ringers” who show up for a couple of rehearsals and the performance, and who really must chug along through learning a piece on their own. In this case, it will be fairly simple, as the performance pieces for our trip are the Mendelhsson’s Elijah we’re preparing to perform next week, and the Rossini Petit Messe we performed last year — and we have our own scores for everything already. One always finds out the nitty-gritty about a person when one travels with them – we’ll certainly have all manner of things revealed about our fellow singers, mainly how quickly we’ll all be brushing up on our German! (For some of us [T] this is already a lost case.)

So, things are continuing to fall into place. Though we’ve not yet heard from the UKBA, the University has put rescinding our visa application into action, and we expect to hear from them any day now about the retrieval of our passports. For now, we are striving to wring the least bit of enjoyment out of every moment, and carve cool and misty memories of this place into our minds.

That’s about what it looks like.

Normal service to resume shortly…

Two weeks ago, T. sent a friend a card. From the post box at the end of the block. Upon the occasion of his deceased father’s birthday, so there was, you know, some timeliness involved in things.

He got the card, stamped April 25, last week. The box is routinely picked up from, so our best guess is that it was held in the sorting facility for awhile. For some reason.

TODAY T. received a package stamped MARCH 30 from the States. It was filled with Easter candy, and the score to an arrangement of a lovely Easter song. Which might have been useful, you know, at Easter.

So, so, SO OVER the postal service in this country. If you are of a mind to send baby announcements, recipes, books, stickers, socks, baby teeth, peppermint pigs, or letters, PLEASE refrain until we have established another home base. Which we’ll be able to confirm for you shortly. We are deathly afraid of Scotland losing anything else.

And then, five minutes later…

This is the sight quite frequently seen these days from a train window – the weather in flux. That lovely bright sky and all of those clouds scudding by can, with a breath’s notice, reform into a storm front, dump an inch of hail, and then, go back to their wee separate little cotton-ball-ic states. And we, in the fishbowl of offices and vehicles watch the transformation happen again and again. Flux. Change. Nothing stays the same.

This is to update many of you to what’s going on in our lives. First, thank you to those of you who have indicated that you will NOT be “asking the question,” that is, “where are you going?” which has lately been amended to include the phrase, “what will you do?” As promised, as soon as we have an answer to that question, we’ll let you know. In the meantime, even asking our parents and siblings is not going to garner you a response; they don’t know either.

What facts we do know are these: a.) Our biometric data will be taken on May 1. After that point, we may assume that the UKBA will AT LONG LAST release to us again our passports so that we can leave the blessed country. b.) On May 15th, we will be out of the house wherein we currently reside, as it has sold from beneath us. AGAIN. We’ll draw a veil over our kvetching on that score, and the question of where we’re going. We have friends, they have couches. c.) D. will at some point find a job which both interests him and pays well. Until that time he will work at the one he has, until he reaches the end of his contract in June, and we d.) board the plane the first week in June, and go home to the top half of our former State.

No, we don’t know how long we can stay. No, we don’t know if we’re moving back to the Bay Area. Yes, it is a shame about the economy and the job situation, and yes, we can discuss this with you as long as we could discuss the weather with a Scottish person but unfortunately we’ve found talking about it effects just as much influence on it as one has on the weather. Yes, we are a bit stressed; this has freaked us out and made us feel pushed and frantic, motion sick and heartsick and that everything is going by in a blur. Yes. Thank you. We will cope. There are on offer no other options…

Though we said that Easter was our “last hurrah,” and after that we’d pack, last weekend we had company as well. Slowly, our friends are coming by to spend quiet time with us – or inviting us to theirs “before things get frantic.” (Well, we think it’s a bit late for that one.) Many goodbyes are being said, which is just casting a slight tinge of melancholy over the inevitable, as we not only wonder where we’re going, but who we’ll have when we get there. Strange to think we’ve been in Scotland now for four years and eight months. We will be leaving just shy of year five.

Doesn’t seem possible it could have been so long, does it?

This weekend is a big concert for which we feel sure we’d be perfectly ready if only we had one more rehearsal – well, one more rehearsal which wasn’t dress rehearsal with an additional children’s choir, soloists, and full orchestra. Adding to the slightly manic air of fun at the Abbey this weekend will be the presence of a producer from BBC’s Radio 4, who will be interviewing singers for the mini-program for Inside Health, a section this time with the eminent Dr. McCartney, otherwise known as “our superb second soprano, Margaret.” T. has been specifically asked for an interview since she has a “lovely accent,” so will endeavor to do her best to sound as Californian as possible. (Since even Scottish people are remarking on her phrasing with, “Ooh, that sounded Scottish, you’ve been here to long, luv,” she is a little cranky and will probably say, “Like,” and “whatever,” and “random” a great deal, just to polish up her Americanisms.) The purpose of the piece is to explore the mind-body connection between singing and living well, as well as some of the social benefits of choral singing. We’ve talked about this before with friends – vanishingly rare are the congregational experiences in a life. Where do people gather in groups to do something together: church? the movies? well, not really, that’s fairly passive. Sooo, outside of church and dance classes, where everyone is participating, — ? there’s not much. So, we’re thinking of how best to share what we have gained in these years of music – what it gave to us as strangers in a strange land, and now it has kept us focused on the things we have in common. (Hmm. It seems we have a thesis thought…)

And after that, we’re going to sing our hearts out and knock this concert out of the ballpark, to use a totally random Americanism. ☺

To recap: we are still as clueless as we’ve been for the last several months, only we’ve gotten as sick of saying so as we’re sure you are of hearing it. Hundreds of resumes later, the interviews are few and unproductive. D. has abandoned the idea of academia in favor of returning to industry, but with his new status, he’s looking toward a different sort of job. T. has every confidence that he’ll find something interesting. Meanwhile, T’s challenges have expanded to somehow doing her own writing, waiting for a release this May, plus volunteering to collaborate on a screenplay for her last book. At this juncture, what seemed a great idea has been reduced to a big pain, but someday, maybe we’ll look back at all of this as A Story we can tell, and all of the sharp edges of worry and impatience and aggravating and “what was I thinking!?!?” will be sanded smooth by time. It will be a Ferry Tale, of how we once again loaded up our hearts and traversed over water between this point in our lives, and the next. And you will all laugh in the right places.

In the meantime, our conveyance is approaching the dock, and we have boxes to fill, and our house to set in order. Bear with us, we’ll send up a flare as soon as we know what direction the boat is going.

In Chaos,

D&T

P.S. Congratulations to our friend Van, who this week has one more son than he had the last. That kind of addition is the best math in the world.

So many things surface in our day-to-day, to bring a smile. Smiles aren’t hard to come by, if you’re paying attention. Sometimes, though, it’s hard to pay attention. Wednesdays bring the relief that one is midway through the week, but either the thought is “almost over” or “is this ever going to be over???” If you’re in the latter frame of mind, hold on. It really is almost done.

Still slightly hung over from guests and excess sugar at Easter. Regular service to resume shortly.

Beneath Thy Cross

AM I a stone, and not a sheep,
      That I can stand, O Christ, beneath thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy Blood’s slow loss,
      And yet not weep?

Not so those women loved
      Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
      Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the Sun and Moon
      Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon–
      I, only I.

Yet give not o’er,

      But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
      And smite a rock.

~ Christina Rossetti

Because he is a big old astronomy nerd. At all times. About everything. Which is as it should be.

Meanwhile, it is snowing dreamily, big, fat, white flakes drifting aimlessly, sticking to the backs of the sheep. It feels like we’re in a fishtank, and there are bubbles falling instead of rising. This is the forecast for the next two days – twenties and thirties and snow.

If feels like last week never happened.

Well, yes. From the title of this post, you might have sensed that the Odyssey is now at an end. D has fought a good fight, and finished the course; the corrections have been accepted, and it’s all over but the signatures on the sheepskin (we can only hope it’s not a real sheep). While T. wanted to plan a party, she has her work cut out for her. “No toasts, no speeches, nothing but food, and only a few people,” has already been stipulated. As to the next question,

“And what are you going to do now?”

“We’re going to… ” You will not be given the traditional post-Superbowl response. D said, “We’re definitely not going to Disneyland. Maybe Epcot.” All right, all right, we’ll have to make do with that. It kind of has a ring to it. “We’re going to Epcot!!” Okay, yes.

(We’re going, eventually. After we find a job. And have, you know, money. And stuff. All of which is infinitely easier to come by should you be able to tell employees that you’ve actually finished your schooling.)

Thank you to all of you who have hung in there and kept D. in your thoughts. And to those of you who knew he would eventually prevail – of course, you were right. Thank you for being on hand to keep reminding him, whilst T. kicked him in the bum.

(It’s so good to be the one writing this without actual oversight.)

For those who have been dying for a peek, here’s the Advanced Readers Copy. Next week it will be hard bound (with hand-tooled gold on leather bindings? No? ::sigh::) and a copy given to the University library, and one for the department. We are not having a copy made for us, we don’t think; we are currently of two minds about it, as it seems to some of us as rather conceited. On the other hand, there’s always a need for something to stack beneath a computer monitor…

Please note: it is a PhD dissertation, by American standards, but in the UK it’s known as a doctoral thesis. The paper adheres to British spelling, which means D’s spelling may be atrocious for the rest of his life, as he wonders about adding additional vowels and “zeds” instead of z’s. Oh, well. At least no one is grading him. Ever, ever again.

Sometimes Scotland has these achingly beautiful days, which make you practically weep at the thought of leaving it.

With the slush and wet abating for two glorious days, we had a nice amble round the town this weekend. We got out and communed with the lambs, checked out each little flower that opened, and remarked on the swelling buds of the trees. We even checked out the lawn daisies, and engaged in a spirited argument as to whether or not they’re German chamomile… they’re not; the foliage is wrong, but they’re still enchanting, and we love seeing them as a true Spring harbinger every year.

Little leaves, opening stickily.

In the midst of the cemetery, there was even a tree with a few open blooms. Shocking, for March.

After a busy week, with a lot of last-minute additional corrections for D., and minor revisions and getting a novel out the door for T., a weekend of sunshine, good rambles, a lot of sneezing, unfortunately, was what was needed. We reveled in a sense of real relaxation, and at times, some of us clearly did not know what to do with ourselves. The first weekend D. has had off for – literally – years, where he didn’t have some paper or some correction waiting for him. To celebrate, he invented the six hour nap, followed by dinner, and, unsurprisingly, bed. He expects to be much better at filling his free time next weekend. (T. hopes so, although she skipped the nap and made a lasagna and a pot pie, surprising even herself.) Despite the (horror) knowledge that once again a house we’re letting is being sold from under us (big, deep sigh), we’re in a good mental space. We hope you had at least an hour wherein you did nothing this weekend but what you absolutely wanted – whether in snow, slush, or sun.

Happy Week.