{tibi omnes}

We’re one week down from finding out that the house sold from under us. In that time, we’ve packed a bit, donated five boxes of books, one of us has been terribly ill, and the other one of us has done a lot of quiet panicking in back rooms.

Not a terribly prepossessing start for The Great Evacuation.

But, isn’t that always the way it goes; we know we have to do a thing, and we’re ready to do it, and then the universe seems to collude against us getting it done. Well, after a little panicking, we’ve tuned in and lined a few things up – a place to stay, to begin with, a shipping company, a firm willing to take the donations of the things we’d prefer to neither ship nor store. It’s coming together, slowly but surely. Mostly slowly.

We chose to get flexible plane tickets, and next Tuesday will hopefully do the last little errands which will end in us having our passports returned, and the first in a line of things to do to get the house emptied and our things on their way. So much trouble for an updated visa when we’re planning to leave the country and only return as tourists MAYBE someday, but whatever. What will be, will be. We’ve done what we need to do, and so we just have to have the patience to wait for everything else to come into line.

A fearful song/ Played by trumpets for my heart,
Oh — I have a fear of darkness.
So sing/ Your hymn of faith ’cause I have none,
Oh — Your song is my fortress…
~ Lost in the Trees, “An Artist’s Song”

This past weekend at our Paisley Abbey concert, we had a producer from BBC’s Radio 4 wandering about whilst we rehearsed. She had flown down from London for the morning, and appeared at intervals in a wool coat and scarf, smiling warmly as she lugged around what looked like a 70’s era tape recorder and two huge microphones. Lo and behold, the technology was much more up-to-date than that, and she was recording us for a podcast. Several of us were invited to be interviewed, and while they (fortunately?) cut T’s contribution from the finished product, we are really pleased with the interview as a whole. (The piece about choirs starts about seven minutes in.)

The question asked to each of the interviewees by the gracious interviewer, Margaret, was “What do you get out of singing in chorus?” And really, the song quoted above, and the words of those interviewed tells the tale: at times, the things going on in our lives simply circle. They indelibly ink themselves into a groove in our brains as we rehearse over and over our failures, our frustrations, and our responsibilities. And yet, for two hours a week, we set that aside, and try to find the internal support to hit a note, and parse out a tricky bit of timing. Nothing matters but getting the music right, and sharing a lozenge or a piece of hard candy (or, on other weeks, a dozen cookies and a box of Cadbury’s) with the people in your section and talking about what everyone is up to. For social reasons, for spiritual reasons, singing mends us. Like that other panacea, sleep, it “knits the raveled sleeves of care” and salves something basic and elemental in our minds.

For us, as Americans, we discovered that life in another Western country was still not the same as living in America. There are times when the little barbs and arrows of being separated by a shared language and culture are especially fierce, and it is with relief that we come to where we can understand things. Sure, they have quavers and semi-quavers to our whole and quarter notes, but it’s still music, it’s still a language that we speak – and if we can’t speak it, we can at least listen and make do with a hum until we can sing along.

That the music is classical is one gift, supported and surrounded by great orchestral and organ sounds. That music itself has a therapeutic impact is another thing. But, then, there’s a third aspect: the words add a deeper dimension. Alongside our agnostic friends, we sing tibi, omnes Angeli; tibi caeli et universae Potestates; Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim incessabili voce proclamant, “Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth.” – To thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth; Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of thy glory.”
These are the traditional words of the Te Deum, but there’s still nothing — nothing — like singing that in an acoustically live cathedral to raise the hairs on your arms as it echoes back over and over – as if your own voice is multiplied by angelic chorus…

This is maybe what we could have expressed, if large microphones didn’t make us incoherent. But regardless of who eventually said it where, the words are true: music really brings us to life. This is why our chorus has been so important and sustaining. And, this is why it is going to be such a wrench to leave.

Incidentally, the piece you hear repeated so tantalizingly in the interview is a phrase of the third movement of Karol Syzmanowski’s Stabat Mater, which indeed does have a lovely, floaty high A. Amusingly, T. thought that she would never learn to like the piece. And, as always happens, she returned the score with sadness, and wished yet again that she had chosen to buy it. Just as well, though – it’s time to start packing up the scores…

Meanwhile, in job news… well, there is news, at last. It’s perhaps disappointing news to those who wanted us to return to the U.S. (and we did try – scores of resumes, applications, a few first interviews, but nothing more – those who have recently job-hunted understand; you put a great deal of effort into the process, and sometimes the response is disappointingly absent), but at least we’re going to be free to travel much more (having a position which does not pay a student wage helps with this). D. has had a second interview with a Dutch company which has offices in the Antilles. While it’s in the Americas, the lands of the New World, and thus within an eight hour plane trip, it’s not America, per se. But, it’s closer to home than we are now.

Nothing is definite, as the offer letter will arrive Tuesday, but please keep a thought for us as we make decisions. Our choice will not affect us immediately – all of our possessions that we’re choosing to keep will be shipped to California regardless, and put into storage. Still, it is be a strangely freeing thing – to have less than ever before, and to have our entire lives in four suitcases – but it’s a potentially a good thing, too. We don’t know where we’re going to land, but we’re sailing forth on a trade-wind.