My retirement from Grace as music director is now public knowledge. I have agreed to continue to play the liturgies and recommend hymns until they either find a replacement or hire an interim musician. The latter is what Jen said she would do if my weekend duties went on too long.

I am receiving nothing but support from Jen and the community on this decision.

In the meantime, I do feel as though a great weight has been lifted from me. I have enjoyed being a church musician and serving Grace, but it’s not something I am passionate about by any means.

And that’s what I’m working on discerning. What are my passions at the age of 69?

I told the trio that I would need some time before I would know whether or not I want to continue meeting with them. Dawn who is retired seemed to expect this.

I had some very hopeful back and forth text messages with my lovely grand daughters. Catherine and Savannah recently. I pulled back from connecting with the California Jenkins branch when my daughter-in-law seemed to have misgivings about a conversation I asked to have with Catherine about a book she and I had both read.

Savannah called recently to ask us if we could loan her some money to buy a car (of course). In this conversation she told Eileen that everyone in her family had had Covid, Cynthia and Nicholas showing the most dire but not life threatening symptoms.

I wondered if this had anything to do with Cynthia’s behavior around my request to talk to Catherine.

Anyway, this past weekend Catherine texted me to tell me what she is going to read next. I asked her (and actually asked all of them) to let me know what they like to read and what they are reading. I was tickled to see she had purchased and was planning on reading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Likewise, Savannah texted me (actually using Catherine’s phone) that she is reading Clockwork Orange by Burgess. She and I some text discussion about Burgess, the book and the movie based on  it.

I finished reading the library’s copy of Last Poems by Hayden Carruth. This is a clever posthumous publication. Micheal Wiegers and Copper Canyon press decided to publish the last poem from each of Carruth’s previously published works along with a few  unpublished poems.

I enjoyed most of these poems. See You Tomorrow is one of the new unpublished poems in the collection that I like.  I think the idea that aging people do not approach twilight as they near death, rather

               they are entering the arcade of
Death. Flashing lights and crashing bells
Surround them, and the only darkness is
The space between the soles of their shoes
And the floor.
from See you tomorrow by H. Carruth

Carruth mentions Ezra Pound a few times. This led to me pull out my battered old copy of The ABC of Reading and start it once again.

Pound has had a huge influence on me. I was amused to find a story that I sometimes tell on the first few pages. It’s the story of the biologist Agazzi and a student.  I didn’t remember it came from reading Pound. i thought it was more likely from something like Zen Flesh, Zen Bones.

Hah.

I am doing a lot of pondering of how I plan to spend my time in retirement. Maybe I’ll blog more. Who knows?

I’m taking a break between my two morning ten minute sessions of what I call old man running I never used to think I could run to exercise. Then I saw video of Bill Clinton running as president. He did it with a minimum of effort and movement.

I think to myself, i can do that. So I have been doing twenty minutes a day of old man running in place for about two years.

I break it up into two ten minute sessions. If I’m feeling frisky I move quickly from one to the other. I am not frisky this morning.

Yesterday I played two services. At each service I performed a courante (Curant) by Scheldt and a toccata by Sweelinck.  The Sweelinck was the postlude. At each service, I was surprised that people not only hung around for the postlude, they applauded. Sweelinck is a bit showy I guess. But I wasn’t expecting such appreciation.

I like this music myself. it fits nicely on the Pasi. Plus the pedal parts are minimal which allowed me to rehearse using my little keyboard on vacation. It paid off. Most of the tricky parts (of which there a few) came off nicely.

I am not a fan of Radiolab. But I happened on to recent series they are doing about Harry Pace.

Harry Pace is part of our American music history of which I was unaware. I had wondered how we got from the awful minstrel show music to early blues and syncopated prejazz. These musics exist simultaneously.

Harry Pace was a prodigy of sorts. He learned Latin and Greek as an eleven year old. Became an assistant to W. E. DuBois in college. Met W. C. Handy while he, Pace, was working in bank. They start the first all black record label.

Although they start out as a sort of expression of DuBois’s concept that the “talented tenth” of the Black population should be evidence to the whites they were not only equal but could excel. Thus, the first recordings were of opera.

Pace stumbles onto Ethel Waters, records her, and Black Swan becomes insanely popular and sells many, many records of the blues.

So why don’t we routinely lionize Harry Pace? Radiolab has the answer. I recommend listening. Here’s a link to the first show in the series.

Back to old man running.