IrishOboe

I’ve been running around so much I can hardly believe tomorrow is Christmas Eve.  I remember checking the advent calendar a few times a day as a kid and now I find I often miss a few days.  I have some presents from loving relatives but my room is such a disaster (robber’s den as they say in German) that I don’t really see them in the mess.  I know, I shouldn’t write about it, but clean it, but it’s either write an update or go to bed, and somehow the echo Mom’s voice carries across the ocean . . .

Though the Brits call it a pond.  I spend a good bit of coffee hour today talking with some visiting Brits and was grateful for my international experience as it helped me understand their sense of humor.  I found it interesting to hear their reasons for wanting to immigrate to the states despite having poked fun at it.  There’s nothing left in English besides family they say (and much of their family is spread all over the world: Switzerland, Canada, New Zealand, USA).  One of the chief complaints was restriction on freedom of speech and thought.  I thought that was our problem, so it’s good to see another perspective.  They also aren’t excited about “what Europe has in store for England.”  Basically, they feel like the country is being taken away from them and lost.  There never is a dull coffee hour at BCF.  The conversation was topped off by the giving of marriage advice: “Don’t go looking for a husband.  God will send you one.  He did for me.  Wait for it and you’ll have a wonderful marriage.”  I didn’t quite know what to say or think and it reminded me of the time my friend and I were walking in downtown Rochester (both of us were studying oboe at the time) and some lady got in my friend’s face and said “You were meant to teach.”  Then she turned to me and said “And you were meant to sing.”  After the shock wore off my friend said “I hate teaching.”  I can’t say I hate singing, and I believe in present-day prophecy, but I still have little confidence in her words . . .

Saturday I slept in until 9 for the first time in ages and it felt great.  Veronika had done the night shift so rather than disturb her slip with my reed squawking Stephan let me invade his apartment.  I am embarrassed to confess that that’s really the first time I’ve sat down to make reeds from gouged cane (I didn’t bring my gouger, but gouged a bunch before coming) since I arrived.  Yes, that means church functions have all been played on month old reeds.  Yuck.  I played in church today with a reed I made yesterday and wondered why I never bothered since it makes playing so much more pleasurable.  It’s good to know I can still make a reed, too.  It could all be a relaxing of a high standard, but I’ll take the satisfaction anyway.  I’m finally working at oboe since I’m getting paid to play on Christmas Day at a church and figured I better be professional about it.

Anyway, after some reeds work I biked to German for a birthday party for a gal from Kenya who is here to learn German so she can work in tourism when she goes back home.  The baby was sleeping outside in the cold nearly the whole time.  Before you call child protection services realize that the Germans think the cold is good for baby nasal health.  He came in happy and warm after several hours in the freezing temps.  Yet another cultural difference that makes me think conventional wisdom is so arbitrarily constructed!

We had dessert around a table and the conversation was in German and my ego inflated a bit since I could understand just about everything and hold my own in conversation and got some nice comments.  Fortunately, that night I went to a performance of Bach’s Christmas oratorio and my ego deflated again.  I could understand most of the recitatives, but the choruses and arias that use poetic German left me rather lost.  I failed to mention that I got lost on the way home from Germany and ended up at the French boarder.  How’s that for stupidity – try to get to Switzerland and end up in France.  Anyway, I made it back without looking at my map because I wasn’t comfortable stopping in that area of town.  Looking at the map I was so close to a familiar area.  I shouldn’t have second guessed myself.  Anyway, I met up with Stephan and Stephanie I ate a sausage at the Christmas market because I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and didn’t have time to go home to grab something do to my navigational ineptness.  We arrived to a full Münster but we still got nice seats at the side and could see half the orchestra.  I thought I wasn’t familiar with the piece, but I was wrong.  I’m familiar with it but never associated name to music, I guess because I never played it.  Anyway, I enjoyed it very much.  Listening to historical instruments play Bach in a Swiss cathedral is pretty good recompense for not being home for Christmas.  Totally incomparable pleasures, but both pleasures none the less.  The gal who hosts the German Bible study sang the alto solos and she was magnificent.  Wow.  The two Stephs enjoyed it as well and afterward we all went to Stephan’s for a late dinner.  It wasn’t too long of a concert because they only did cantatas I-III.  Today I went to IV-VI with Veronika and Aubrey, which I enjoyed even though we didn’t have as good of seats.

(Last April dad poses in front of the Rhine and the Muenster cathedral towers) 

Like I said, I played oboe in church and I love oboe more and more.  I sometimes forget that I already have a college degree and am qualified to support myself I’ve just chosen to be a poor student in an unknown field.  Eh, I’m still young, right?  Oh, since I’ve shared some struggles before I’ll share a victory.  Before church I was fixing up the reeds I’d made the day before and I tooted a bit then crowed the reed (played the reed by itself, which makes a rather shocking, funny sound if you’re not trained in what to listen for).  A passer by said “That last note needs work.”  My first reaction was a smile.  We’re talking major victory here.  I understood where he was coming from and why he thought it was worth trying to make a joke and it didn’t bother me in the least.  I know most people would wonder why it would bother me, but if you’re so insecure in your playing and so unsure that other people can enjoy it, such a comment can cause you to think any number of negative things about your playing and how other people view it.  I’ve learned that people don’t mean anything negative with comments like those, but it sure is nice to finally have my gut reaction be a positive one rather than having to fight a negative one.

So, right, moving on.  I practiced a bit with Mary after a good coffee hour and we’ll have fun on the 25^th.  We’re doing Manheim Steamroller’s version of Greensleeves and the 2^nd movement of the Marcello oboe sonata and a number of hymns.  I’m happy to play, but I’ll still be glad when it’s over and my vacation can begin!

I spent an hour or so playing Valda’s piano – she has the music to Walking in the Air!  It almost made up for the fact that I couldn’t find her hymnal.  Luckily I had some of my own music to play through, but it’s terribly evident that I haven’t played piano for a few months.

Bach uses the word “Morgenlande” when talking about the wise men from the east.  I think ‘morning land’ is a poetic word.  Morral is “Sterblicher” and “sterben” is to die so it seems to me the word means something like the “the dying one.”  I also learned that I should never think I know what a word means.  Veronika pointed to on chorus and said “This is a song (Lied).”  I thought “Uh, yeah, um, they are all songs . . .” and obviously she meant something specific since it’s a familiar hymn.  Dictionaries don’t help you in cases like these.  Just what is a “Lied?”  I’m sure that’s the kind of question that could start a 20 minute discussion involving many languages . . .

Well, that’s the scattered story of my weekend – oh and I made fudge after the concert and thought I was going to go to bed early.

“Better to have loved and lost, then to have never loved at all.” Saint Augustine

I’m not always sure I agree, but in the case of those dear ones I’ve left at home and in the case of the dear ones who have left for home the loss is bitter but sweet with the love we bear each other.

George Winston’s “December” album is also bitter-sweet.  It makes me the most homesick and of course I listen to it the most as well.  I’m too tired to wax poetic, but my love is with you all!