I spent time in the world of Franz Schubert today, the early-19th century composer who lived, in the lecturer's words, "a short life of romantic intensity." I did some singing, too--Schubert's "An die Musik"--which is about beauty and emotion and the capacity of music and language to move us into a deeper connection with our lives, ourselves, and big things that are hard to understand.
"Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? — every, every minute?" says Emily Webb in Thornton Wilder's "Our Town."
Not really, replies the Stage Manage. "Saints and poets, maybe"
Composers, too.
There was sad news coming in from many directions today. Nothing that affects me personally, but still--one needs to reflect and take it all in and figure out where this new grief fits in the world I will wake up to tomorrow. It's a world in which death is ever present, but we keep going.
Over at the Yarn Harlot, Stephanie Pearl McPhee, who lost her mother a year ago, described grief this way:
It’s like moving through mud (which is a big improvement from trying to move through cement, which is what it was like in the beginning.)
That's exactly what's it like. Thankfully we've got music and poetry—and knitting—to help us keep moving.
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