It is a mid-April storm day outside and in, a day fraught with fears for some and meaning for others. 23 degrees now at noon, up one degree from early this morning. At least the blow has eased a bit. My wind chill is 15 degrees. Snow is starting to slant through in waves, forming small piles against any vertical surface in its path.
The insert stove has been blowing hot air all morning, it's firebox radiating and catalytic converter glowing bright. This main room is up to 64 degrees. It'll maybe reach 68 or 69 by this evening, especially if the winds lay down.
Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas wail out Josefin's Waltz on the stereo, a song I have been working to learn on my guitar. He on fiddle, she on cello. They are among the world's very best acoustic players, and their instruments dance back and forth in a swaying tide of emotion. They play harmonizing variations to the simple melody at the same time, each playing a third or fifth off the melody line. Yet somehow, when wound together in a lover's embrace, the simple melody manifests itself clear and strong. Close your eyes and it pulls you into its magical darkness where the beauty of existence flows throughout your body until it fills your mind and heart to near bursting.
I am overtaken by emotion. My skin has grown quite thin in the face of stirring emotion ever since the death of my wife, and today, as it inevitably does on every day like this, however rare now, my thoughts and feelings fly to her.
-- How does one express tears on a page? --
She was light in a dark world, and the simple act of her presence filled rooms with smiles. So far from perfect, like all of us, she nevertheless could lift spirits young and old with a fleeting grin. Such an amazing gift. So unique and rare. So missed by so many.
Joan and I were married for nine years. Among the many things she brought to my life, perhaps the most significant is how she untethered whatever psychological restraints and bounds I had grown up with, allowing me for the first time in my life to stand tall and stretch myself into challenges that had seemed until then far beyond me. She somehow walked me down a path to myself, and having arrived, I know the comfort she showed me manifests itself in my having fully opened to my potentials. I miss her so.
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Like most music we are familiar with, Josefin's Waltz follows a familiar structural pattern. It has two parts, an "A" part and a "B" part. Each part has 8 measures, and each part repeats itself twice before the song moves on to the next part. So, 2xA, then 2xB, then repeat, OK? The only twist is that after the second "B" part, a "tag" is thrown in before starting back into the "A" part. The tag, in this case, has 8 measures as well, and carries the melody from the lofted finish of "B" back down to the powerful beckoning of "A."
If you want to picture Josefin's Waltz in your mind, then even though you might not know what this beautiful melody sounds like, try the following:
We'll start with the "A" part.
Here's the scene. You are looking down on a small valley in the hills, at the foot of a big mountain. It's early morning before dawn, dark shades of blue and grey blanketing the world with a muting stillness. The air is thick with a soaking fog. It's a steep-sided valley, narrow and tight, with grasses covering the hillsides beneath the interspersed stands of oak and pine trees, shadowing all in various hues of gunmetal blue. A whispering stream runs through the valley floor and beneath an arching bridge of stone. Down near the water's edge sits a squat little structure of rock and timbers. The surrounding mountain ridges look down upon the valley, hints of the sun's rays teasing the highest pinnacles of granite and snow. A first glimmer of firelight flicks from inside the dark house, then jumps to and fro on the thick window jambs, until finally settling into a rebellious flicker.
The melody begins, a solo, somber cello, down near the water's edge, just above the riffles and runs of silvery darkness spilling through the mist. The notes are long and waveringly steady as they roll with the fog. They lift up over the water and across the bank and berry vines in the first three notes, climbing, still, sailing across the somber forest tops for a note or two and then, with a smooth roll, sweeping left back down past the bridge and mist and over the water again. A slight lift of the wing, then a drop right down to the surface, rushing over it now, the spray wet against your face. And then sweeping up toward the warmth of that little flickerlight, the morning awake at last and stretching, looking up to the higher peaks and the brightening day. Here ends the first repetition of part "A." That's the first 8 measures. And then the repeat of "A" all over again, the second time through, only this time, Alasdair's fiddle joins the somber tones of the cello, lifting the melody out of the dark night and into the first warm rays of the sun bright on the snow and rock above. Trailing the depths behind, soaring up, it too raises its eyes to the bright peaks and the "B" part of the melody just ahead.
The sun's warmth pours down the mountainsides above, liquid illumination spilling into the morning. The mists dissolve below, but you're already far above the lower slopes of this mountain rampart. The great pines wave gently, bowing their tops as you pass. You are a soaring eagle, with the forest spread below now, ice, snow and rock, all your domain. Your wings are strong, the muscles joyous in their labor. Soaring, floating, sweeping round and pulling strong, you loft upward, responding to every note unfolding below you. Then, in acknowledgment of things deeper and broader than you understand, things pulling you back, you spiral down, down, down in a dance of rhythmic power and grace, down over the forest's crown and grasses below, gliding to greet the day's wildflower bloom on the riverbanks ahead. And alighting at the edge of mud and grass, skipping your penetrating gaze across the silvery flow, you look up and through the warm cottage windows and blink your eyes. The wood stove glows again. Day slowly fades into evening, a few hatched wigglers taking wing in the soft light across the water, and then night, and damp, and hushed blue blankets all.
This, then, is Josefin's Waltz.
_____
Seven years she's been gone, now. Her spirit lives on in two granddaughters who will never fully know her love for them, in the gentle souls of her son and daughter, and all of us who are so blessed to have been shaped into who we are, in part, by this loving and fine woman.
It looks like the sun is breaking through outside. Everything is looking brighter.
-gmm
This was a lovely post, Bill. Can we have more?
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