Sometimes when I am going to a place on the North Side I make it take longer by routing onto River Avenue, because one time the Christ appeared to me there, weeping in my car. I don’t particularly expect him to do it again but it never hurts to be reminded, and also I like avoiding traffic lights.
Today the classical station plays Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Norfolk Rhapsody. “The ‘north folk’,” explains the radio dj. “A portmanteau.”
I nod knowingly. Yes, Norfolk; a portmanteau. I was born in the Norfolk on this continent named after the composer’s Norfolk.
“The bleak Norfolk coast,” she says. Yes, I have been there too.
Just past the train tracks I pull my car off of River Avenue onto large chunks of gravel and granite. The rhapsody is swelling, building, filling the vehicle with urgency and beauty. I press with my finger the triangle of the emergency lights as clarinet harmonies, vining over the timpani’s barely discernible sostenuto, give way to a deep swelling of brass.
I don’t have a coast anymore but I have this cold river, and bleak thoughts, and spring running like a faint memory underneath my frozen ground. Coursing through the cold are hints and allegations of green. Green below, green inside, untouchable green until the sun makes its way back to this patch of earth to patch up my wintry wounds.
There is a runner each direction on the trail along River Avenue, trim and efficient. Do winter runners like the solitude? No bunnies, babies, or badly piloted bicycles to dodge in 20 degree weather. Just the body, the breath, the frozen water.
The body, the breath, the frozen water.
Vaughan Williams fought in a war, or, first, served as a stretcher bearer. He saw a fellow composer die. He manned guns and horses. Later he went about the countryside collecting folk songs and carols, preserving many of them for the first time. Was he a winter runner, listening for the music in the body, the breath, the frozen water?
I need symphonic comfort this winter. The trees are waiting, everything is waiting. This advent, this year, we are waiting for the lark ascending.
Suggested listening: Ralph Vaughan Williams, The Lark Ascending
Post 10 of Waiting: An Advent Series