Intimations of mortality

Earlier this week, I felt the warmth of the sun for the first time this year. By Friday, though, the sun was washed out by a nest of grey, shining though with a silvery-white spotlight.

It's cold. The coffee-shops and restaurants have fewer customers. I don't see as many cars on the street, although there seem to be more cyclists, who may be avoiding public transit. Next-to-no dog-walkers. Poor dogs.

With the announcement that the Prime Minister's wife is infected with COVID-19, and is in "self-isolation" with the PM and their three children, things began shutting down. One of the first institutions in Victoria to go was the Symphony, understandably, given the median age of its subscribers.

Fortunately for us, our tickets for this season were used up in early February, back when the news was all about impeachment and Brexit. (Good times.)

It was the eve of Demeter's big birthday, which had put us all in mind of our own respective mortalities. Then the Resident Fan Boy and I went to hear a "Naked Classics" version of Tchaikovsky's Pathétique Symphony (No. 6). This is an event where the first half is a dissection of the work, while the second half is the piece itself.

The Pathétique Symphony was one of the pieces I studied when I indulged myself in a Music Appreciation course, when I was studying for a diploma in Applied Linguistics, and sneaking in electives for which I'd had no time when doing my undergraduate degree.

I haven't listened to the Sixth Symphony in years, but mainly remembered the four highly recognizable themes of each movement: the "footsteps of fate" closing of the first movement, the 5/4 faux waltz of the second movement, the frantic 6/8 scherzo overlaying the third movement, and the "sobbing" strings of the fourth.

When I was taking the course years ago, the received wisdom was that Tchaikovsky committed suicide shortly after this symphony premiered in October 1893, by deliberately drinking contaminated water and dying, horribly, of cholera. Apparently, they're not so certain of that anymore.

Our host, accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation, and live demonstrations of his points from the Victoria Symphony, went through Tchaikovsky's "plan" for the symphony: Life-force - Love - Disappointment - Death. The strings demonstrated that the descending main theme in the fourth movement is, in fact, a sort of trompe d'oreille, created by the first and second violins playing completely different melodies. Our attention was also drawn to the beating-heart effect in the same movement -- which eventually slows and stops. In performance after intermission, the lights dimmed, and the orchestra disappeared into darkness.


It's so odd re-visiting this symphony after first experiencing it as a twenty-something, when I found it just a bit over-the-top. Hearing it again all these years later, I appreciated it, recognized it, yet found it profoundly sad and disturbing. The pushing insistence of Life, followed by the falling short of one's dreams, and the descent into death. Cuts a bit close, these days.

I'm not sorry I went, but am somehow grateful that I didn't get it in my twenties. That would be profoundly sad and disturbing indeed.

On the conveyor belt

Yesterday, I took my first bus ride into Esquimalt in several years.

Esquimalt, the community beyond Vic West across the Johnson Street Bridge, is the municipality where I spent my adolescence and my first years as a young married.

I used to take the #23 bus to trundle down the length of Esquimalt Road, but now it's the #15 Express, which, in the opposite direction, can take you all the way to the University of Victoria. I sure could have used that when I was a student.

The Resident Fan Boy and I rode past divider islands that run down the centre of the road, planted with flowers and trees. Those certainly weren't around when we lived there.

Some of the stretches are depressingly the same; other stretches have been condo-ized and still others shopified, so bits of Esquimalt look like the busier bits of Shelbourne.

However, the sorts of people clambering on and off the bus are much as I remember - elderly and clearly struggling (in every sense), young and gritty (also in every sense).

So many memories - interrupted by the astonishment of unfamiliar buildings, fronted by mature trees, reminding us how very long we've been away.

We were on our way to a so-called Celebration of Life, so-called because the gentleman in question died a month ago, and this post-funeral/memorial-service gathering accommodated his far-flung family.

The bus took us to the very western edge of Esquimalt. Despite my long history of living in the municipality, I'd never been beyond the south end of Admirals Road, where I'd ridden my bike to junior high, and where the taxi took me when I was in labour with elder daughter.

So we rode deep into "Pongo-land", and alighted by the blue waters of Esquimalt Harbour, making our way up the volcanic rock where the Ward Room sits, with its million-dollar view (well, millions of dollars, these days) out over Juan de Fuca Strait.

The man we'd come to remember and honour had been one of the RFB's very first bosses, and he, along with his business partner, had been a kindly older gentleman of the same vintage as my father - except with honesty and integrity -- are those sour grapes? (Vintage? Grapes? Get it? Oh, never mind.)

The widow seemed truly touched we'd come, and we told it was our pleasure, and meant it.

On our way home, the Resident Fan Boy was contemplative.
"It's just that...they're gone ..."
"...and the conveyor belt rolls on," I finished.

Yep. So many reminders that afternoon of the relentless passage of time.

This isn't going to get any easier.

The luxury of boredom

 Tomorrow, I'm planning what I hope will be a series of "Hit-the-Ground-Running Days".  Younger daughter finishes classes this Thursday, with an exam on Friday, a recital on Sunday, and a school play on Tuesday.  The following week, we depart for our annual retreat to Victoria, and an acquaintance will be sleeping over in early August to care for the Accent Snob which means I've got to do something about this house. So this is a fine month for NaBloPoMo.  But I already knew that.  It's been worse.

As a place-holder for the actual post on which I'm working, I offer this from the group Jets Overhead from Victoria, mainly because it smacks of my teenage summer memories of the same.  I was never that pretty or popular, but I do remember peasant blouses and cut-offs as well as being young enough to afford the luxury of boredom, which requires much more time than I'll ever have again.  The houses here are rather more suburban and up-scale than my haunts; however, the scenery is very familiar and typical of Vancouver Island.  The song is quite listenable too: