Going back while waiting to go forward

 With the New Year here I plan to start writing in this space again, although at first likely not on a weekly basis as before.  It has been a slow process for me to return to anything resembling normalcy of course, so for now I will content myself with simply contributing some thoughts as they happen, usually on an occasional basis.

A long tradition for New Year's Day evening for Sophie and sometimes for me was to tune in to WNED-PBS to watch the annual New Year's Concert from Vienna.  For years we would watch the late Walter Cronkite host it, later Julie Andrews and now Hugh Bonneville of Downton Abbey fame.

Of course I tuned in this year, for Sophie, and the cats and I snuggled as we watched the music play out as it always does.  I noted social distancing at play in the audience of course, with masks present for audience members as well they should be.  Yes, that gilded hall was not full to capacity again this year but those who attended were bound and determined to get their Viennese fix to start the year.

I noted though the orchestra members were not socially distanced and there were no masks on those that could while still playing their chosen instrument.  It's funny how you notice these things now and although from a safety standpoint the optics were bad, I am sure the powers that be made sure they did what they could to ensure the musicians' safety.

As always the concert was a pleasure to watch.  I know a lot of the music is heard year after year, particularly the last two encore pieces, On The Beautiful Blue Danube by Strauss the younger and the Radedsky March by Strauss the elder.

There were some tantalizing diversions though, such as a collection of the short dances by Beethoven, which prompted me afterwards to dig my copy of the complete set out of my CD collection to listen to the following day.

After that bright and happy start to the New Year, I started searching through the collected shows still on our PVR of earlier concerts and I found two:  the New Year's concert from 2020 as well as an open air summer concert from 2019.  Before I touch on those, though, a bit of a technological diversion here.

We acquired our PVR in 2018 as part of the package of phone/television/internet services provided by our chosen supplier, currently Bell.  It took awhile for Sophie to get used to the channel changes and such but she got up to speed far quicker than I did, as she did with the PVR operation as well.  I sometimes simply gave up and handed the remote to her to figure out.

Thankfully I am more or less up to speed now that I am on my own.  With no opposable thumbs the two cats are no help at all...

But it wasn't always that way around here.  Sophie was what you might call a slow adopter of new technology.  We for years simply made do with rabbit ears for television reception until digital signals rendered that practice obsolete.  We started years ago with basic analogue cable which upped our channel selection from about 10 to something like 34.  Sophie was like a kid in the candy store going through the remote and saying repeatedly "Oh! We get that!"

The next big advance, albeit a difficult one, was acquiring our first DVD player.  Sophie never saw the need for anything other than her trusty old VCR player that weighed a ton.  Then one January I took the $50 gift card for Canadian Tire I got at the company Christmas party to buy a snazzy new DVD player on sale in the Canadian Tire flyer.  It was $49.95.

Well.  Sophie was not amused.  "What do we need that for?" she queried.  I tried to sell her on the benefits of the then-new technology to no avail.  But then a wondrous thing happened.  About a week later at dinner Sophie admitted I had made a wise purchase and thanked me for it!  She listed all the things she could do with DVDs that were simply not doable on a VCR recorder or much more difficult.  And oh my, all that bonus material you got on the DVD too!  

She was one happy girl.  I licked my finger and marked an imaginary "one" in the air.  Score one for me!

I mention this because in hindsight Sophie quickly took to the PVR unlike anything else I had ever seen, to the point she probably would have barricaded the door should I ever try to dispose of it.

So that brings me to the collected shows still stored on the thing.  Many early ones Sophie recorded are still there and I will get to them.  Two of those were the aforementioned Viennese concerts.

The New Year's 2020 concert was quite fascinating insofar as it was mere months before the world changed due to the pandemic.  I sat there looking at that full audience, sitting side by side and never dreaming of wearing a mask, and wondered aloud if they even imagined what they were in for in mere months.  

I also wondered - hoped actually - we might be that carefree again while in a public space.  Time will tell...

I also, and this is me speaking as a man who likes to dress properly while in public, scorned more than a few male orchestra members for not having their shirt collars and ties properly done up for a concert being watched by millions around the world.  But that's just me...

The summer outdoor concert from 2019, conducted on that occasion by the young firebrand conductor Gustavo Dudamel was far more interesting on several levels.  This was my first time watching him conduct rather than just hearing him, and the fact he conducted the entire concert from memory with no score present was quite impressive.  I have often thought other conductors surely could do this on a regular basis as well.

Using a baton for most of the concert, he only deviated from this practice once on that occasion, using his very expressive hand gestures to conduct the Barber Adagio for Strings.  It was a pleasure to watch.

The entire summer concert that year was American music, save for a couple of encore pieces.  The music was universally warmly received each and every time.

But that brings me to the outdoor audience on that summer night in 2019.  I noted they were overwhelmingly younger in age, in stark contrast to what you would normally see in North America where symphony orchestra concerts appear to be largely attended by an older generation of music lovers.  Indeed, this is in Europe I told myself, where musical appreciation is much more ingrained into the national psyche in many countries.

I have written in this space many times the need for many arts organizations, not just orchestras, to find ways to lower the age demographic of their audiences if they are to survive, and this concert highlighted the need even more.

On this night, 85,000 concert goers sat on the surrounding lawns and casually dined while listening intently to the music, appreciating every piece, including that very quiet and string-filled Barber Adagio I mentioned.

Of course all ages were represented at this concert but I noted more of a younger demographic was present and that I found encouraging.  If classical and near-classical music is to survive we have to grow the audience from a young age.

During an encore that deviated from the American theme by presenting a requisite Viennese waltz, I was struck by the number of people in the audience, again many younger couples, who immediately got up, moved to an open area nearby and started waltzing with the music.  Beautifully too!  Would we ever see that here?  Perhaps, but not often I suspect.  

It was noted during the broadcast the government sponsored the event, making it a free event for the 85,000 attendees.  That might be the crux of the problem of course.  State sponsorship of the arts is far higher in Europe than it is here and that is a fact of life in North America.  But what a vivid example of what more state funding of the arts can achieve I thought!

Overall, both flashback episodes from the PVR brought back memories personal and otherwise for me, and I quietly thanked Sophie for having the presence of mind to record them for me to enjoy now.

She always knew what she was doing...

Thanks, love.

January 15th, 2022.

A New Year's Update

 On this New Year's Day 2022 I thought I would update you on my progress since my last report in this space at the end of August.  I made some promises to myself as the old year ended and I put my head on the pillow last night, and they involve increased optimism in the year just upon us.

Yes, I know COVID is still with us and is showing no signs of waning, at least not yet.  But I remain hopeful before the end of this year we might be able to see the end of this long ordeal.  But we'll see.

Amid the backdrop of that dark cloud still looming overhead, I see clearing ahead for me and I hope for you as well.

I generally don't make New Year's resolutions much.  Oh sure, the usual ones cross my mind on the final night of the calendar year:  lose weight and have more sex in the New Year.  Yeah, right.  We know how that will turn out more than likely.

But seriously, I wanted to give you something of a report card on me since my last entry here, and let you know with the dawn of a New Year I hope to finally find the wherewithal to renew my commitment to reporting on the arts in this space in the very near future.  I have missed it but to be honest, the words have not come easily to me the last sixteen months since Sophie passed away.

Sixteen months.  It hardly seems possible it has been that long and yet, there are days I thought it was an eternity already.  The norm seems to be to grieve the loss for a year after a spouse's passing and I thought that would suffice for me.  But in August last year when the year had passed, I found I was not ready yet.  Yes, I know everyone is different and I am usually slow with most things so why be any different with the grieving process...

Things gradually improved throughout the fall, although I would still find myself becoming very emotional when I least expected it, such as a fall Sunday afternoon when I would come in from doing yard work at the end of the day and I was used to hearing the TV on in the kitchen where Sophie was presiding over an amazing Sunday night dinner.  Now, I would come in and there was silence.  It hit me more than once, to the point I almost turned the TV on before I went out in the afternoon to cushion the return later on.

It's little things like that you don't always think about.  Often, it's the little things that seem to affect me the most, I find.  That being said, progress was made this fall to the point when December arrived I found I was ready to do something I didn't do at all last year:  put up Christmas decorations.

Last year, I barely even listened to Christmas music.  It was just too painful for me.  This year as has always been my custom I pulled out some of my favourites at the beginning of December, leaning heavily on choral and much less on pop Christmas music.  It just seemed an appropriate start this year.

I have not put up the big Christmas tree again this year and to be honest, I don't know if I ever will.  In the past I was tasked with lugging the behemoth up from the basement and setting it up in the stand, and then leave the decorating to Sophie.  It was not my choice not to take part; it was just understood the only way it would be done properly would be if Sophie did it.

Ahem.

Anyways, I chose to go what I call quietly elegant this year, whispering Merry Christmas rather than shouting it.  It worked for me and I think that will be the norm going forward.  I chose some of my and Sophie's favourite decorations for the house and ignored the rest, at least for now.  I changed up some things and in the end created a look that worked for me:  it respected our past and looked towards the future.

In a sense, it turned out to be an analogy for my life going forward in 2022.

I will always preserve and honour Sophie's memory as I should, celebrating her amazing life whenever the opportunity presents itself.  But now in addition to that, I feel 2022 brings with it a new opportunity to step out on my own now, reclaim my independence and state I am honouring the past while looking towards the future.

Two words define this New Year for me:  Move forward.  In everything I do now, I will move forward.

To that end, I have promised myself to do some things in this New Year I have not done up until now.  Firstly, I will celebrate myself.  That may sound odd but truthfully, I looked at what I have accomplished in the last sixteen months and I realized I am a lot stronger than anyone, including I believe Sophie, ever realized.

The day she passed away, I knew the journey in front of me would be hard, lonely and tough.  But I knew I would achieve what I had to do through my inner strength and the support of so many caring friends and family members.  Although it was not the case, some days it felt the weight of the whole world rested on my shoulders.  But I survived and here I am.

So what will change in the newly-minted year you ask?  Several things I hope.  I still have a tremendous amount of purging to do here at the house, particularly in the basement which basically looks like lighting a bomb down there could not make things much worse.

But I also want to do something I have not done much of the past almost two years, due both to COVID and my personal situation:  I want to dress up more.  The times have been few and far between when I actually put on a suit and tie and made the effort to look my best.  That for anyone who knows me is a sign things are not quite right.  I like to dress well albeit somewhat in the style of a slightly eccentric English gentleman, and even after she is gone, I still want to make Sophie proud.

I realized on Christmas Eve when I dressed for my annual Midnight Mass broadcast, donning my vintage full evening dress, I had to make several attempts at tying my white tie.  I realized it had been a year since I had last done this, and I was out of practice!  It took four attempts but I got it to look perfect, and that prompted me to do this more often as things (hopefully) improve over the course of this year.

It felt good to dress well again, and I want to make the effort going forward.  For me, and for Sophie.

The other thing I hope to embark on this year is to feel love again.  I am not all that old in the overall scheme of things I'm told and feel there is still some gas in the tank to take a chance at love again should the opportunity arise.  Indeed Sophie said she wanted me to meet someone new, but up until now I didn't feel the time was right nor was I ready.

I know COVID protocols will prevent much opportunity in the near future and that's fine with me.  But at some point I would feel ready to at least tentatively dip my toe in the tepid waters of adult dating and see what transpires.  The mere thought of dating again at my age is enough to keep me up at night and not for the right reasons, but I will cross that tricky bridge when I come to it.

But if it doesn't happen, that's fine too.  I am comfortable enough in my solitude that if this is what's in the cards for me in the future I am fine with it.  We'll see...

For now though, I am content to keep the house up, purge, hone my caveman bachelor cooking skills and be ready for better days ahead.  They are coming...for me, for you, for all of us.

Together, let's make 2022 a better year all around.  I think all of us deserve just that.

Happy New Year!

January 1st, 2022.