Dichroic Reflections

in the tunnel

I've been downright weepy lately, I begin to realize. Not depressed: depressed is when you don't see light at the end of the tunnel. I see light, but there is a tunnel. Part of that, of course, is the same reason everyone else who follows the news is depressed; part of it is because Rudder is away; part of it is because work is medium-sucky right now; part of it is due to various things not working out like the date conflict I just discovered, the vase I broke on my way out the door at 4:30 AM yesterday morning, the traffic jam on the highway this morning, the possiblity that I won't finish the IFR this weekend, and so on. I think it's all compounded by the annual elegiac wistfulness Fall generally brings. It's not a particularly unpleasant feeling, mostly (except when I think too hard about the news from Katrina or Iraq); it's more like having a quiet sniffle over a sad story, while seated in a comfortable chair in a warm safe house with a hot cup of tea handy and a purring cat on the back of the chair.

It's also a good feeling for moving into the season of the High Holidays, which have been for me a time of looking back and forward, regretting and hoping, leading into the endings and beginnings of fall and winter: the leaves and then the snow I know are falling elsewhere, if not here, as the world goes to sleep; the thankfulness for past gifts the harvest festivals of Shavuot, Hallowe'en* and Thanksgiving symbolize; and the defiant joy-and-light-in-winter of Chanukah, Christmas, and New Year. I love Fall and the beginning of Winter.

*Yeah, I know Hallowe'en isn't meant to be about harvest and thanksgiving: work with me here. There are corn and squash and pumpkins used for decorating, and there's candy. What's that if not a harvest, for a little kid?

Seasons, events, places, and books often have soundtracks for me, especially if they evoke any sort of strong emotion. NPR news has often brought me to tears, since Katrina hit: today they were of a different sort, brought on by their playing a snippet of "How Can I Keep From Singing?" during the news. That's the song for me right now, for its stubborn glow of hope in unsettled times. Yesterday they had a story on Eliza Gilkyson's song "Requiem": it's a beautiful song and very applicable, but it's also an invocation of Mother Mary, so I could never sing it without feeling that it's really someone else's song. "How Can I Keep From Singing?" hit me without being hindered by doctrinal differences. It speaks of love and hope in difficult and dangerous times. That's what I need to hear now, that and other music of hope and regret. In fact, I'm putting on the iPod now.