It was unusually quiet when the dog and I walked this morning. Scarcely any vehicles on the roads. No snow on the ground or reliable ice on the pond, so no kids building snowmen or sledding or skating or even just generally whooping it up. The lack of snow underfoot meant no creaks or squeaks with the dog’s and my footfalls. The leaves and random bits of undergrowth that twined in his fur were old and sodden and made no noise. We made our way in companionable silence.
My friend Janice is quite taken with that term, she told me once on our way to somewhere together. It’s a comfortable quiet, rooted in ease and long acquaintance. No words may pass between you for a while, but any words you’d care to speak would be welcome and acceptable. It is enough just to be in each other’s company.
Daughter Number Four came for Christmas. We chatted, of course, but said nothing of great import. We put together a Christmas puzzle and watched The Bishop’s Wife. We were in our own little family bubble and happy to be there, content and with people we love.
D#4 asked at one point, apropos of internal soundtracks, if I ever had a line from a song pass through my mind that wasn’t the opening line, and had to work my way back to the beginning to figure out what the song was. Absolutely. All the time. Our minds seem to pop up what we need to hear, and it’s up to us to trace it back to its origins and follow it through to the end.
It had just happened to her with a line from “Angels We Have Heard on High,” she reported. From there, the conversation moved to preferred pronunciations of “in excelsis Deo.” And shortly we were listening to how the King’s Singers and the Tabernacle Choir dealt with excelsis. And the groups’ versions of other Christmas music, and other groups’ versions as well.
A recording of a John Rutter album, conducted by John Rutter, led at length to my husband’s glancing up from his book and asking, “Are you just playing the same song over and over? It all sounds the same.” We laughed and explained and moved on to non-Rutter recordings. After a few more comments, my beloved went back to reading. We were content together.
As Rascal and I walked this morning, in the unusual quiet, I mused also on the stillness you have with yourself. It may or may not be pleasant in your own little bubble, as you muse on happy memories or ponder what must be pondered. One of the ministers at our church, in her benediction after a service, urges quiet, “for God may speak in a whisper.”
Now is when we remember all the Christmas Eve services in Carol’s little church, a company of the faithful gathered in the northern Michigan cold and darkness to mark the birth of a baby, listening to the familiar words and singing the familiar carols, as our daughter plays the organ and moves yet another minister to tears with an achingly beautiful solo during the quiet of communion.
When D#4’s selection of Christmas music during her recent visit yielded “Still, Still, Still,” we remembered another night, when she was in high school. Her choir had been invited to perform at the City Club one evening of the Christmas season. The weather was intense, the kind of winter terrible where everyone in the car is quiet so the driver can hear what the tires are doing on the road, and everyone exhales when arriving safely at the destination.
The parents and audience watched and listened as the kids sang together, a light in the darkness. The piece the three of us remember above all others was, “Still, Still, Still.” The lyrics continued, “you can hear the falling snow,” and we could. The kids sang us a bubble, and we were all inside it with them, and no one, audience or performer, would ever be quite the same.
The performers remember another side of that evening as well. Unknown to us, the young people so close together on the City Club’s little stage were, quite literally, clinging to one another. They had their hands gripped to the backs of each other’s uniforms. The stage was too small for the group, and hanging on was the kids’ only way to keep each other from falling off the stage. Depending entirely on each other, they produced the most beautiful bit of singing I’ve ever heard.
I wish you stillness this Christmas. Still, still, still.
27 December 2024