Life Happens…

PRELUDES:

“We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.”
Rabbi Shemuel ben Nachmani.

“We see things as we are, not as they are.”
Leo Rosten

When loneliness threatens to disturb the composition of my life, I, in solitude, more often than not, successfully shift my focus to gratitude and remembrance.

Occasionally failing, feeling trapped with a wrestling spirit, gasping or deeply inhaling to catch my breath, seeking the stillness and peace of spiritual awakenings, I withdraw into myself.  Therein resides my relationship with God, and I learn to know the essence of myself.

Whether struggling to move with the changing tempo and rhythm of my life’s happenings or feeling solitarily peaceful, I also immerse myself in the music of nature and wonderment, wherein my spirit soars in renewed or a new perspective.

During these times of earnest prayer, reflective, introspective pondering, and active seeking when I feel lost and broken, I collapse into the melody I can hear when focused on the baton of the Conductor, Composer, Creator, the Great Musician, surrendering and submitting to the symphony beyond my control.

Listening, to the perceptible, with the ear of my heart, familiar sounds echoing, I feel the power of tempo changes.
Reflections on my aloneness, more often than not nowadays, bring the words of my friend Pharid to my heart and mind.
He suggests changing my perspective by considering the following: Split the word into two parts; al-oneness: al (direct article) in Arabic means ‘the,’ effectively translating aloneness as ‘the oneness.’

Music to my ears and balm to my heart, harmony within a unity of peace composed by the Grand Musician for my listening pleasure and edification. Blessing me as I experience the trials, pains, achievements, and happiness of mortality, I receive assurances He knows me, my needs, abilities, and weaknesses. A musical masterpiece perfectly tuned and incredibly timed plays upon this mostly receptive, sometimes proud, stubborn, rebellious heart. The cadence resonates through clefs of chastisement, course corrections, encouragement, and when my choices evidence unison within the symphonic pitches of His harmonic language, comforting peace.

Solitude versus loneliness, emptiness, aloneness, sadness, and confusion
increases my need and thirst for understanding the music of my life.
Regardless, I sway into the rhythm I feel and hear, dancing.

This perspective is where I write from, inspired by my experiences, perceptions, and carefully chosen instruments (people I encounter) in God’s hands.

“Words are to an experience like a photograph is to the eyes.”
Vicki Nicholls

NOTES:

Words cannot do justice to this voyage of learning, discovery, heartache, love, and immense peace
(which has been with me continually when hampered by winds blowing from extremely dark places)
over the last six years.
I hold everything in my heart and struggle to write for public consumption.
So much I consider intensely personal, cherished treasures and solemn, sacred experiences.

Long before the curtain or the conducting baton rises to signal the overture, careful preparation, staging, and design evoke an environment for the masterful unfolding of an exquisite experience for the curious, insecure, eager, receptive, and appreciative heart. Towering palatial-like columns support beautifully constructed archways and entrances to chandelier-lit hallways showcasing dancing light and shadows upon white-washed walls. One alone hears the unheard and sees the unseen, a creation in embryo, encased by water in the perfect chamber.

For years, the accompanying reverberations in the great hall of life, with its vast vaulted ceiling and a magnificent curtained tapestry woven in friendship echo, span time and space. Let me tell you of a composition written on a royal scale. I invite you to sit while a few selections from the incredible musical staged on my contemplative voyage contribute to the making of a masterpiece, all in my heart.

Chambers of my heart, perfectly designed for quantum acoustics, a serenade, an anthem, and the applause-induced ovation, absorb every imaginable note into their fibrous receptors, especially some enticing tones reverberating with acceptance, echoing until finding their resting place in a peaceful waltzing rhythm.

Once upon a time, God, the Grand Musician, in His wisdom, began composing symphonic notes to an orchestral-scored masterpiece. Careful timing of variations in tempo, intensity, amplification, melody, and mood created interest, curiosity, and connective serenading moments between a widow and a chef; Vicki and Joseph, receptive hearts; instruments in His hands, a miraculous, timeless, edifying symphony for two.

MUSICAL MASTERPIECES: Compositions in My Heart

February 4, 2017 — While on the Serenade of the Seas, a red t-shirt catches the eye of a curious chef leading to an impromptu question-and-answer dinner experience when he initiates a conversation with the two guests at their chosen table. Words uttered by the chef touch one heart like the perfectly placed fermata, a signal to hold the note: life happens.

From that evening onward, throughout the ensuing days, the chef finds the daughter and widow, always in the same Windjammer area, portside, with one noteworthy exception, the opposite side at a starboard table. On that night, the three chat before taking pictures. Asking if the women had finished eating and assured they were, his invitation to follow him, accepted inquisitively, leads them through a closed area to an outdoor theatre. Under the interlude of a magical Caribbean starlit-domed ceiling, time standing still softly echoes the music of water trails, white against black, stretching below and beyond while Orion draws his bow. The three stand gazing and talking, the youngest a little further removed from the chef and widow, leaning on the railing, close beside each other until his phone rings, and he must return to his duties.

Febrary 13, 2017 — During a quick breakfast, as this musical masterpiece nears completion, he arranges to meet for a goodbye and provides his email before they must disembark. Rushing to the Schooner Bar, he approaches as the widow smiles, stands up, and feels a very unexpected urge to hug the chef, which she does. At the gangway disembarking area, surprised to see him again, their eyes meet. She feels a pang and desire, like a serenade begging for a listening ear. An instrumental composition written for a small ensemble, with the raising of the baton, opens a chamber in the heart to the unbelievable, impossible to the finite mind, relationship between a Sous Chef and a widow.

A language barely understood, except as an indiscernible, though somehow, a familiarity of recognizable whisperings, creates a melody humming in my soul. Within the song of cresting, frothy waves, I hear in the rushing, rising waters enticement, desire, and an overpowering sense that I must write to him. Hesitantly at first, unable to resist the urge, I cautiously dive, swimming into the rhythm of its notes. I feel the spray touch and seep through my skin. A voyage begins. Into depths unforeseen, total immersion, the heart of my vessel gently rocks and reels. What happened? Life and the hand of God!

October 28, 2017 — Embarking to visit, for the first of my contemplative voyages, knowing only my friend, now Executive Sous Chef Joseph, I inhale deeply with nervous excitement. Months of correspondence lead to rhythms flowing through me. I sense a composition playing an Anthem in my heart.

Understanding his limited availability to visit, I convinced myself that using my time in reflection, planning, and being content with a wave and a few very brief conversations during the week while he works sustains the music playing in my heart, with no other hopes. Suddenly and unexpectedly, my airplane mode, wifi-enabled phone signals a text from him with news, an untimely fermata, at least for me. Now in holding thoughts, the note sustained, over-ruling my anticipation, I park. Getting into my shuttle near the cruise port, I lose myself in the wisdom or foolishness of my ears and heart. Slowly my feet take me up the gangway. One note resonates. How long can it last? When will the conductor move his baton so my bated breath can exhale? Accepting it as part of a musical masterpiece, into the Windjammer, I go, following my racing heartbeat in anticipation.

A table found, luggage stowed, I look and, from his back, feel the baton shifting in the air, recognizing the chef. Now with me standing beside him, he quickly turns his head once, then twice, and with a smile that causes his dimple to sink into his cheek, he puts aside the tray of food in his hands and says, Vicki! The chef greets me with a most welcoming hug. I smile, encompassed by his arms, as the single note fades with the addition of two instruments, then three, the anthem of friendship, written into the symphony, and the orchestra plays.

November 13 – December 4, 2019 — What makes a symphony worthy of an ovation? Crescendoes of friendship, a hint of a love story? As the orchestra plays, my contemplative voyage continues, this time visiting with him from Australia through the straits of southern New Zealand and onward as the instruments, following baton movements signalling dynamics and pitch, rhythm and tempo.

My soul reaches to explore, beyond visible space, wishing to climb mountains and soar under the clouds drifting across the expanse. I recognize a hauntingly sublime refrain quietly orchestrated, emanating from a hidden source of life behind cascading waterfalls, touched by the composition. “It would be so wonderful to share this time with a special someone,” I moan silently, wishing he could join me. My heartstrings begin a lonely rendition of sorrowful longing in a symphony, then the tone changes.

Sensing my insignificance under the powerful allure of a magnificent musical masterpiece enveloping me, I feel a gentle rebuking nudging me to focus, ponder, and listen. I tune my hearing to each of the Sounds as they intimately whisper into my waiting heart, as gently as soft, sweet kisses brushing across my cheek. In moments of solitude, observing my environment, I empty my mind of distractions, and listening to melodic notes, my soul immerses itself in the orchestra harmonies, worthy of the ovation I feel swelling within my heart. Suddenly, no longer alone, we share noted moments, elevating our experience within the symphony. Still, the orchestra plays on.

May 16, 2022 — Excitement building before embarkation day, I reached the port of Seattle with a disturbing text. As the dynamics in a musical composition express emotion, I suddenly caught my breath at the unexpected downbeat. By night, the music began its calming influence as we cruised relatively still waters.

When post-Covid restrictions combine with hectic, long days into little time to visit, we will see each other daily, wave, nod, smile, or briefly chat and make the most of each available moment.

On our course set for Alaska, wherein large pieces of glaciers will eventually drift amazement into the composition, the attention to every detailed note, in quantum musical form only understood by the Master Composer, provides peaceful bliss in the surrounding environment. Sighs escape my lips often as I walk the streets of Sitka, Icy Strait Point, Skagway, Juneau and others, creating a musically pleasing photographic journal within my eyes and heart.

Radiating, trailing ripples and waves, visually pleasing and barely audible, add introspection, creating an immersive experience, introducing unawares, a note that would drone on long after the cruise.

MY HEART: Reflective, Contemplative Movements in a Symphonic Voyage

July 2022 — Something is happening in my soul. I have felt its flow and ebbing for a while. My ship and contemplative voyage upon the seas of life, like musical masterpieces of orchestral symphonies, leave lasting impressions embedded in my heart and soul, even when in dissonance. They take me into another dimension within time and space, never to be forgotten.

I am alone, often dwelling in the power of oneness and harmony within a unity of peace composed by the Grand Musician for my listening pleasure and edification. Blessing me as I experience the trials, pains, achievements, and happiness of mortality, I receive assurances He knows me, my needs, abilities, and weaknesses, and He provides. A musical masterpiece perfectly tuned and incredibly timed plays upon this mostly receptive, sometimes proud, stubborn, rebellious heart. The cadence resonates through clefs of chastisement and course corrections. When my choices evidence unison within the symphonic pitches of His harmonic language, the composition in my heart, unmistakable, elevates my senses.

December 18, 2022 (When I began this post and left it as a draft) — What may, will, should, or shall I do with the sound emanating from the Great Musician He has prepared for me? I will step in time with the waltz, dance in my world, sing the songs composed, and sit in stillness, listening while feeling the sweet assurance of answers to prayers, the goodness permeating in surround sound, and peace echoing in the chambered walls of my heart.

Unexpected, unbelievable berthing in various ports of call anchor my soul in a serenading anthem by the shores of ovation worthiness in quantum-like sacred moments. My contemplative voyaging in God-orchestrated opportunities continues its crescendo with an incredible friendship sailing towards and beyond the horizon of my imagination.

The widow and the chef, Vicki and Joseph, independently co-authoring, together and separate stories from the musical staff of moments and miracles within the symphonic masterpiece, compositions of solemn sounds, an anthem, and prayer. We listen, hear, perceive, and experience, but each interprets their life and happenings with shades of perspective and perception. Alone yet together. Together yet alone. One, two, three. Three, two, one. With the instruments made ready and tuned, the baton signals the orchestra to play for this eternal friendship.

Everything happens for a reason, timing is essential, and every note combines in the magnificent creation of a symphony, a timeless musical masterpiece. I hope the curtain never falls! And yet a symphony is usually written in four movements. What comes next? A new score, another section, an encore? Life happens, a fabulous opening note I cannot write or anticipate. Settling into the orchestral chambers of my heart, I wait in the hands of God so I may feel the music as it evolves into a masterpiece.

“Words are to an experience like a photograph is to the eyes.”
Vicki Nicholls

My experiences, like my photography, and life, are left to personal interpretation and perception.

I know the composition behind the lens. I feel. I remember. I live, interpret, and cherish the quantum elements of musical masterpieces composed in my heart.

Life Happens . . . so do Preludes, Notes, and Musical Masterpieces: Compositions in My Heart