Vesper Flights

I have long been drawn to the patterns of morning and evening prayer common in convents and monasteries. Of course, this does not mean I actually DO this habitually. I am usually muttering prayers sporadically throughout my day—desperate prayers after listening to the news, prayers as technology malfunctions and deadlines approach. I’d love to say I kneel at my bedside just before sleep, but my knees are shot, and I’m also too tired to think of anything to say to God. 

I have attended some vespers services over the years, which made my discovery of a lovely New York Times essay about “vesper flights” even more delightful. It seems that swifts fly in the evening straight up, out of sight and above the clouds. They gather and hover together, half-sleeping (most birds can do this, sleep while in the air). Scientists have discovered that they are doing more than snoozing. They are orienting themselves, ascertaining the weather and exactly where they are in relation to the earth and sky. They can see the stars. They can see down as well. And they make decisions about future activity based on the collective understanding of all the birds in the group.

The author, Helen Macdonald, suggests that we might do well to imitate the swifts: traveling lightly, periodically taking a long view of our lives and our world, and referring to collective wisdom when making our choices. It is so easy to get bogged down in the trenches of living, so easy to lose track of where we are and where we are heading. Especially nowadays, our minute-by-minute adjustments to the pandemic make it so difficult to have perspective on our place in the universe. It can feel impossible to rise above our worries and fears.

Bu there’s magic in the vesper flights, when suddenly the bird’s calls can no longer be heard, and they utterly disappear. I think of the disciples witnessing Jesus’ ascension: all at once, He disappeared into the heavens. Where was He? Was He gone for good? But Christ had promised that His spirit would remain with them. Just as the swifts vanish, but remain, during their vesper flights, we have faith that the Lord still is, even though we no longer see Him. 

And maybe, when we gather in prayer, we are flying too. We are winging our way up, past all the world’s troubles, to a place of safety and peace. And if we believe that we will live with God after death, it makes sense that we can experience little ascensions before that. So let’s learn from our mysterious friends the swifts. May we drop our burdens and move lightly through life, regularly reorienting ourselves to where we are and where we are going. May we lean on one another, and make choices that help one another. May we make those vesper flights, together, until the time comes when at last we shed our physical selves, and our immortal souls soar forever into eternity.

                      From Sergei Rachmaninoff's "All Night Vigil" (Vespers, op. 37)

Don't Look Back

Baby Julie! I think! 

As a mom, I spend a decent amount of time remembering my kids’ childhoods. Or at least, trying to piece events together from archaeological evidence--my periodic digs through old photos, school papers and drawings, receipts with someone’s (Rose’s? Evan’s?) adorable sayings scribbled on them. And like archaeologists, a lot of the time my findings are inconclusive and subject to revision (wish I could carbon-date some of this stuff). Alas, my offspring seem equally fuzzy on details…darn it! I was counting on THEM to recall whose third grade teacher was whose! 

As a writer, I’m also often in a reflective mood, turning world happenings over in my mind, trying to make some sense of it all. There are periods in history that fascinate me: the Dust Bowl, for instance (as a “relaxed” housekeeper I wonder how long it would have taken me to realize that more than the usual amount of dust was settling over everything), and Elizabethan England (I’m assuming that, in lieu of taking time to bathe, everyone just studied how to say everything in iambic pentameter). What was life like in an ancient Greek city-state? Aboard a Viking ship (the original, not the luxe Viking River Cruises)? I wonder…

But there are certain “looks back” that are just too painful to contemplate for long. My sister Mo’s fatal car accident. My mom’s difficult last years, which coincided with the worst of my mental illness. When I think of these, I get the same sensation as when I poke around at a sore tooth with my tongue. Hurts like heck and does no good whatsoever. I truly understand that I, that we collectively, should never forget the horrors of the Holocaust or the tragedy of Vietnam, lest mankind make the same mistakes again (as mankind is so prone to do). But some memories have a terrible price, in terms of unmanageable emotional distress. 

And, while we’re too close now to know, I’m wondering if the pandemic is something I’ll look back on a lot when it finally ends, or becomes endemic, or whatever happens. I re-read the various pieces I wrote, starting very early on (March, 2020), when I was brave and optimistic (we’ll get through this together! We’re caring for each other!) and then in later months, as things dragged on and on, it was pep talk time, with wishful thinking thrown in. (Sure, we’re torn apart as a country by this, but we can do better! We will do better!)

At this point, I’ve run out of words to describe the havoc and suffering and sorrow COVID-19 has caused. I’ll be 65 next week, and I don’t want to re-live the past two years for the rest of my life. Personally I know that health issues and the loss of family and friends are in my future anyway, and I want to, need to, find and focus on the joys that remain.

And so, masked, distanced, and, hopefully, wiser, I’ll be looking ahead. And not back. 

Movie Mania

Remember the  Stone Age, when you snagged that bulky videotape of Grease II (from Blockbuster, of course) and then didn’t watch it until you had accrued at least $15 in late fees? I recall the eventual death throes of that video rental behemoth, when suddenly all late fees were suspended! Forever! Just come back, please!!!!! The money I have saved ever since, has funded a prime spot in Meadowoodbrookaire 55+ Retirement Community someday! Actually, the money I have saved must be under the sofa cushions somewhere. 

Our ways of watching movies have evolved, no doubt about it. In my early childhood there was the occasional trek to Radio City Music Hall for the latest Julie Andrews epic (I do believe the beloved British songbird starred in every single musical in the 1960s, including Sweet Charity, where she winningly portrayed a hooker with a heart of gold turned magical nanny, unless I’m mistaken.) At home, I could watch flicks from years gone by on “Million Dollar Movie,” which aired on TV at 4:30 PM daily in New York City. I was five years old then, and only dimly aware of Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart (though I did notice that, while they smoked incessantly, my dad smoked more).

Later in elementary school, the family moved to Atlanta, where our apartment was thisclose to North Springs Movie Theatre! Walking distance to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the Franco Zeffirelli version of Romeo and Juliet, and Patton (which I inexplicably adored). Tickets were, I think, $.75, so for a mere three hours of babysitting the Butler Kids from Hell @$.35), I could afford to go, multiple times. 

During my 20s, I became quite the aficionado of foreign films, making weekly pilgrimages to the Film Forum in Buckhead to watch either shocking sliced Spanish eyeballs (Bunuel) or the slow, moody Scandinavian dissolution of a marriage (Bergmann). I became such a snob that I ONLY watched subtitled movies, thinking them far superior to those filmed in the language I spoke.

Then came the childbearing years, when at cocktail parties I would discuss the relative artistic merits of Aladdin III and Land Before Time VI. I was aware that films for grownups were still being produced, but I was too tired to watch them. There was a brief period when the kids were older, but still home, and we could enjoy actually excellent films together (I would push for Ordinary People and Tootsie, while Steve would opt to introduce them to that timeless horror classic, The Blob).

Now it’s all HBO and Netflix, mostly at home since the pandemic began. We never have to wait a millisecond for our celluloid gratification, as absolutely everything is “on demand.” And I appreciate the convenience for sure. But there are times I find myself missing the eager anticipation of a Friday night trip to Blockbuster, where we’d survey the VHS tape boxes lined up on the shelves. And then hustle home with our prize. The Mighty Ducks. Again.