The Music of the Bear. For the second time this month, I want to tell you a story. 34years ago today, a nurse laid a tiny teddy bear upon my furry chest. It was the fashion of the birthing science then, that the boy we would call Nolan Patrick would be able to bond with his Da, while his Mom tried to gain some much deserved rest. On a cold but brilliant October day in 1999, the boy we called Bear was also, impossibly laid to rest. I had stood in front of family and friends at the funeral assemblage that awful bright day during a Mass richly embroidered with musical meanings as we felt Bear would have wanted, and I began with quaking shoulders to eulogize the first son to die, 18 years ago they laid you upon my chest, all swaddled and sweet-smelling ... And the furies came and draped over me a fugue of silence, the music didnt play no more; and despite the fact that many years later a friend would tell me that we had had the bestest music ever at Nolans funeral, for this one time choir boy, climbing out of a deep well of despair was accompanied by little joy in timbre and timpani. But in other arms of our big ole messy family, from Maxwell Peterson and Karl Kraemer and Don Orth the music mattered. And a few weeks before our cousin Tom Meier would pass unaccountably in Alaska, he of the genius intellect and the eclectic musical tastes, TommyM received in the mail from another cousin Tom Conley, himself the owner of a protean musical palette, this poem-song: a song TommyC sent me earlier this month when I posted on 6 October about The Bears terrible death. It will take eight minutes to reflect, it will take a lifetime to know what to make of the abrupt stop of Nolans life and loves. Thru all of this unknowable sorrow, I have tried to find the music and the meaning. To this day the music of the 40s appeals more to me than the music of the 90s, which just kills me. When I open my souls kimono like this, I think sometimes folks misapprehend what I am offering - an honest peek behind the curtain of abject loss. Lifes corridors are as Byzantine as this octopus-armed family of ours, in journeying down this one or that hallway, embracing this one and that one of our hardy band of brethren, has created a finely woven tapestry of loves and hopes and sometimes even Epiphany. God has granted me the gift to able to express in written form, the most intimate things that our hurly burly lifestyle may wish to wallpaper over. It is a form of testimony. It is my music, my ode to what really matters. Not fame, not fortune, only messy manic family. The word chanticleer comes from the Old French chante-cler, literally, sing loud. In mediaeval times, stories and even history were recorded on tapestries or else shared through oral history via minstrels and troubadours. I think sometimes of Bear as our chanticleer, and then the music stopped. Stop now and listen awhile and then recall that even Bachs fugues were Odes to Joy, and life is renewed and meaning is elicited even amid Chestertons pithy bon mot turn of phrase, The Great Gaels of Ireland are the men that God made mad, for all their wars are merry and all their songs are sad. Mays Gods Peace be upon you Nolan, our Gaelic and Gallic troubadour. youtu.be/iTAPOJP_-OU
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 15:14:29 +0000
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