Tom & Marshall
I’m going to keep on the woe is me theme. My neighbour Marshall, whom I visit on a regular basis for tea and a chat, is selling his house and moving somewhere smaller. He’s lived next door for 29 years. He has a right to downsize, of course, but I want to cry when I think of not seeing his smiling face on a daily basis. When I’m in my kitchen, often I can look across the hedge and see him in his kitchen, which I find comforting for some reason. And then I found out today that the man who takes our choir rehearsal on Mondays--talented, funny, kind Tom--will be replaced by a full-time music director who will be able to take the Sunday service as well as Mondays (Tom is full-time at another church). Tom’s replacement takes it all very seriously and lacks Tom’s light touch when it comes to dealing with some of the personalities in the choir.
I think as we get older we understand that nothing stays the same. Anything you have your heart set on can disappear at any time. That doesn’t mean you don't grieve these changes. They take something away from your quality of life, so of course you indulge in some wistful sadness. Then you look at all the good things you have going and try to maintain perspective.
I heard an interview with people in a refugee camp and learned how refugee women are forced into prostitution to pay the men who get them from point A to point B. And then more prostitution to pay the men who get them from point B to point C. It’s so disheartening to think of the wickedness in this world. Atrocities in Yemen and Syria ... late-to-the-game jihadists killing Europeans in whatever way they can (I wish these guys would be called losers and wife beaters rather than terrorists). The man dragged off the United flight--WTH is going on in America? We’re learning that TSAs are just frustrated brownshirts.
Anyway, my point is, changing choir directors and having to walk farther to see your neighbour doesn’t really register in the scheme of things. Hopefully the Home Office will see that I’ve done my best to provide the documents they want. And I’ll find a job to which I’m better suited. All in good time.
4-11