I went to choir last night, first time I’ve been back since my mother died. Oh, well, aside from the time I tried going back and wept all the way through “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” I don’t think I can count that.
It was strange, in a way. I didn’t really feel that I could jump in and give sassy answers to the director’s rhetorical questions, as I normally do. It seemed as though I should be somber and quiet for a few weeks, maybe. Anyway, I was fine and it was excellent to be singing again, especially with Holy Week coming up.
Chorister’s phones were twinging and twanging and jingling and jangling all evening, though, because we had a tornado warning. The director was up at the front of the room, directly in front of the large plate glass window, torn between letting us go home early and getting the music right for Palm Sunday.
The music in question is the Alleluia in the video above. Not an easy piece for us. “Don’t you remember this?” the director kept saying in a vexed tone of voice.
I’ve been gone for a couple of months, myself, so I sure didn’t know it. I don’t know why the rest of the group didn’t. But we kept rehearsing, and choristers kept saying, “It’s gotten to this town” and “It’s heading for that town.” At last, someone announced that it would hit us in 30 minutes. We finished the piece we were working on, had a quick prayer, changed the paraments, and skedaddled.
I got home in time to settle in before an impressive hailstorm began.
Today has been beautiful. I gave myself a stressful day. I woke up precisely at 6:00, which was precisely eight hours after I went to bed. I began the day by listening to the rest of the tidying magic book as I got ready, did my Wii Fit, had a proper breakfast, and got to work. I was smugly thinking that I would get to write blogs (the One Thing) all morning and got unreasonably stressed when my inbox was full of emails asking me to do things and I received multiple phone calls, not all asking me to do things, fortunately.
This is unreasonable. For one thing, I don’t have to check my inbox. Certainly not first thing in the morning. Second, I don’t have to do things the instant I’m asked to.
I took a proper lunch break and have been gazing out the window enjoying the spring blossoms on the trees, even if I didn’t go outside.
But I’ve been thinking that tidying might, if not magically transform my life and give me better skin (this tidying woman is a bit extreme in her claims), at least help me feel a bit less stressed.
Unfortunately, this system is adamant about doing things in order. Clothes first, then books, then paper, then stuff, then sentimental things.
So I would have to get all the clothes in my house and put them on the floor, hold each item in my hand and see whether it makes me joyful, and then store it properly — in many cases, that means folded and filed vertically in a drawer.
All in one go.
That sounds like a horrible way to spend an evening, doesn’t it?
I may cheat and just clear the floor in my office, or the hall bathroom.