Beautiful Music From an Old Saw

 

Sketch from that day in Paris

One September day in the year 2000, the Artist and I were at the Gare de Lyon in Paris, awaiting our train south to Avignon, where we would stay a couple of nights before picking up a rental car to meander our way back north. We were watching the arrivals and departures clicking over on the board and listening intently to hear, over the hubbub of a tightly packed crowd, announcements of departures from the loudspeakers when, floating as it were over sound so dense it seemed almost a solid mass, came strains of music ethereal. I had to find the source! We made our way through the noisy throng and came upon a small clearing, in the center of which was a man playing a saw. Yes, a saw – that old-fashioned carpenter’s tool, only bent with his left hand to different curvatures and bowed with his right like a cello. I saw it and heard it and still could hardly believe the beauty of it!

 

Oft-repeated bits of conventional wisdom are sometimes referred to as “old saws,” a usage that has nothing to do with the tool but comes from an old English word for discourse (‘saga’ comes from the same source), and so my introduction today is not etymological but metaphorical -- if that! More homonymic, really. 

 

Conventional wisdom has it that a sure way to happiness is to count one’s blessings daily. I’ve written about counting blessings before, although gratitude last year for me came not from following advice, conventional or more personal, but as a spontaneous emotional response. My husband was dying, and yet in the midst of agonizing grief I was overwhelmed and greatly surprised to feel gratitude, also. At the same time! Gratitude for the happiness we had shared for so long, as well as for family and friends supporting us in the moment. It astonished me that I would feel gratitude along with grief – that I could feel gratitude at all at such a time. (I would never have anticipated it.) But I was, if you will, grateful for the gratitude, too, as it got me through those difficult, unreal days.

 

As time goes by, however, and grief drags on, the spontaneity of gratitude is not always available. At least, that has been my experience, and that’s why I turn to the old saw about counting blessings. My need for conventional wisdom is especially strong right now, as day after day brings one anniversary after another of last year’s events. 

 

I will not even attempt to list all my blessings here, for truly they are infinite, but will focus on two that are deeply meaningful to me this January. 

 

I am grateful beyond what words can say that my beloved was spared the loss of his cognitive abilities and attendant loss of independence and decision-making, possibilities he dreaded much more than he feared death. [I re-read this sentence and realize that it is misleading. He did not fear death at all. More than once he told me (and I heard him say the same on the phone to friends), "I'm not afraid to die. I've had a good life."] His biggest worry whenever he had to have surgery was, would there be some problem with the anesthetic that would injure his brain and alter his mind for the worse? After an operation, his most pressing question was, “Am I still smart?” Yes, my love, you were, every time! He was himself, right up to the end of his life, and he went out on his own terms, as he had always lived. 

 

I’m certainly not grateful that he’s gone but deeply grateful that he was able to hold onto what was most important to him as long as he lived. Not everyone is so fortunate. He was, and his good fortune must be mine, too, now as always.

 

My other cause for gratitude this January of 2023 is the presence of my dog, that lively little puppy the Artist encouraged me to bring home, a puppy he decided was more important to both of us than the Italian motorcycle he’d been contemplating buying. I am grateful to my beloved for the puppy and grateful to the puppy for her presence. In the morning, there she is, and I say to her, “Good morning, sweetheart. I’m glad you’re here.” Then I look at my husband’s photograph next to the bed and say to him, “Good morning, sweetheart. Thank you for the life we made together, and thank you for Sunny!” 

He knew me. He loved me. We were happy and knew it and did not take our happiness for granted. In this world of so many woes, how wonderfully fortunate is that? And though I miss him every day, an eager little dog face makes me smile, and I have a companion indoors and out, and my two streams of gratitude run together into a river.

 

January. The “bleak midwinter.” We are under a winter storm advisory this weekend, though most of the snow should fall and stay above 7000 feet, that is, on the mountaintops. May we all be safe and be grateful this holiday weekend for the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. 

P.S. For an urban adventure featuring books, see previous post. Book reportage and stories of my Cochise County expeditions on Christmas Eve (wildlife) and New Year’s Eve (uphill climb) at links in this sentence.