A Song for October: Beau Soir (a process piece)

Dear friends,

I wish I had something inspiring to share, something witty or profound to lift you out of the anxiety and despair that seems to permeate our days. However, I’m strapped into the same roller coaster as you (I’ve never really liked roller coasters), and feel easily defeated by things like lukewarm bathwater, dropping a huge bag of cherry tomatoes all over the kitchen floor (splat splat), and oat milk gone sour. All I can do is greet each morning with a flicker of hope, grateful for the grace of a new day…and on the flip side, find joy in small things like new slippers, candles, hot water bottles, fresh farm food (literally grown 100 feet from our house!), and crossing things off my To-Do List.

I share with you this month a raw video from a “play date” with my friend Diane. Comfortable with one another’s social distancing practices, we decided to meet and make some music together. It’s the first I’ve sung with a pianist live since March — how special to feel the vibrations pulse through me, to ebb and flow together, in real time. I’ve been humming this art song for the last month, and I was happy to revisit it with Diane. She’s a very special artist.

We literally plopped the microphone on the floor between us, guessed at the balance, and away we went. So this video is not a performance piece, polished and perfected, but a process piece. A “somewhere between here and there” piece. That’s all I can manage at the moment. And if I can enjoy even just a second, a phrase, then it has been a gift.

Here’s to holding fast to those moments that help us stand steady, even if it’s but for a moment. You’re doing great, friends. Take extra naps and eat more cheese, if you need to, but keep a flicker of hope in your hearts. We may not know what lies around the bend, but we must trust that there are better days ahead.

Stay well, be well,

Stephanie

Beau Soir

(music by Debussy / poem by Paul Bourget)

When rivers are pink in the setting sun, And a slight shiver runs through fields of wheat, A suggestion to be happy seems to rise up from all things And ascends toward the troubled heart ; A suggestion to taste the charms of the world While one is young and the evening is fair, For we are on our way just as this wave is: It is going to the sea, -- and we, to the grave!