Bainton's And I Saw a New Heaven, which reminds me of Grandma. I sang this with the choir very near the time she died last year. This Monday is the anniversary. I didn't think time could have such have profound effect of recollection but I've been having dreams of her, and seeing her in the faces of old ladies I pass at bus stops when I go on runs, and, at the Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky concert J and I went to on Saturday, thinking of how she'd move her hands to classical music. Last week the combination of feeling sick and the sight of a street sign saying the Cambridge half marathon was happening on 4th March (a day before I ran it last year and the anniversary of her funeral) meant it turned into a very teary cycle.
The female solo in Tres Ciudades: 2. Barrio de Cordoba (she comes in around 2:11 and brings the song into an entirely different dimension).
Seek Him that Maketh the Seven Stars - the choir sang this on Sunday, when I couldn't sing. Instead, I sat in the congregation and got to experience evensong as someone who just arrived, ready to hear and rest and meditate and receive the Holy Spirit. 'Seek him that turneth the shadow of death... into morning'. So many poets write about death as sleep, and eternal life as awakening. But 'morning' is better, I think. Sometimes waking up is a difficult process, fatigue still exists and sleep seems preferable. But morning means the sunrise and its beauty, it means warmth and light and birdsong and the contemplation of daffodils and prospect of breakfast.
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