Mary Oliver Monday - Schubert and Why He Isn't on My Personal Play List

SCHUBERT by Mary Oliver from Evidence (Beacon Press)
He takes such small steps
to express our longings.
Thank you, Schubert.

How many hours
do I sit here aching to do

what I do not do
when, suddenly,
he throws a single note

higher than the others
so that I feel
the green field of hope,

and then, descending,
all this world's sorrow,
so deadly, so beautiful.

Gershwin from Fantasia 2000

I must admit I'm not all that familiar with the works of Franz Schubert.  Although most days I have the local classical music station on in the background as I write, my knowledge of the genre is limited.  I can pick out Vivaldi from a crowd of sonatas and maybe Bach if I try really hard and concentrate.  My classical music knowledge repertoire also includes a few famous pieces by equally famous composers that are known to less educated ears such as my own through frequent hearing in sound tracks.  Fantasia, for example, is a primary source of my knowledge of classical composers.

Thanks to Serge, Tom and the boys
for increasing my productivity.

But I can relate to Mary Oliver's sentiment about the power of a particular musician or piece of music to move me.  If I'm ever teetering on the edge of a cliff, getting ready to jump, all someone would have to do is start humming Vivaldi or Opus 125 of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and I turned around and race to solid ground.  When I have a lot of planning or organizational work I need to do, I put on one of my favorite contemporary Brit rock bands, Kasabian, and bounce up and down in my desk chair as I scribble away. 

A few years ago during a season of transition in my life,  I was having a hard time maintaining my own sense of balance and integrity in the midst of a landscape shifting around me.  Every day I'd drive into work with an impending sense of dread-- not necessarily because the situation was untenable or stressful, but because I was feeling the zebra plant in my living room.  I'd outgrown my pot and was being rustled by every passing disturbance in the nearby atmosphere.

It wasn't time to be repotted yet . . . that would come in the future, but I definitely needed some stakes to support me.  The usual ones-- meditation, community, spiritual direction-- weren't doing the trick.  At the same time I was working with a coach to envision what that next pot would be as I approached the end of my doctorate and the likely end of my full-time tenure at the Cathedral. 

In the midst of discussing how to feel supported without being root bound, my wise coach asked me if I had an iPod.  He then suggested I make a play list for myself-- music that encapsulated who I was, where I was, and most importantly, how I wanted to be in the current situation.  He then suggested I play the songs each morning during my commute. 

I still turn to that play list, adapting it for the current situation by adding or deleting songs.  But some of the tunes have stayed on the list.  So instead of writing a poem about Schubert, here are the artists and songs I'd praise in a poem if I were so inclined.  Which this afternoon I'm not, so you'll just have to read them in the form of a list, in no particular order.

•  The Alarm- The Spirit Of '76 
•  Del Amitri - Life By Mistake
•  Blur - Song II and Tender
•  The Pogues - Thousands Are Sailing
•  Echo and the Bunnymen - What Are You Going To Do With Your Life?
•  The Shamen - Move Any Mountain
•  Primal Scream - Movin' On Up
•  Oasis - Supersonic
•  Ministry - Every Day Is Halloween
•  U2 - Celebration
• Nick Drake - I Was Made To Love Magic
• Mint Royale - Blue Song
• Keane - Is It Any Wonder
• Kasabian - Vlad the Impaler and Underdog
• Johnny Cash - September When It Comes
• James - Born of Frustration