As the temperature plummets, the world and I are frozen in place. Winter means fewer gigs, sorting through endless notes and scraps of paper, and waiting. This hibernation is both comforting and disconcerting. I take a deep breath and remember the wisdom of two dear friends. After the release of my recent album, Riva and Rae shared their reflections on “Keeping Vigil,” offering beauty, perspective and gratitude.
From Riva:
When Joy Zimmerman put out a call for writings on our personal experience of “Keeping Vigil,” I was immediately attracted. Several thoughts swam through my head, banging into each other, until most of them cleared out leaving one to take center stage. Over the past few years, I have been nourishing the concept of “wintering.” I first read about this in an article by J. Drew Lanham and in the book, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, by Katherine May. The idea of “wintering” and the physical manifestation of it for me, seem inseparable.
Recently retired and hitting a milestone birthday, I relish the slowing down of my life. The shorter days of winter after the so long ones of summer, bring relief from the drawn out expanse of sunlight, by ending the day earlier. It was during the darkness of winter that I discovered the fractal beauty of trees, their bare branches crystallized by snow and ice, slicing the sky into patches of such deep blue. My time spent looking at trees from the warmth of my sun room has deepened my belief that these amazing creations do indeed keep vigil. During the winter, they are not asleep, but continue to horde fuel for the spring blossoms, provide food and shelter for a myriad of animals and insects during this cold season. They stand silent, unwavering against the onslaught of winter. Their rootedness counters the instability of life. Their steadfast endurance contrast with our short ephemeral existence.
The word saeculum broadly means “the expanse of time which something is in living Memory.”* Trees hold memories of a past we have no knowledge of, and they carry it forward after we are gone. They keep vigil for this history, for the lives that have been lived and lost over the course of their long presence.
I was recently in Savannah, Ga and learned that live oak trees can live up to 1000 years. We visited the Angel Tree, only about 400 years old, but already it’s huge, heavy branches were resting on the ground, the trunk unable to keep them skyward. It had yet to live even half of its potential life, but already contained 400 years of history and knowledge. Longer than anyone I can trace in my ancestry.
I try more often now to pay attention to these grand sentinels who ask very little of us, who hang on through drought, neglect, lightning strikes and fire. It is now me who keeps vigil over them, safe guarding the past, the now and the future for all of us.
(*Rebecca Solnit from Orwell’s Roses)
From Rae:
Keeping Vigil: The words conjure a wave of emotions. The weeks, days and final hours keeping vigil with my dear friend Heidi paints sacred in a new way for me. The experience to accompany someone so extraordinary in her final hours, defies adequate description. The thing is, my heart clung with talons to the hope of a miracle, even up to the last days. It became clear that she would discharge from the hospital no longer communicating in her expansively articulate Heidi way. She would receive hospice at home. Yet, I could not grasp how this person, who was such an integral part of my life, and so many others, who many described as a "force of nature" could ever succumb to death. She was just way too important, too kind, too smart, too generous, too unique; the world and my life could not possibly go on in any kind of normal way without her voice. I mean, if anyone could kick this cancer's butt, Heidi could. As my ally and inspiration in all things artistic, she was a font of never ending solutions to the challenges that making art presents. A drawing never felt complete to me, until I could put it in front of Heidi's cultivated and thoughtful gaze. As my appointed editor, she delivered her critiques honestly, no mincing of words (we both learned how important that was in art school); but she didn't stop with the critique as we often do in the classroom. She encouraged, brainstormed and accompanied me through the rest of the stages until I arrived at a fuller expression of what I was trying to create. (Who does that?)
In the final few days in her home, as a steady stream of loved ones came to sit by her bed to cry, laugh, sing and storytell their goodbyes, at times it felt too loud, too crowded, just too much. (Oddly I thought to say: "People, can you quiet down and let her rest?") But this was Heidi's way of being in the world - opening her home and heart to people she cared about, and providing opportunities for more connections to be made for each of us in her circle. And now, without speaking a word, she created this bedside community as yet another gift - a way to approach this reality and grieve together.
Her final two nights stand out for me as the most precious; when all who remained at Heidi's bedside were her night team composed of her husband, sister, brother, two other friends, and myself, taking turns, providing comfort measures as she needed them. At times we sat together on her bed, holding her hands, rubbing her feet, belting out her favorite musicals, and reliving crazy Heidi stories. In her final hours, I was alone and rocked between the gentle breath of her husband dozing on the couch behind me while her breath became steadily less rhythmic - signaling a change. I felt called to create one last work of art together: holding her right hand in my left, and drawing a colorful butterfly with my right. The image had lingered in my head from one of her sister's earlier stories about Heidi's childhood attempt to save a roomful of monarch butterflies. They were dying for some unknown reason and Heidi could not let such beauty slip away without her passionate attempt to save them. Hand in hand, heart to heart we made one last tribute of artistic expression. Beyond the pain and loss: this amazing presence, this beauty, this force of nature lives on in me, and I am so grateful.
Deepest thanks to Riva and Rae for these beautiful gifts.
Wishing you peace as we keep vigil for each other and our world. xoxo.
Joy