deep rivers.
hello friends.
forgive me for dropping off the edge of the virtual world; i've either been sleeping or writing something about jane austen this week (and trying desperately not to make whatever jane austen drivel i've written sound like complete bs. so far, so good. i hope.)
so. it is friday night, and i allowed myself a bit of social interaction this evening. had a lovely spaghetti dinner with my friend, lisha. and what consecrated spaghetti it was.
linda called me while en route to lisha's, and asked me to join her at the sutler to hear a nickel creek-esque bluegrass band, daybreak, for which our friend deann plays fiddle. i stayed for a few songs, and left after deann sang a few a capella bars of deep river.
deep river. my home is over jordan. deep river, lord. i want to cross over into campground. an old spiritual filled with the deepest kind of longing; a plea for home.
the ironies start here: i sang that song before.
i used to sing. (do you remember?)
i sang that song with my whole eighteen-year-old soul, at my senior recital. mom and dad sat in the small audience. i sang with deep breaths and long, emphatic phrases.
and then i sang pie jesu, part of andrew lloyd webber's infamous requiem.
i sang prophecy.
i had no idea.
how could i have known that the last time my father would hear me sing would be a song of longing for spiritual home and a song for the dead? lord have mercy.
how could i have known.
memory is a strange, beautiful, hopeful thing.
i sang tonight, as i drove home. i sang hope: o don't you want to go to the promised land...where all is peace?.
yes.
goodnight moon.
