Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor Played by Xaver Varnus Saved me This Complicated Day

Sitting on my couch in my humble living room surrounded by the warm ambience our brightly lit Christmas tree and feeling so many things right now.

The past week has been a bit of a COVID-19 roller coaster for so many Islanders and closely so for many persons we know and care about. Even more so on this day.

And all the ups and downs of life keep on rolling. They aren't derailed by the wisdom of circuit breakers. Rather, they just become all the more complicated to navigate.

And yet, this is no complaint. Just a small voice in the world thinking of how difficult right now is for so many humans and wanting to send out so much love to everyone who is finding this all so hard to bear.

((((((((( xo little world xo )))))))))

In light of this all, hearing that we are in a partial lockdown on PEI again due to the real potential of community spread suddenly made things feel even more poignant than usual. And I am already unusually sensitive to poignancy.

I am not easily given to tears and well trained in mindfulness but I admit I am still a deeply emotional and passionate person.

No tears, yet the feelings still escape me in their own ways.

This evening, for example, a dear uncle sent me a link to an organ recital in the Berliner Dom recorded in 2013. He and another uncle both have/had organs in their homes. My youngest sister inherited one of the organs and has it in her little home. Another uncle is a fantastic organist/pianist. I should not have been surprised by how moved I was by this world renowned organist's stunning playing.

I first heard of Xaver Varnus this am on a CBC NS story. It was on As it Happens this week too. I shared the local news story with my uncles this morning and received the youtube link to this 12 minute listen in response.

It was just so damn beautiful that it had me completely undone. And as I said, I do not outwardly undo easily, although it might help if I did. I guess, like many, I am so practiced at holding it all together that even at times when I should likely fall apart, I am broken yet still intact.

Honestly, the exquisitely emotive playing of Xaver Varnus offered the complexity and depth which my confused emotions required this day. Something in me raged against the dwindling of this wild year's light and sank to depths of despair over images I saw of elderly alone and afraid, ill with COVID-19 and then I found my way back to the complicated joy I felt this day when my husband and I worked so hard to pull together some Christmas goodness with our sweet family in an autumn of too much sadness in this house. Back then to gratitude and remembering the benefit of my training in resting in uncertainty, to suddenly soaring with the kind of goodness that only can come from feeling connected to so much more than my little self.

I dipped and soared along with the motions of this piece. It was a profound release. If the need is there, I wish you something similar in whatever vein works for you.

I also wish you peace and wellness this early December day. And sweetness of memories that are fond to you. (I am remembering that Dec 7th is the 30th anniversary of my first kiss with my boyfriend at our high school Christmas dance. Somehow everything seemed so much more innocent then. Likely just a memory trick of nostalgia too.)

Be well,

Jill