1. Today it happened again.
A musical composition entranced me.
I had SiriusXM's Symphony Hall on and host Preston Trombly played a piece that I had completely forgotten about, but that I listened to frequently about twenty-five or so years ago. The composition is the Edvard's Grieg's Holberg Suite.
I don't think I've ever heard the Holberg Suite performed live. I used to have it on a cd and listened to it often in one of our bedrooms in our house in Eugene.
Hearing it today entranced me, much like it did back then. It took me back to the excitement I felt as Debbie and I started our life together and as I suddenly became a stepfather and was getting to know Adrienne, Patrick, and Molly better each day.
So as the Holberg Suite played today, images and memories of our early family times rose up, accompanied by the way sunlight came into that house. The Holberg Suite lit my inner life, my heart and soul, in much the same way sunlight came pouring into that house. Taken together, the house light, the family memories, and hearing the Holberg Suite again, gave me the sensation of being filled with light myself.
2. I started listening to Symphony Hall on trips to CdA and Spokane for labs and medical appointments and I enjoyed listening not only to the morning music, but to the morning host, Colleen Wheelahan.
I decided not to limit my listening to this channel in the car, but began, through the SiriusXM app, to listen at home as well. I have this channel on as I go to sleep so that I wake up to Colleen Wheelahan whose show comes on at about 3 a.m. PST.
It didn't take much poking around on the World Wide Web to discover that Wheelahan also hosts a classical music program on WUOL in Louisville later in the day, starting at 3 in the afternoon out west. I downloaded WUOL's app and often, not always, I listen to her show in the afternoon.
I also subscribed to Colleen Wheelahan's Substack account and she's a very good writer, bringing the same intelligence, optimism, and accessibility to her essays that she brings to her radio programs.
Well, today I caught about the last 90 minutes of Colleen Wheelahan's WUOL program and I didn't turn off the station.
Maybe it was around 9 or 10 o'clock and suddenly I was back in that bedroom in Eugene again. Overnight, Eugene's classical radio station, KWAX, played a nationwide program of classical music hosted by Peter van de Graaff and I frequently left it on while I slept and enjoyed waking up through the night to selections he played and to his concise introductions to these selections.
I didn't actually know that WUOL carried Peter van de Graff's overnight program and suddenly it came on and I was back in the company of his superb work as a music host and once again I was transported back to where I had been earlier in the day, back to our house in Eugene, back to the memories I cherish, and back to a time in my life when I was doing then what I'm doing now, trying to find a way to listen to all the different kinds of music I enjoy so much and letting whatever music it is transport me to times in my life that I love to remember.
Footnote: If you are a KWAX listener and reading this blog, I'd like you to know that I know that Peter van de Graff served as KWAX's music director from 2016-24. I've also read a bit about his departure.
3. Kellogg's city hall has a drop box where we can leave off the payment of our garbage collection/sewer bill. I dropped my payment in the box early in the month and the check never cleared.
Today I called city hall and an eager to help me employee tried and tried to track down where my check might have wandered away to without success.
No problem.
I can accept mystery.
I'll just go up tomorrow and hand them another check so the bill is paid and if my lost check ever shows up I'm fine if the city tears it up. I'm also fine with applying it to next month's bill.
I'm satisfied that the employee I talked with on the phone worked so earnestly to figure things out and was so open with me about how puzzled and maybe even a little upset she was.
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