~Not All Who Wander Are Lost~: 2012

I attended a service of praise and thanksgiving this morning at Queen Margaret's School, where Andrew is organist, and the Chaplain left me thinking. Thanks, Chaplain. This was the morning in which the girls and their families sit together to worship at the school for the last time before summer term comes to an end and the girls go off into the world to their various new universities. As the Chaplain addressed the graduates he called upon them to simply follow two rules of advice: to be kind, and to be humble. To go into the world, humbly, he said, is to (as the latin 'humus' suggests) be closer to the earth...to go humbly into the world, then, is to have both feet firmly planted on the ground; to live humbly, then, is to be grounded. He acknowledged the value of being recognized for the accomplishments and talents we've been given, but went further to say that it is, also necessary to remember to be grateful to the hands that nurtured those talents and made those accomplishments possible in our lives.

I don't think I was particularly engaged in worship this morning. My head has been clouded, I have been guilty of consistent worrying, my body and heart are admittedly weary. But no matter my resistence to enter into an attitude of worship I found myself caught up in prayer, whether I liked it or not. God was speaking to me, and I was going to listen. If I'm perfectly honest I have not felt grounded lately. My music degree has been over since January, and my creative writing masters coursework finished this week, and while I have quite a few beautiful gigs lined up, I've been taking quite a lot of mundane work just to keep financially stable in preparation for a catastrophic amount of student loans coming due very soon when my full-time student status comes to a hiatus. Lots of people have asked what comes next. First and foremost is our December wedding. It's a beautiful thing sharing engaged life with my best friend, and it seems to be the straightest, clearest path in front of me. I want to begin a PhD desperately, but the trouble is I'm not sure which direction I want to take myself in. I can't seem to choose between early childhood, renaissance performance, baroque performance, English...and I don't think I've been a good listener lately. I've been too ungrateful - borderline resentful - of my varied passions.

When I was 4 years old and graduated pre-school I was awarded "Class Caregiver" and "longest hair" (which I'd cut crazily short the day before the ceremony, but they still let me keep it). When I was 14 and graduated middle school I was awarded "Jill of All Trades." When I was eighteen and graduated high school I was awarded "Most likely to become rich and famous" and "Most Musical." Lately I've been predominantly feeling overwhelmed by my interests in just about everything. I love working with children - I love the nurturing and care that is involved, I love writing, I love acting, I love language, I love making music - medieval, baroque, contemporary, solo, choral - I love teaching, and above all else I love performing. But this morning was a reminder that, perhaps, the reason I am not grounded is that I have been worrying and worrying, allowing myself to fear what will or won't come next in my life as an artist, as a musician, as a writer, as a teacher. I sleep poorly at night wondering what I'm going to be, what I'm going to be able to do to contribute to our life, to make something of myself upon which I can help build our family. And, as this morning reminded me, I have not been thanking the God that gave me these passions. I've not been allowing myself to see that my various gifts/passions were/are first and foremost gifts, given for me to use, from my Father. How arrogant, actually. Instead I've been seriously resenting the fact that I'm stretched across multiple disciplines. If I've been learning anything, though, it's that music is at the core of my being. All of my other passions are like evergreen roots that spread out from a musical core. But rather than worry, for now, it's time to start trusting that everything is going to be ok. I have a dissertation to start and complete in two months on children's literature, I have a 'Venetian Carnival' concert to prepare of Grandi, Monteverdi, Strozzi, Vivaldi, a joint 170th birthday party performance of Mozart and Purcell to prepare for one of the founding fathers of the early music movement, I have a French Baroque and English Baroque concert for da gamba, voice, and two harpsichords to prepare for September, I've started an artist management business that's going surprisingly well, and I've taken an additional three part-time jobs this month, and I seem to have a wedding to plan : ) Writing it all down is like a splash of cold water on my face. I've been worrying so much about letting my musical life take a backseat to everything else, but, as ever, it seems to be the solidarity around which everything else is happening.

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank You for the gifts You have given me. Thank You for the hands you gave me to care with, for the voice you gave me to sing with, for the ambitious mind you gave me to dream with. Help me to see that they are given, that they are purposeful, that they are mine to use in Your name, in Your will.

...Not all who wander are lost....Tolkien is so right.
-Nia

I owe my sincerest apologies for such a long, 6-month-or-so absence. Life, it seems, has decided to abruptly sweep me off my feet...or, rather, an Englishman named Andrew has! So many people have been asking about everything that's been going on since our engagement last October and I thought this might be the easiest way to give an update, so here's a nutshell version for all of our friends around the world:

Andrew and I met when I first arrived at the University of York in October of 2010. In fact, he was the first person I met (God has an interesting way of making great stories happen in our lives before we can even possibly begin to realize it) when my supervisor brought me to see him rehearse in the concert hall. He was in a dress rehearsal for a concert of music by Strozzi and Monteverdi...anyone who knows me would agree I should've known then and there that I'd fall hopelessly in love with the man. But it was a long time before our sweet friendship turned wholesomely, and beautifully into the romance of our lifetimes. We became colleagues and friends first, and over the course of a thrilling academic year I came to wholly respect and admire his musicianship, leadership, and utter selflessness in his caring for literally everyone. I had never met someone that I couldn't keep up with before, let alone who could really keep up with me...what a fun challenge, I thought : ) But it hasn't been a challenge, it has been a thrill, and our lives have found the most wonderful pace now that they are woven together and heading in one common direction toward marriage and our future. August was our beginning, and by October we were engaged. Life has been the most beautiful whirlwind imaginable since then. When Andrew asked me to marrry him he took me at midnight to Hexham Abbey, the church where he grew up singing as a chorister and playing organ. He'd convinced me that we couldn't get in any earlier to tune a harpsichord he needed to play the next day, but once we were alone inside he convinced me he couldn't concentrate and would I follow him up these long, winding, spiral steps so he could show me something. Up we climbed, high above the rafters of this incredible abbey, basically inside of the organ all the way to the top. From up there you could see everything. It was exquisite, especially in the dim light of autumn midnight. A used to climb around up there when he was a little boy. I had told him that if he was going to propose to me I wanted him to ask me somewhere that meant a lot to him, since so much of England was all still foreign to me then. He sat me down on a box, and when I looked up he was down on one knee in front of me. From there I can't tell you much, because I honestly went slightly into shock and I have NO IDEA what he said! I was able to snap out of my shock enough to hear a few key things near the end, enough to be sure of what was happening. The proposal was perfect, the first ever up inside the organ at the Abbey. The next night the Abbey congratulated us by offering us a complimentary evening with a private spot in the choir stalls to hear Stile Antico sing a candlelight concert. You should've seen this diamond sparkle while we sat there listening to Palestrina and basking in the loveliness of it all...I never truly understood how diamonds could be a girl's best friend until that evening :p

Driving down the road to Devon, our (crosses fingers) future home

Wild horses in Devon

The last 6 months have been a gorgeous whirlwind. We've traveled around the country together, seen all sorts of incredible things. One special trip took us to visit Andrew's maternal grandparents down in Devonshire. I always wondered what it would feel like when you find the place you want to live the rest of your life. First, I found Andrew. All I knew then was that wherever he goes I want to go too, and then came Devon. There are palm trees in Devon. I kid you not, there are palm trees in England! There are quaint amusement parks with steam engine trains and peacocks, there are moors and dales to climb on where you can just walk up and pet wild, wandering horses, France is just across these exquisite harbors on the English channel that light up at night with fairy lights along the water and the tied up boats. It is paradise to me. The docks smell like homemade sugared doughnuts even in wintertime when those summer stalls are tucked away for the season. We've been dreaming about settling there to one day start a family ever since, but all in time, and first there is a PhD and a second masters to finish in York, and we are so blessed and happy to be living in our gorgeous little studio flat here, just a few minutes walk from campus, and a short hop into the city centre we both still love.

A weekend or two after our engagement took us on
our first visit to Granny Rita and Grandad in Devon where this photo was taken

Now, I feel truly guilty for neglecting to respond to a treasured teacher's request to know more about Christmas in York. I let the busy music/performing season and a choir tour of England get the best of me, and my chance to blog slipped by, so, Mr. Denis, this is for you. Better late than never?

Last year I posted here ( Christmas 2010 post ) about a Christmas/Advent experience I had in York. The season is indescribably beautiful. All of York begins to celebrate the holidays far earlier than they/we do in America. When I first arrived here I noticed it straightaway, and almost immediately knew I had come to the right place, because I LOVE Christmas. Americans get upset when holiday music plays on the radio before Thanksgiving...in York Christmas decor is out and the preparations for the season begin even before Halloween. I, personally, think it's wonderful! The real intense stuff like Christmas fayres, etc...doesn't come 'til much later, and I suppose that is what's really worth writing home about : ) This year York put on a gorgeous Christmas fayre in December, which came just days after the St. Nicholas Fayre and Market, and according to the press "It's official - York is now the most Christmassy place in Britain." We took a few pictures of the city centre in York to show you what it looked like in 2011:

I may be too scared to drive here for now, but
I love filling up the car despite the expensive cost in £ (eek!)

Outside of York Christmas was in full swing as well. Andrew and I have the advantage of having a car (although I'm still too chicken to drive on the "wrong" side), so we get to go exploring all sorts of places together outside of the city, in various English counties, which I've decided are divided up geographically around the country kind of like states are in the US. Each one has its unique characterictistics and flavors, some are far more attractive than others, some much more industrialized, others purely pastoral. This year we ventured about an hour and a half outside of the city to a tiny village called Grassington. Now, Grassington re-defines middle of nowhere. Going there was one of the loveliest drives I've ever been on, literally in the seemingly middle of nowhere. There was the occasional farmhouse but for the most part there is nothing at all until, at long last, you arrive. What brought us there, you ask? The Grassington Dickensian Festival, celebrating its 30th Anniversary year! Check it out here: Grassington Festival Essentially the villagers all come out and dress up on three Saturdays during the month of December. There are all kinds of wonderful events, but mostly everyone walks about singing and drinking mulled wine, and all in Victorian costume a la Charles Dickens (hence the festival name of course). When Andrew and I arrived things were winding down, but the first thing we saw were three school-aged boys in full costume singing songs from "Oliver" and shaking a tin can to earn some money. I could have pinched myself. In fact, I might have. There were barrels of fired coal placed all around the village to offer the relief of some fire warmth from the freezing cold temperatures. The pictures on their website are far better than mine came out in the dark but I'll post a few anyway.

Andrew getting a very hot cuppa hot chocolate from a Dickensian

One of the lit barrels in the village to warm our hands

Throw in a lot of adventures over a few wonderful months, a trip to America to meet the family (!), a Messiah tour around England with our new harpsichord (!!!) and that, my friends, is the last few months in a nutshell! Oh, and I got my Masters degree in January too : ) I promise I'll do better and write more frequently again soon. So much to share - finishing up this second masters in creative writing, planning a wedding in Northumberland! And we're off to France next week for a Valentines/Birthday trip! Believe me, the posts will definitely come. Is it fair to be so happy? : )

Finally, a few other pictures from the beginning of 2012, and our first snowfalls in Hexham (where Andrew grew up) and in York just this week!