Thermostat and the Heat

 

A Book Club Story

An ingenious literary friend advised me to jump ahead and read the last 60 pages of our current book club book instead of trying to read whatever’s left of the book before the meeting. This ingenious technique elevates the act of not reading the book club book to a creative art form. First, it provides enough information to attend the book club meeting and join in the discussion just a little. Second, the time and effort it takes to read the last 60 pages together with what is already read reduces the guilt and embarrassment of not finishing the book by a significant amount!

D. wakes me up at 4 in the morning. The young Siamese Tonkanese cat we got from a local shelter is awake. Unlike our previous cat who ate, slept, and cuddled through life, this cat is a wild thing of lion like grace, cheetah speed, squirrel climbing power, and 10 lives at least for risk taking. The other day this cat jumped from our roof to the top of a sun umbrella on the deck. The umbrella didn’t survive the onslaught. She burst through the umbrella, tearing a gaping hole in it with her claws. Then she crashed down on the table holding up the umbrella. Its metal legs could be heard complaining from the impact. This cat is a furry and muscled wrecking ball who flies through space, her paws barely touching the ground. Now she is ready for pleasure, play, or battle at 4am in the morning. But she does respond well to affection, so I spend time petting her.

 “The heat is on,” D says. She is not referring to the cat or to the fact that I have a rehearsal and music gig to prepare for later in the week. She is referring to the fact that neither of us turned the heater off when we went to bed last night. I haul myself into vertical sitting position. Still groggy, I push a hand through the hair on top of my head. I search the gloom for my glasses, and attain my feet without incident. I sheathe my feet in slippers with each foot miraculously in the correct slipper. Momentarily, I appreciate my luck in getting this right!  After all, I’m not nearly as graceful as the cat. But after accomplishing all that I do something that no cat has ever done unless the cat we’re talking about is a jazz musician, and not many of them have ever done this. I think about oboe reeds.

 Those of you who may have read some of my blog writings and others of you who know an  oboe player realize that 90% of an oboe player’s cerebral matter is devoted to thinking about oboe reeds. The question is this: Should I start making oboe reeds at 4 in the morning?  That’s what I usually did when I served as principal oboist of a local community symphony orchestra. A good start on oboe reeds at 4am meant I could continue to work on the reeds later that very same day after they thoroughly dried out. But I decide against 4am reed making.  Retired now, I’m not performing much and I’m setting new habits for my retired existence, like sleeping instead of 4am reed making. Hmm, 4am reed making. Do I really want to do that? The answer seems to be a big fat “NO!” 

I go downstairs with my phone phlashlight in hand and stare at the offending thermostat for the time it takes to decode its numbers, verifying visually what my body’s thermostat has already told me, and what D. has stated. “Heat”, it says. I turn it off like the urge to make oboe reeds.

 I have rejected reed making. Instead, now that I’m awake, I can take up the bookclub book, Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain. The book club meets in less than a week. The book is over 10,000 pages on my phone (where I have read many a book club book) and over 2000 pages on the iPad. I’ll be doing well if I can reach page 700 on the iPad in the time remaining before the meeting. The last 60 pages technique is calling to me like sirens to Ulysses. 

 Thomas Mann was one of my mother’s favorite authors. My mother was a professional singer in opera choruses. She appeared on stage in most of the opera repertoire with the famous singers of her day. One of her favorite arias was Delilah’s aria from “Sampson and Delilah” when Delilah is tempting Sampson to reveal to her the secret of his strength.

 Recently I thought to play Delilah’s aria on my English Horn in honor of my mother. I can  hear it in my mind performed in a way the performance  does justice to the memory of my mother’s gorgeous contralto voice. It was a beautiful voice she inherited from her father. He was a kind man who along with my father and step grandfather became examples of kind men in my life. These men were all married to women who were emotional pistols, women who wanted active lovers that were enamored of their beauty, but who who were also kind men. I don’t know that they got the active lover part, but they did get kind men. And these women responded well to kindness, much like our cat.

The English Horn playing for Delilah’s aria needs to express the soaring emotions felt by Delilah in her most dramatic moments. It should express her ambivalence, her revenge-powered devotion and loyalty to her tribe, as well as the tragic dualities that are the hallmarks of human existence. She is led simultaneously by love and hatred. In some way she actually has a tender love for Sampson while betraying him to the Philistines. She is goaded on by the stature and validation she will achieve by taking the Philistines' revenge on Sampson. 

But enough about art and my mother and kind men. I now need to treat myself with kindness. And so I yield to the beautiful temptation of Delilah, the Siren song that lured Ulysses. I read the last 60 pages of Magic Mountain. My book club assignment is finished.