Missing Home

I'm feeling especially wistful today. Nostalgia is so real. I never knew I could be nostalgic for so many things at once... But St. Olaf is the one I feel comfortable sharing (I'm sure I'll talk about the other someday, but it's really just too painful right now). 

I dreamt last night that I went there, to my true second home, to visit all my friends, to see the lovely folks in the music department, to taste the food (swoon). I got to stay with my old roommates, have a late night watching stupid films and eating pizza from the Pause. I went to chapel in the morning and got to see Therees (or Dr. Hibbard, as no one calls her, because she's weird about that) directing Manitou.  I don't remember what they sang, but it was something I knew. 

I so miss that place. Those are my people there; my friends, of course, but just folks who are on my wavelength, which is so rare for me to find anywhere else. I miss early music ensemble, where I get to work with such talented musicians, but also sing the music I love; the music that made me fall in love with music; the music that made me certain that I needed to dedicate my life to sharing beauty with the rest of the world. They're doing the Bach BWV 150 in the spring, and how sad I am to be missing it... Maybe I'll make a pilgrimage out there to hear it; I'm not sure if streaming it from the website would be enough. 

Bach was really the one who clinched my pursuit of church music. (I'm sure I'll write sometime about my transition from atheism to faith... That's quite a story, actually.) The chorales, the chorale preludes, the endless organ works, the superior craftsmanship in every phrase, every note. This is music truly for the glory of God, no matter what god means to you... It makes you feel like you're a part of something greater, something you can't just reach out and touch. The St. Matthew passion was what did it. Such an exquisite expression of grief, but subtle. It doesn't feel like a requiem feels. It's cathartic in a way few requiems feel to me. It reminds me that there's security in death, or the freedom thereof, in a way that few requiems do (in fact, the Fauré is the only exception I can think of right now). 

And St. Olaf feels the way Bach feels to me. It's safe. It's authentic. It's home.