I was invited to a hymn sing yesterday morning at Old St. James church in Port Hill, a twenty minute drive from my home. A sunrise event, 7:00 am, created by someone I only met when she contacted me last week after reading something here on my blog.
Our only connection was that our ancestors embarked from the same town in England to take up work in the PEI shipyards in the mid-1800s. Our families would have worshiped together in St. James after it was built around 1841, but neither of us have a recent connection to that church or community.
The music was outstanding, Laura Beth and two of her friends playing electric piano, guitar and the church’s ancient pump organ, harmonizing together on an hour’s worth of classic hymns. A dozen locals, mostly parishioners, came to join them, none of us knowing these musicians but, I would guess, drawn as I was to the novelty of being invited to this sweet historic church on a soft, gentle July morning.
The morning sun moved through the simple coloured glass window, casting a nearly-neon glow first on the singers, then the pews, and across the floor. It was mesmerizing and poignant, moving many to tears. Brought together by strangers, parting as friends, with hugs and farewells all around. Brief but deep conversations about family history and spirit and life. I’m not a churchgoer, but this was a special, meaningful morning.
I had spent the previous evening in Britannia Hall in Tyne Valley at an evening of story telling and music. The only thing I have any real training in is technical theatre: lights, sound, stage management, stage carpentry, that sort of thing. It has been decades since I used any of those skills in a theatre, but I recently joined the hall’s volunteer committee and jumped at the chance to relearn how to run the sound and lights by assisting the technician, moving microphones around and helping with sound checks.
It was fun to see what I had remembered, to stretch that part of my brain again, and the magic of making a performance happen still makes my heart jump. I will turn 60 soon, but I felt as I did when I was 20, hurrying around the theatre, nimble and quick, dressed in theatre-technician black, to troubleshoot the various things that always go a bit sideways in live performances.
It was a weekend where centuries and decades folded in on each other, time meaning nothing. This has happened a lot since my mother died last year. Time expands and contracts so that my childhood seems like yesterday and then seems 1,000 years ago, often switching in the blink of an eye. I worried about this for a while, wondering what my grief brain was up to, but now I just let myself be pulled and pushed, giving into the swirl, the music, the ageless hymns of time.