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Canoegirl�s Web Reunion Weekend is here. No, not my high school reunion (which would have been last year), not a University reunion (would be next year): the Wammick 60th anniversary reunion. This is an event that we have been planning and saving for during the past 5 years. At first it was predicted to be the concert of finales, including both Gospel Mass and Mother Africa, the two most loved of Wammick�s finale pieces. Instead it will be a selection of songs from the past ten years. Since I sang with Wammick for 9 of the 10 years, I know almost every piece that will be sung that night, including the Gospel Mass.I am very much looking forward to hearing Randal Thompson�s �Alleluia�, which I sang in my first year with the chorus and which has a special meaning for me. My first year with Wammick was difficult in terms of the choir, the adjustment to University, and my personal life. I was painfully shy and didn�t make any friends in choir that year. Some of the pieces that we sang were very difficult (at least the Alto parts were), many of the songs were in German, and I struggled with learning my parts. I left more than one rehearsal in tears after Bob (the conductor) had berated the Alto section for its errors. A number of times I almost quit the choir, but something made me stick with it until the spring concert. Every time I think of �Alleluia�, I am instantly transported back to the spring concert of that first year. My green monster dress is sticking to my sides and the stage lights are shining in my eyes so that the conductor is sheathed in a foggy glow. I can feel the energy on the stage, running up through the soles of my thin shoes and in through my ears, through my body and out of my mouth, transforming me with its passage. I can feel myself rocked in the waves of crescendo and decrescendo, thrilling with the softest sung sound, surging and speeding higher, faster until the wave breaks and peace returns. And at the end comes a whisper of joy, a balm on my aching soul that shows me where god lives in music. I am singing for myself, for the joy of song, not even aware that anyone else is listening. This was the one that moved me, transformed me and made me stay. If singing can make me feel like this I will gladly rehearse and perform for the rest of my life, if only to feel that peaceful joy one more time. Ten years later I have fully joined Wammick and left again. It has given me friendship and Bear and memories that I will treasure for the rest of my life. It has also given me a web of friends unlike any others, maintained by a beautiful dynamic balance. Once in trying to introduce our group Smacked drew a diagram indicating the roommateships, siblings, official romances and unofficial romances of the core group. Some people had so many ties that their name was barely visible and others hung by a single thread. Granted some of the ones with single threads had connections so strong that they were threads of steel and others were held securely in place by the intangible strands of so many strong friendships. Now it feels like the lifeblood is draining out of our core. Too many people have left, taking digits and limbs and nicks and gouges. Smelly and Roscoe are gone to warmer than here, as are Plaid and Gee. Fuzzy followed his own personal tornado to the Peg. Lawn has been gone for a long time, and may be away for much longer. The Raisin is married and living in Cowtown. Birdie went to Cowtown too and Hell has withdrawn into studyland, as is her way. Monkey boy still lives here but is nonetheless absent from our lives. Pug and her fianc� Bio have disappeared from the face of the planet, they aren�t even coming to the concert and they were both in the choir this year! Dramaqueen and Halo have drifted, keeping a few anchors but rarely keeping close to shore. Kristian is slowly fading, I think through lack of effort on many people�s parts. Gerg is headed for marriage and out the door, he hasn�t said as much but it�s been there in his language for a while. Smacked, normally a vocal anchor of the group has been withdrawn for the past half-year, and only now seems to be re-emerging from her cocoon. Foreman lived in the Far Fort this year. Africa and Foreman are making choices that seldom keep them near us; they don�t have a lot of spare time and very little of it is spent with us as a group (I�m lucky enough to still get some face time). In fact they may be moving farther away than any of our other missing pieces soon. Bbb is busy as usual and lives far away, making the occasional sparkling appearances. Recently our web has become stretched and distorted. It used to be that when a new person drifted in to our web, the new bonds would cause our web to become tighter and stronger. Now in some cases the addition of a single person has caused people to be pulled so far from the web that we can�t see them anymore. Our core has been depleted and so we have less power to hold those remaining in, less gravity if you will. As our web spins, vital strands have been stretched to other places, while others have thinned. Rifts and gaps have appeared, fights and hurt feelings have weakened our web, and some days I�m not certain that it won�t fly apart altogether, or just drift apart from apathy and atrophy. And yet we�ve had many recent additions to the outer layer. Brat lives at the party house and has started spending more and more time with us. Gerg�s fianc� Lake has started hanging out at the Party house. Bbb has a new boy, Bond, who we adore and have adopted. Smacked�s pal Rin has started coming to some events and she�s crazy-fun. Cute-Naked-Man still floats in and out of the circle. The pentagon that is Kow drifts in and out of attachment at various points of the web. Last night we got some of the old energy back. Fuzzy was in town for the weekend festivities and a bunch of us hung out at the Party House with the TV off for a couple of hours and just talked and caught up with each other. It was like I�d been transported back in time by about 5 years, as I kept seeing things that used to be the norm but hadn�t happened in ages. Fuzzy and Bear were off in their own world making comments, bad jokes and snickering like two little boys in the corner. Smacked interpreted when Dramaqueen and Halo got too excitedly incoherent. Kristian danced to a different drum, as she always has (although now it�s with the addition of Droolia, knitting and baby-on-the-way). Halo perched on Fuzzy�s lap as Dramaqueen teased her about her new guy. Princess misinterpreted something and the whole room ended up aching with laughter at the thought of Bio hitting Dramaqueen with a pillow shaped like Buckwheat�s head. Fuzzy, Dramaqueen and I lay in perfect comfort on the couch, stacked like toppled dominoes. Kristus watched it all with a smile. It took us a step back and away from a change that we seem to be approaching too quickly: a life of independent worlds with husbands or wives and children as our family unit, instead of this amazing web of friends. It makes me sad to think that I might lose this special and precious bond in the name of growing up. I like to think that it won�t happen that way, that I can marry Bear and carry on with friendships as usual. I want my kids to grow up with my friend�s kids, to be as comfortable resting in the arms of their aunties as they are in mine, and to play happily with their adopted uncles. I don�t want us to become �the married ones� and �the single ones�. I want to be able to have the strong friendships that I have now, to have nights out with the girls, to go for coffee one-on-one. I don�t want to sacrifice my family of friends to have a family. I hope that our core is strong enough to hold together against time, distance and mistakes, because it would be an incredible shame to lose such a wondrous thing: the family that I chose in my Wammick friends. 2004-03-05 || 3:06 p.m. |
