Studies in Contrast at the Dawn of Spring, from Nature, the Beatles, Haydn, and Schubert

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, March 14, 2024

The above is possibly the most striking picture I have recently taken, so striking at the close of winter ... not much has changed, for there has been no rain or wind to change it as the seasons have changed. Spring is here, but autumn still lingers ...

Before this I have never seen with my own eyes the idea of unfinished business being so beautiful ... I am a stickler for detail, and even when it comes to fictional stories, it is hard for me to leave a loose end in my own or any other account.

But, perhaps that is a behavior that I also can let go ... for such incredible red leaves against such a blue sky so near to where I passed under blue bee balm flowers under a blue sky --

Photos by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, March 14, 2024

... touched my mind as well as my heart as winter on the calendar gave way to spring, and yet nothing is yet resolved. In November there was such a day, after I had been in so much anguish through the autumn to that point, and so much labor bringing my book forth on October 30. I took that as a herald of hope of all things being restored to me at the proper time ... but this was different to me, for spring is here, and yet things from the autumn, leaves once green in the previous summer, still persist ... and are still gloriously beautiful ...

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, March 14, 2024

... my surprise goes to the soul, not least because there is a mirroring of sorts there ... although the heartbreaks of the previous year are not even a year back, the peace I feel about all things as the seasons change seems to have reached those memories, even though the "apparitions" are flitting around. Again, unfinished business. I could "swat" them. I could reach back into those memories and blast them clear into another realm with every single detail and everything I felt ... but it seemed to me that the red leaves against that blue, blue sky counseled me to take the advice of basso profundo Eric Hollaway, who makes the point as shockingly as bright autumn leaves in March in the Northern Hemisphere:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/A_fYbygUzeE

Just like the pianist, you do have to know when it is time to let it be ... and of course, that is never NOT going to be hilarious ... so much so that while the tears were still in my eyes from laughter, I heard the harmonious chuckling of another basso profundo, though with a German accent...

"Now, Frau Mathews," said the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past as he stepped through the portal of imagination at about 60 years of age, "that Eric Hollaway has the voice, and he is such a magnificent thinker and human being too! I fail to understand how you insist on thinking about me when you know him!"

"Tatest du wirklich?" I said, and the surprise of that opening from King Marke's lament from Tristan und Isolde caught him so off-guard -- he who had made the greatest rendition of that lament in the 20th century -- that he cried out laughing over all those same octaves Mr. Hollaway had covered.

"Did you really, Herr Möll?"

He was helpless with laughter for about as long as I had been the first time I had seen "Let it Be in the Key of BASS!" from Mr. Hollaway.

"Indeed, your ability to pick up and use the phrases and idioms that you know in German is increasing!" he said as he mopped his face from the ethereal tears he had been shedding from laughing so hard. "Only you, Frau Mathews! I'm working to decrease so others can increase -- but you just vetoed me like King Marke vetoed Melot in Tristan und Isolde!"

"Well, I could have just said, 'nein,' but you matter enough to me that the idea deserved a proper smackdown, in the operatic terms you know so well," I purred, and then waited a beat ... stage timing ... and then gave him the sweetest smile ... which turned into a grin as he broke down laughing all over again.

"You didn't just smack the idea," he said between laughs, "you put it in the Knockout Zone! What is the American idiom -- quick, fast, and in a hurry!"

"That's the right idiom!" I said.

Oh, he was tickled ... presently he regained his composure, though his eyes were still shining brightly from the afterglow of that laughter.

"I am delighted to find you in such high spirits, Frau Mathews, of course," he said, with a warm smile. "You have turned the memory of King Marke's lament, and your own deep grief, into laughter and joy -- mein Herz jubelt für dich!"

Then he smiled and opened his arms, and when I had come to his embrace --

"Now I should start on 'Death and the Maiden' right now, but --."

It was my turn to be caught by surprise and be laughing!

" -- but I do have a lesson to teach," he said, "and you have to live to make use of it, so I will spare you today."

"You're my favorite for many good reasons," I said. "Good sense means a lot, and it is written: 'Abhor that which is evil; cling to that which is good.'"

"Now you are getting the right use of that very strong grip of yours, Frau Mathews," he said gently. "As you released the people and things that were not for you, that gave you room to embrace more good in your life. This is one of the great secrets of life that you have discovered -- but now, what do we do with unfinished business, some of it flitting around as starkly as autumn leaves in the first week of spring, though not as beautifully?"

"This is the question of the day," I said. "I know it is not my job to climb the trees and take down the leaves, nor do I want to, for they are glorious to see -- it's like I wouldn't tell a painter how to paint and a fellow composer how compose: that's God's business, and my only job is to be amazed and say Amen. He'll finish that business when He is ready."

"But people are a little different -- not always so harmonious, out of season," he said gently.

"Well, people are not trees," I said, "but I am still not their Maker. That is the greatest thing I learned in the last two years: if people change, it is between them and their Maker. It must be. It is not for me to do, and I cannot do it. I can inform. I can teach. I can encourage. All of that with love ... I refuse to give up the prerogative of love. I recognize, however, that love assures me no outcome but itself, and its own companions. Not everyone is suited to that companionship, and I must let that be."

"Mr. Hollaway summed up that lesson very well," my companion said. "I merely add depth to it."

I laughed.

"Pun fully intended, of course!" I said.

"Of course!" he said, and spun me out of his embrace with a laugh.

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, March 14 , 2024

"Now, before we proceed, I must while I remember return the greeting of your dear friend @mipiano! Tell her that I said 'Habe Dank!' Add that it is my absolute delight and honor to an inspiration to her and the Q-Inspired community, and I shall forever be grateful that she and this community opened the door for an imaginary meeting between you and me, and then made me so much at home that it has become my home away from home on high! Tell her also ..."

Quite suddenly he needed his handkerchief again, for the tears flowed freely from his eyes.

"Tell her also that Q-Inspired's hospitality has added to my grand memories of all the kindness and love shown to me throughout the world. I cannot ever take that for granted. When I think of the honor of knowing you two eminent young musicians, and that her son, too, is up and coming, and Germany is nourishing him, too, as a musician ... when I remember how different it could have been ... how different it was, when I was her son's age, and how you both would have been treated, and that you know this ... and yet that it should be that you and she might entrust your most precious things ... how the seasons have changed, and love and hope have bloomed again, that I, and mine, might be considered trustworthy!"

His voice had reached his overjoyed timbre, at the edge of his emotional control ... in times past he could sing on that and take a room of concertgoers straight into the Knockout Zone ... but now, he verged upon his full immortal voice, and that could literally take out vast swaths of the world just because of what it was. So, he took his time composing himself, and even after that, my floor quivered at his soft low notes when he spoke.

"Tell her I said thank you, and I thank you too, Frau Mathews. You both have my eternal gratitude."

He then had another thought, one that startled him.

"Is not a neighbor of yours having seismic retrofitting done this week?"

Then I remembered, and my eyes going wide told him that he was right. But, it was spring: time for my neighbors to keep their house, and for us to meet spring in my favorite place!

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, March 20, 2024

"You know, Herr Möll, since you are in California, you know 'there's gold in them there hills," I said as we climbed up Buena Vista Hill.

"I have heard that," he said. "Of course American history was not in my studies as extensively as it was in yours, but I know the gold rush was some time back."

"I am going to walk you back in time, as you have often done for me," I teased him, knowing what was around the next corner. Then we went around, and although he had no actual lungs, his approximation of a breath caught for surprise as he walked into spring as he had never seen it before.

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, March 20, 2024

Gold-tipped were the trees ...

Photos by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, March 20, 2024

... and the light upon the city ...

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, March 20, 2024

... and at every gap...

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, March 20, 2024

... and gold were the early oxalis flowers in their yearly masses, making for us a golden ascent ...

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, March 20, 2024

We had come to this place already overjoyed ... for him, to find me again in my joy along with the triggering of a lifetime of golden memories for which he was grateful, and for me, to enter into a spring with no burden of the past or fear of what the future held ... and for us to know the other was so delighted in the joy of the other ... while the ships waiting in San Francisco Bay floated by upon their blue as we floated through these golden moments ...

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, March 20, 2024

It was at about that time, with that view, that I realized that Q-Inspired and Knockout Zone physics were interacting, for gravity had scarcely held him down in his joy during his mortal years, and now, unless he was concentrating, and he wasn't ...

"Excuse me, Herr Möll," I said, very gently, "but we forgot to get FAA clearance for this airspace."

"Bigger problem, Frau Mathews: I don't remember what runway we used to get up here!"

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, March 20, 2024

How long we had been walking on sunshine in our joy, I will never know, but it was quite the way to meet the dawn of spring! We followed a sunbeam safely downward again to a quiet place to rest and gather ourselves, through new foliage with its own reds and greens tipped toward gold ... a lovely runway, as it happened!

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, March 20, 2024

"Hard it go for anyone in such a golden spring, with such beautiful company, to come into gravity again," he said at last, "but it was getting our work done that allowed us to be here -- specifically, you, right here, began your walk to this golden spring last summer, laying down all the business you could not finish and maintain your calling at the same time. When no one else could hear in the mortal world, we know, above, what you did, and to Whom You cried, in full trust even in all that anguish -- those high notes, Frau Mathews, so beautiful!"

"I suppose that would sound good, up there," I said.

"When your mouth could have been full of bitterness and cursing and slander -- when your fingers might have done the same -- in the hour of your most terrible temptations ... oh yes, meine Tochterlein, we who knew this day would come knew that you had cried to the right One! You had made it His business, and He has seen to it that you will be troubled no more!"

He was hitting the top of his range in his joy, and I thought then of his shocking high notes in mortal life that he was approximating ... they had been amazing, because his voice was so full and big then, but at this point, indeed, my neighbors' contractors would have been watching their new handiwork being shaken to bits, because the sub-harmonics were getting through again.

Little did I know: he had some high notes saved for me!

"On YouTube, you recently bumped into the Missa Sanctae Caeciliae by Haydn, and the thought did come to your mind: 'Why has this popped up in my timeline?' The answer to the question is in the description."

Sure enough: the date was 1982, and the bass was Kurt Möll!

"That is my gift to you, Frau Mathews, for this day's lesson ... as in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, I sang the 'Agnus Dei' there -- and it is that we must discuss -- but all of that wonderful live recording is now yours to enjoy."

PeakD will not cooperate with the live video ... nonetheless ... I have it here, and the timestamp is 1:05:30, and I will tell you ...

... I will never know how this man, when I was not yet more than a year old, stood up when that whole choir sat down and sang out all my feelings of last summer to the world ... the anguish of the cry, pressed to the limits of the voice -- those high notes, though! -- combined with the full assurance that One Who loves will hear and respond with mercy and grant peace (which, of course, Haydn works out perfectly in how he composed the last portion also there to hear, the "Dona Nobis Pacem")! To say that I was overwhelmed by this discovery is an understatement; the tears come back to my eyes even at the thought now. Then ... well, the doors of the Knockout Zone were always open.

Some time later, that same voice gently recalled me into the gravity of perspective ...

"That did not come up all last year, Frau Mathews, because your journey needed to advance enough for you to appreciate the meaning and the blessing of what you were led to do last summer, as you learned to say, "Du bist die Ruh" ... "Ich grolle nicht," and much more on high before you ever learned those songs existed ... and so, followed the right path to your spring, in peace. There was never any other outcome possible. Now, we look back and see..."

I opened my eyes ... the path behind us took my breath away again ...

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, March 20, 2024

"It was hard climbing, Frau Mathews," he said, "but now, remember the path behind you as it is granted to you as a memory form today: bathed in golden joy."

He said nothing else for a long, long time, and just held me, for he knew the lesson of the day was not over, and the reason why came forth from my heart as sorrow asserted itself for a moment.

"What I would not have given to have so many others share this day with me!"

He looked down at me with a face that mirrored my own feelings ... compassion, like that of his Commendatore because he for a moment forgot his face was to be stone as he considered the doom of Don Giovanni.

"But that is just it, Frau Mathews. We do not have a heart of stone, so when one considers ... when one considers that other path, and those we are concerned with choosing it, there is pain there. A study in contrasts, then, for you safely in your spring -- a return to hear a portion of Schubert's Winterreise, to consider one who made a different choice. I present to you 'Erstarrung,' the fourth song of the set."

Now he did not move, and in fact wrapped his arms more tightly around me ... for his gaunt, thin younger doppelgänger for Winterreise arrived, and everywhere he stepped, snow sprouted at his feet -- the whole path iced up!

Erstarrung means solidification, like the freezing of water into ice, and that is referred to in the song ... only it is the solidification of a heart, with the deliberate path to that choice sung here as only Herr Möll can -- so energetic, and so deliberate, and clear in expressing the moment the character chooses his doom.

He who will not return to the tree of life and love in "Der Lindenbaum," the next song in the set ... he who in the first song, "Gute Nacht," said love was inconstant and God had made it so ... he now is looking for footprints of his beloved from the springtime, underneath the winter snow ... he says that he will kiss the snow and burn through it with his hot tears to reach that earth ... but even if he does, what fresh blooms and grass will greet him? It is winter ... he desires to take some memento, but there is nothing -- yet because he cannot accept this total loss, he fears that if he should ever stop grieving, he will have nothing left of her ... so he decides to kill and freeze his heart, and thus keep her picture frozen there.

"Oh, no!" I said. "This is where he dies for real, long before 'Der Leiermann,' and why he refuses to hear 'Der Lindenbaum.' This is where he chooses to never leave the winter for the spring ... oh, no!"

"Indeed," he said, "for if the seasons change, and life goes on, then he will have to accept her loss -- so he chooses death right here in the fourth song, and later clues that his body will follow his heart begin to accumulate later."

He leaned back for a moment and sighed, and then a look of painful concentration came over his face. The entire scene changed then: spring persisted where we were, but snow fell thickly before us, and instead of trees there were other shapes in it. With a start, I recognized a cannon covered in snow. His doppelgänger kicked at it and uncovered it, and then fell to his knees sobbing by it.

"There is a winter I was told of," my companion said to me, "in which men's hopes for empire lay upon the ground, buried in the snow. But, there, the generation of my fathers and grandfathers froze the desire in their hearts, and would not let the idea thaw."

The doppelgänger took out the Iron Cross he had been awarded, and looked on it with burning eyes ... and then twisted it in his hands into a swastika.

"Yet finally, the spring of 1945 came, and the flood swept them, and their nation, away."

There was a great flash of blue, and then spring bloomed before us, as it was before.

"So by that, Frau Mathews, I desire you to know that last summer, the way of life and the way of death had been set before you, as it is written. Spring always comes, but not all are permitted to walk in it. Had you chosen the wrong path ... but, Frau Mathews, you chose the right path, and we are here. As for others, I must say again what I have said before, because I can but echo what He Who called you has already said. But, let us walk again a little while, first."

So we walked on, descending from the hill on the route that would take us by Alvord Lake, toward Lone Mountain. It was still starkly in winter's guise...

... but spring was literally right down the street ...

... and as we walked right down through it to pass through the trees on our way ...

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, March 20, 2024

... I realized how gently he had made his comment about others who had chosen, relative to me, to remain in winter. There was nothing to be done by me but to keep walking, to keep climbing ... keep climbing, for as he led me up as far as Golden Gate Park's northernmost point on Lone Mountain, we found gold in those hills also ...

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, March 20, 2024

... and another gold-blessed quiet meadow for us to rest in.

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, March 20, 2024

It was there that I realized: no matter the difficulty of future climbs, before me was the joy of creating the life legacy I had been called to ... the joy of creating awaited me with every step forward, so long as I chose no evil step! This realization gave a wideness and openness to my 43rd spring that I had never known before -- this was what he had foreseen in December, when he had given me hard lessons from Winterreise, because --

I delayed this lesson because of the intensity of your grief earlier in this year. I could not risk pushing you into despair then, and I recognize this is a great risk now. But your 43rd year approaches, Frau Mathews, one month and one day from today. I will not deny you the possibility of a year of clarity and brightness and peace like none before it! I will not withhold from you this full and awful truth of why you were led away from so many, and why you must not go with their like, ever again.

My heart melted, no idol held there -- not even that of the people I had to leave behind --- such that I needed to miss this time! All was as it was meant to be!

Now it is spring, and when things start running, they really do -- the spring flood from nose and eyes can really be something! Yet my gallant companion gave me a handkerchief out of his ample supply before drying his own tears of joy with another.

Mein Herz jubelt für dich, meine Töchterlein ... oh, mein Herz jubelt für dich!"

Now in appearance by this time, he was a radiant 53-55ish, the joy of the day slowly aging him backwards as days like that tended to do. He was indeed a handsome man, and his unmistakable voice, even if not understood word for word, drew ears. I imagine that because of the way my skin loves sunlight that I was as radiant as he was. Like at red autumn leaves in a blue spring day, folks just stared ... but even if they misunderstood the nature of the love, only those who had given up entirely upon the idea and hated those who had love would not have been encouraged to see that yes, love still is upon the earth, even in 2024, and still being chosen and walked in.

But it did look like that scene out of Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier in which one person falling in love hands the other that big rose, and would have looked romantic but for my spring allergies -- on top of all the other impossibilities -- messing up the whole thing.

"Add another impossibility -- I'm Baron Ochs von Lerchenau in that opera," my companion said, and I broke out laughing.

"Right -- no -- nein -- nie!" I cried as I laughed.

"I was ever warning of the danger!" he said as he laughed.

"Oh, you came through loud and clear!" I said. "Hilarious, but loud and clear!"

"It is a more advanced lesson we now can come to in this spring," he said. "A storyteller, be she a writer, composer, fractal artist, contralto, and pianist, or he, just a little bass -- ."

That study in contrasts, ridiculous as it was from a world-famous opera singer, got me to laughing!

" -- first has to entertain," he said with a smile after demonstrating the point. "That entertainment opens the door to us performing all the other duties of our calling to public communication: to illuminate and highlight ideas, and through our choices in that to affirm or deny those ideas, and thus by those choices provide to those kind enough to be an audience whatever they come in need of. The more clear our intentions, and the more depth to our preparation work, the more we are able to provide and connect to those who are looking for all of what we have been given to share.

"Therefore, Frau Mathews, recognize that you are actually a master public communicator, and because of the intensity and depth of what it takes to be effective, you may not have as much time or energy to give to people who require constant external motivation to apply what you are teaching them. If you think back over where you have succeeded, where you have struggled, and where you feel you have failed, you will see that emerging as a cause."

2022 and 2023, and all the situations where I had really gotten hurt, became clear to me.

"Because you love so deeply, Frau Mathews, and because you are an empath, your heart goes out to individuals," he said gently, "but reflect carefully and recognize: even as a music teacher and tutor you struggled, because although those experiences were a necessary part of your development, many of the people adjacent to those situations tormented you and your students because they hated that said student was getting individual love and attention from you, and they were not. In other cases, the families were not sufficiently committed to their students becoming like you in excellence. Notably, your students of those years nonetheless picked up your deep love and your discipline and insights and converted all that to their own successful uses later. You model well, Frau Mathews -- your time was by no means wasted -- but what do you keep saying to people who want you to teach their children privately now?"

"I am retired, after 20 years," I said. "I no longer do that, and you have at last illuminated why."

"This is the core of the matter," he said. "The world has many needs, and the community around you has many needs. You are responsible to know what you are called to do, and to do that. Find your business, and mind it -- all else is God's business, and He has called more people than you to that, so you need not do it all.

"Also understand: of course there are obvious gaps around you that no one seems to be addressing. For each of those gaps, there is someone with an idol locked in their heart, and that heart as good as dead. Therefore what should be flourishing under their purview is dying as well. Whatever excuses they make to themselves and others will work, until you arrive and snatch away all those excuses by virtue of your deep love and willingness to invest your massive ability to make things better."

I gasped in a sudden rush of memory that went back into decades of strange incidents of conflict ... that was why ...

"It is written: 'Follow Me: let the dead bury their dead,' and He Who said it is the Savior," my companion said to me. "That imperative was harsh, but true, and as necessary today as it was then. You are not called to clean up all things broken down because someone is too busy freezing an idol into their heart. You are not called to partake in the misery they are in and will never come out of as long as they keep their heart dead around that idol. Let the dead bury their dead, Frau Mathews. You follow Him Who calls you to the business He wants you in, mind that business, and stay out of everything else unless He makes it your business to stand against the evil of a particular such person."

"Yes, sir," I said, but with no consternation or resentment. I no longer saw the harshness of the original command, and thus not in the basso profundo echo of it. I heard love. I heard protection. I saw future burdens never falling upon my shoulders. I saw the clear way to a future different from my past. All I had to do was walk in it. I was so relieved I would have burst into tears again, but then --.

"Tiny! Tiny! Come back here!"

A truly immense dog came running headlong out of the trees across the meadow, heading straight for us.

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, March 20, 2024

"Sit still, Frau Mathews," my companion said to me, and then stood between me and that dog. He only said one word.

"Sit."

Tiny sat. His owners also sat -- although kind of hard because falling over was unplanned -- and so did a bunch of other people in the vicinity! The birds and butterflies also landed, and sat still.

My companion assessed the dog, and then smiled and knelt down.

"Come," he said, and Tiny came to the large man -- he had gotten from plenty large enough at six-feet-two back to six-feet-forever-and-a-half, just that quick in my defense -- and was petted and scratched and loved. The dog's owners soon followed the birds and butterflies to that loving summons!

Tiny was then permitted to enjoy love from me after he had been vetted and calmed. Overexcited, he could be a danger, but he had a loving personality, and it was lovely to attend to him and have the butterflies fluttering and the birds singing around us.

Tiny, the birds, the butterflies and I had been left in the peace -- following the German idiomatic expression I loved of "Lass mich in [die] Ruh" -- while my companion remained kneeling and withheld the full strength and depth of his voice in gently saying to Tiny's people, "You know, your beautiful dog is too large to be running about off-leash without the potential of hurting someone."

Tiny's people took kindness for weakness and made the mistake people usually do when they think they can gaslight and manipulate their way out of situations: excuses and justifications. My companion, master of stage and scene that he was, stayed silent and literally let them look down on him that whole time until they ran out of things to say. Another two or three uncomfortable beats of time ... and then he answered them.

"Nonsense. You know better than that."

That came from close to the bottom of his "regular" double-deep voice, but with a little touch of the immortal voice's mini-earthquake harmonics also added. So the couple turned as pale as that grass in "Erstarrung," and then began to shake when the man they were looking down on a moment before stood up to tower over them -- six-feet-forever-and-half parsing out to as tall and powerful as they could imagine a male human's frame could be for a voice that deep.

"And it was at this moment, Tiny," I whispered in the dog's ears, "that your people knew they had messed up."

"Consider yourself both warned and blessed," he said. "Be grateful that not a hair on the head of my dear friend was harmed by your irresponsibility. You have had a narrow escape this day."

He then turned around.

"Come, Tiny," he said, and the dog returned to him for one last good petting.

"Put him on his leash," he ordered the dog's owners, and this was done. "Now, GO."

That was an E flat 1, the lowest speaking note I had heard in his interview with August Everding -- but then he was relaxed and having good conversation. The force behind that note on this day cleared the area of all but the birds and the butterflies and me, beside whom he sat back down, and even I waited a few moments for his face to clear of his restrained but definite anger.

"I thought you weren't on my security detail, Herr Möll," I gently teased, and was glad to see his well-known smile return.

"Like your father says, I can't always remember what I forgot," he said. "Nonetheless, I am grateful for the experience. That was a good object lesson for you, of the protection available to you as you walk with Him Who calls you, and let Him vet the hearts that approach you in your spring. Tiny is a wonderful dog, but he might have bruised you at that speed because he is far too large to not be trained better than that. You notice I did not permit his people to so much as address you with their excuses."

"I noticed," I said. "You did bless them, though. I'm quite certain Tiny will never be in an incident now, because his owners will remember meeting you and think again about having him running loose in public!"

"I am forever across the gap into the 'In your anger, sin not' phase of my human existence," he said gently. "Of course I blessed them in warning them, not being authorized or having any desire to do anything else. But that is what happens: people want what they want, and do not care who they hurt until they realize that they too will face consequences. I think I applied a sufficient reminder today."

"I think so!" I said.

"We will say that I had extended duty in the teaching wing of your invisible detail today, Frau Mathews," he said. "I have echoed such wisdom as you need not to ever be in such situations except by surprise, and demonstrated that you will be powerfully protected as you walk in that wisdom. Make the most of your protected status, Frau Mathews, this spring -- heed the wisdom and mind your business, and even when you are surprised, your protection will be extended as needed!"

"Klar," I said, and relaxed into the sunshine ... indeed, it had all come clear, at last.

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, March 20, 2024