When Walking through a Glowing Green Autumn, Go By the Highest Path Possible, Part 2 (Scriabin, Mendelssohn, Alexandor Tiniakov, William Baines, Alexander Arensky, Schubert)

In retrospect, if you are walking around with a literary ghost in October, and the world is glowing and glittering green in autumn, that actually makes sense ... a late-season algae bloom makes for some bright Halloweenish situations ... kind of like the music of Scriabin that I have been listening to late ... bright and beautifully weird like Opus 42 no. 1 ...

Late-season algae of course is the solution to the mystery of why both the reflecting pool and Blue Heron Lake are markedly green in Golden Gate Park right now, and hints at why autumn colors are very slowly taking hold: it was a calm summer without as much cold wind blowing off the ocean as usual even though the fog was in place, succeeded by a mild, humid fall that is even warmer because the summer fogs have mostly cleared. The weather has been unusual this half-year, so indeed, it was a one-of-a-kind moment to discover a little-used high path up Strawberry Hill!

So, last week -- because the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past will not hear of my non-fiction plan-to-walk-two-miles-but-actually-walk-four shenanigans on his side of the fourth wall, and because when an ethereal basso profondo says nein, that is a big no to get around, I sat down and ate the lunch he was kind enough to treat me with while he made this comment:

We will pick up the thought next week: yes, Frau Mathews, your life has entered realms as strange and beautiful to consider as a glowing green autumn when gold and red hues should predominate. Those hues are what the world expects ... but there is so much more to life than what the world expects, and by taking the highest and holiest path possible, you will see and then arrive at places that even you will not expect ... and, next week, we shall also see that by the same means, arriving where you do expect can be an entirely different journey with different blessings along the way that others who take the path the crowd expects will never see.

So, after we had rested, we proceeded upward ... and to my surprise, suddenly encountered a few people!

One would not think they had come off the nearest side path...

... but then we rounded the corner and found out how they had gotten up there -- by the Huntington Falls stairs, because lo and behold, here was the header pool, attired in the obligatory glowing green!

I was so outdone... three-quarters of the way up Strawberry Hill, the Marin Headlands and the pristine blue of San Francisco Bay in peeking into view ...

... and just flabbergasted because without even realizing this was where I was going, here I was!

"You knew, didn't you!" I said to my companion.

"I may have done a little surveying of the route, knowing that sooner or later, you would get bold and come up that higher path," he said.

"You could have just said something!" I said.

"But where would the adventure be in that?" he said, and then looked at my stern face, and solemnly intoned, "Laughs in Scriabin," just to watch me remember Opus 42 no. 3 and just crack up laughing...

"Actually, I did tell you that this week you would arrive at places you know by a different route, and if you thought about it, you would have realized that of course this path had to come here, for we have spiraled up almost completely around the hill."

"But now there's that staircase to contend with," I said.

"Frau Mathews, you have grown no taller since last year. I would not put you through that, knowing you are unprepared and not yet back in full condition ... think again on what you saw last year."

So I calmed down and looked around and realized ... that path that had been closed in April 2024 might be open, and if it were ...

"Let's find out," he purred.

The journey to find out was beautiful, all the way around ...

... and around this corner ...

... sure enough, the gentler path downward was open!

To my surprise as we neared the bottom, I saw a flash of red ...

... and soon was right by the red beauties I had thought it too steep to climb up and photograph up close...

... and so we were right back where we started, by the second bridge

My companion chuckled gently as we crossed the bridge.

"You see, you were not yet in the mindset of going by the highest way possible, and so did not know those beauties now behind us were included in the bundle, but you see you have missed nothing of importance."

"We literally have gone clear around Strawberry Hill by the highest route possible without actually including the top."

"No, Frau Mathews -- for you today, although it is possible to go higher, that was the highest route possible. You hardly were prepared to go that high, but you being who you are, still found a way, and did not need me fussing at you about doing too much on top of doing too much, because we still have to get back to Fulton Street, and you being who you are, you are going to find a unique route."

I thought of a first retort, and then thought of Mendelssohn's Opus 67 no. 2 -- a whole little scene to work with, with light and shade and glow and humor -- perfect!

"Well, look at it this way," I said as part of the setup. "You are a proper literary ghost based on a man so winsome and kind he could not even get into the mindset of villain if his livelihood depended on it, so of course you need things to fuss comically about because haunting is not even an option -- that would be an epic fail worthy of its own operetta -- The Ghost Who Could Scare Nobody."

Mendelssohn wrote no words so I just eased that in, and it worked -- the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past looked at me in shock and then broke out laughing! It was a good thing we were back on level ground, because he missed a step laughing and would have come off that bridge and tipped right in because of his height and momentum...

... but as it was, there was a tree near, and he ended up there, sinking to a sitting position and laughing until he cried!

"I think you mentioned last week," I said, "that some things have to be done properly."

He pulled out his ethereal handkerchief and waved the white flag like the good sport he was, and then wiped his glowing face.

"Ich gebe auf, meine liebe Dame," he said. "I surrender -- I give you best this week! That Mendelssohn setup I did not see coming -- prelude to an opera about a fussing ghost -- I give you best this week!"

"The same way I'm going to learn to break up my walks, you're going to learn it doesn't pay to fuss at me," I said, and he started laughing again.

"Which is a kind way of saying, we are not going to change each other all that much!" he said.

"Well, yeah," I said, and just sat down by him and joined him in laughing for a good while before officially, it was time to say goodbye to "Blue-Green" Heron Lake for the day.

He was indeed right about me, though, because a spark of autumn gold did alert me to a different path ...

... and down a gold-capped way ...

... and to more laughter, because the highest possible path was, in fact, the bridge above John F. Kennedy Drive. My grand old soldier and I -- and then I alone -- have passed under it so many times -- but I had found my way to the park path for it!

"This is indeed the highest path possible," my companion said with a smile, and it is also how you are going to get that fourth mile of walking, because there are no crosswalks up here. We will have to retrace our steps, or just follow the park path and see where it goes."

"Dead ahead to that cloud of pretty blue flowers!" I said. "What else is a Blumenkind to do, after all?"

"Indeed -- in der Tat, mein geliebtes Blumenkind!" he said.

Onto the bridge itself ... so many memories and so much emotion flooded back because of this new perspective, containing within it the reminder that, as was said last week ...

You see, Frau Mathews, when I said to you in the spring of 2024 'There is no bridge,' I did not mean that there were not any bridges in existence. There are plenty of bridges, and plenty of people to use them ... but they are not for those who will walk by the highest path possible!

I was on a bridge ... to which there was no survivable way at all to join up with the paths below. I literally was on the sidewalk of the crossover to the park's own highway -- Park Presidio, linking Golden Gate Park to Presidio National Park and the Golden Gate Bridge -- and there was no way but to keep going if one wanted to keep moving forward. The park path across it, closer to Fulton Street, was not much used, but this one even less so... it was indeed higher, and rougher.

...

But before we went, my companion drew very close to me... the starkness of the object lesson had shaken me ... for I saw that indeed, my life of the past was over, and there was no way to even attempt a return to it that would not cost me my life -- not even to the good parts of it. Of course, it had nearly cost me my life to get out of that portion of my life, but I had been kept going that way for it was the way I was to go. There would be no such protection in any attempt to go back, and the words came from memory without the need for an echo.

But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.

That, from the One Who called me, was a rather terrifying statement of fact.

"And this is why, as the echo of that Love Above, I have been in your life urging and encouraging you, Frau Mathews ... gently, lovingly, beautifully, equipped even to relieve you of the pain of the way many times, because the One I echo cannot lie, or contradict Himself. What He is displeased with, the entire universe will not endure for long, for it is His.

"You did well to be concerned about all those you loved who you strove so hard to show the way to better , and yet they drew back. They shall face the awesome consequences of rejecting love and all it desired to bring them. Yet you did even better and shall do even better to keep your forward motion, for you are only responsible for yourself. And so I gave you all those lessons in Mozart, in Brahms, in Schubert, in Loewe, in Strauss, in even Wagner that you were willing to endure for a few minutes at a time for my sake, about that. The sum of all of that was, 'Just keep going, my love -- just keep going!'

"There are other things, Frau Mathews, that you have and will still learn, but that main lesson will not be done until you are safely at home on high. You are beginning to explore subtle aspects of it, and this is wonderful -- for even here, as you choose to explore what is before you, there are more marvels to be seen. But for the moment ... "

So before we went that last mile, I had that moment of intense grief that was always coming, for the life ended, and for all the hopes left there, and the people whose consequences I would not share, but I knew were coming, all the same. It was a moment only Alexander Tiniakov could capture with his "Elegie."

My companion, knowing I could not pass that place unscathed, then put his arms around me, and carried me back into the park a little way to rest. But I knew we had to press on -- it was part of the lesson, after all, and so we did, across the bridge, higher than the highway, and onward ... it was not long before we walked at last into autumn's gold ...

... and on from there through a little hidden grove of live oaks, a pleasant reminder of the wonders of the Oak Woodlands, also shining in autumn gold...

... but then onward, to a place where golden-green highlighted a descent into apparent deep darkness ... a secret hidden in plain sight to those in the park on the regular paths, and not even reasonably accessible from John F. Kennedy Drive ...

... for here, the redwood grove now known as Heroes Grove had its older westward analog, the Grove of Memory....

... and only by that path could one approach the sentinel of the place...

... and read what he remembered, under the wreath he held ...

My companion laid a gentle hand upon my shoulder.

"Only by the highest path possible," he said, "does one ever stand in the honored company of heroes. Not all heroes fight in great wars ... some live to bring love and joy into a world drunk with hate and violence and greed ... but to do even that at the highest level requires the giving of one's life, one way or another. You are called by a gentler path, made possible by the sacrifices of many others, but the point remains."

We stayed there in that place for some time, the rush of the cars beyond the trees sounding like the tides of time ... which reminded me of the solemn beauty of William Baines's "Tides: The Lone Wreck" ...

"A fitting choice, Frau Mathews," my companion said, and wrapped his arms around me until it was time for us to walk up from there ... and into Alexander Arensky's lovely "Consolation"...

Through a glowing green field upon which no foot or mower had passed for many days ... the kind of place which will soon in a wet winter be impassible, but for this one remarkable day was accessible...

... and from there back out to the walkway by the highway ...

I know how Park Presidio Bypass runs, so by now I knew we must be getting near to Park Presidio proper where it begins at Fulton Street, and since that was the case, I realized the reason for the growing smile on my companion's face even before my eyes confirmed it...

... this remarkable journey thus ended in the glowing green of the San Francisco Rose Garden, again to enjoy its rebloom!

There we rested ...

... and he surprised me with some other blushing items...

"How, in mid-October?" I said. "These beautifully blushing white peaches -- what sorcery is this?"

"Well, you know, as a proper literary ghost in October... or at least well acquainted with the local grocers ... there were six left. I bought three!"

"Danke," I said. "Summer fruit in mid-October ... in a glowing green autumn ... wonders never cease!"

"Not on the highest way possible!" he cried, with a laugh. "Why do you think I have been sent as the echo to help sing you up here?"

He laughed yet again.

"You know," he purred, "I think a blessed world could be in glowing green in autumn and still be perfectly lovely."

"I think so too," I said, and as he at last sang and blessed me with Schubert's "Selige Welt."

The character in "Selige Welt" has just escaped the terrible situation in "Sehnsucht," and found himself in the boat brought up on the island there to escape its fogs into the light ... and in that light, there is no need to seek for a blessed isle. There isn't one, for the world is blessed and so wherever he lands in that light will likewise be a blessing. I understood as I never had before, having walked through a glowing green autumn day in my new life, and found it all blessed.