Wallitner Weekly 31

Hello everyone!

A lot of productive things happened this past week

I’m sorry that I have been so inconsistent with these weekly newsletters. The holidays are keeping me busy and I’ve gotten into the habit (again) of doing things, instead of writing about doing things. Which is fine, except for then nobody knows what I’ve done. And the point of this newsletter is to hold myself accountable and do something consistently every week. So I will try to do better about being more consistent.

I finished the song of hope! It ended up being five and a half minutes long. I was worried for about a month because I stopped liking what I had written (Something that tends to happen when you hangout with something you’ve made for too long). I had started to second guess some ideas and decisions, but then I met with a friend and they had some very constructive things to say about it and Im very pleased with how it has turned out!

I have also taken on some engraving work for my dear friend who plays trumpet. Apparently there are quite a few pieces that were written for Bb trumpet that are now being played with a C Trumpet . (For those of you who don’t know what that means, you’ll want to read my soon to be written book “Survivors Guide to Music Theory” haha). So I was given the music for the Bb trumpet and I am making edits and transposing it to C trumpet. There are quite a few mistakes in the original trumpet part, so it has been fun working with my friend to fix the score. Nothing irks me more than when people write the wrong notes in their score, the former editor of the piece we are working on should be ashamed.

Anyways! Aside from work things, since we last spoke I spent some time with my grandparents at their Christmas tree farm. My grandmother has started to study poetry so I brought her a book of Pablo Neruda poems. Several years ago my fiancee and I read her his “Soneto de la Noche”. My fiancee read the Spanish and I read the English translation. To this day it is one of my favorite poetic moments, sharing that with my grandmother and fiancee. Back then I was singing Morten Lauridsen’s setting of the poem with the college chamber choir. I’ll link a recording of that piece here: https://youtu.be/-sW4IgkBfrY

and here is the text: https://metamorphosisinwords.blog/2017/05/13/soneto-de-la-noche/

I’ve got lots of plans for next week too!

I have been asked to write the text for a different song of hope. Hopefully I can come up with something for that this week! It will be an entirely different style from the one I already wrote, which will be a challenge to keep the two separate. I have also been chatting with my dear trumpet playing friend about writing a piece for him. I may try to sketch some ideas for that between the holiday parties. I ALSO am going to try to write some poems about colors. My friend and mentor proposed the idea of writing something similar to the color madrigals, which are a series of choral pieces based on different colors. I love the concept, I doubt I’ll finish writing the words this week, but I will be thinking of it all the while.

Next week is the last week of school for my fiancee before winter break, then the holiday season will be officially here. We kicked off the month with Tree Day at my grandparents farm and since then I have been ready to be with family. To sit by the wood burning furnace at my brother’s house and read billy collins poems quietly to my sleeping niece and nephew. Only one more week until then.

Traditions are Powerful.

This is another case of me writing for myself and not for you, the reader. So indulge me, I beg you.

I am a thoughtful person. I like to think so anyway. I spend my days, but mostly my nights thinking of things to say, sing, write, be. I think and think and think. This has its benefits and its downsides. The plus side is I can pretend to be wise and help people through difficult times using words and music. It allows me to connect with my grandparents and transcend generations in a way that very few things can.

I found myself weeping last night at 2 am. I had been watching Dr. Who (the Christmas special), but instead of explaining the convoluted science fiction scene that led me to my weeping, let me tell you a story.

The first weekend of December every year since the dawn of time (as far as I’m concerned) is tree day. My grandparents have a Christmas tree farm, and that weekend people come and buy a Christmas tree. Tree day officially is that Saturday and Sunday, but the Friday before my whole family shows up and helps prepare. We would decorate Christmas cookies and clean up the farm so it would be ready for people to come visit. This year there were 30 of us Wallitner’s in grandma and grandpa’s (or as most of us call them, Nene and Poppy’s) house.

Grandpa said the prayer before dinner with classic lines such as, “If you don’t believe in God, you’d better be right.” followed by, “If you if do believe in God, but don’t pray, shut up and listen.” Poppy hates it when I write about him in these weekly’s because it makes his eyes sweat. But every time he prays over our food it moves me. It doesn’t matter if your religious or not, the message rings true. “I pray that you live long enough to be in a room full of people/family like this.”

Not to mention, there are people who have been coming to tree day since before I was born. (Since the dawn of time sounds more poetic though). Seeing the same people, the same friends, and meeting so many more each year is a beautiful thing. Nevertheless, I found myself weeping while watching Dr. Who at 2 am.

I was thinking, where will I get my Christmas tree when there are no more tree days. And I wept.

But that’s the beauty of tree day. Tree day isn’t about the tree. Tree day isn’t about the farm. Its about the family. It’s about the love. Just like I’ve said the fly in isn’t about the flying.

My family has another tradition that makes me smile. Since Nene and Poppy live on a farm, all us grandkids would get BB guns when we turned five. And there is a rack of little BB guns, including my own, in my grandparents house. This always reminded me of “A Christmas Story”. I felt like Ralphy to the rescue with my “official Red Ryder, carbine action, 200-shot, range model air rifle, with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time”. Of course, I don’t think mine is even a Red Ryder. It certainly doesn’t have a compass in the stock. And I have a phone that tells the time just fine, so I don’t need my BB gun for that. But that’s beside the point.

It was a coming of age thing for a kid to get a BB gun from their grandpa so that mom or dad could teach us how to shoot pop-cans on the farm. That tradition means more to me as a 24 year old than it ever could have as a 5 year old. I didn’t realize at the time how much I would miss shooting pop cans with my dad. Now that I've moved out we recycle our pop-cans instead of shooting them. Times change.

You bet your BB gun that my family will get together the first weekend of December and decorate Christmas cookies. Red Ryder or not my kid will get a BB gun when they turn 5 (or was it 7? I’ll have to ask Poppy).

Nene and Poppy read my weekly’s, I know because I got a phone call after I wrote about the prayer at the Fly in. Since then I’ve doubled down on my stance. My whole family are gruff and tough airline pilots, not me. I used to say “I want to MOVE people, not move people”.

I know there aren’t many families like mine who shoot pop cans and decorate Christmas cookies, but if you can do something at least once a year with the people you love… Do it. Traditions like these are powerful. You’ll live forever with traditions like these.