November 2: "My Unborn Children," Piano Lessons, Regrets

Several hours of all my weekends are spent rehearsing and playing for church services.  In my almost four decades as a liturgical musician, I've worked Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, and Episcopalian places of worship.  I started out as a fill-in organist, thinking I'd only be playing for a few weeks.  Currently, I'm the full-time accompanist at a Catholic parish and Lutheran parish.  Plus, several local pastors and priests have my phone number in case of organist emergencies.

When I was taking piano lessons as a middle schooler, I never thought I'd have a whole musical career.  Just like I never thought I'd be the father of two children, one on her way to becoming a physician, the other on his way to becoming a college student next semester.

Everyone makes choices every day that affect their lives in big and small ways.  Some choices lead to careers as a worship musician or college professor or writer.  Other choices lead to marriage or poetry or children.

Billy Collins ponders some of his choices . . . 

My Unborn Children

by: Billy Collins

          . . . of all your children

          only those who were born.

          --- Wislawa Szymborska

I have so many of them I sometimes lose track,

several hundred last time I counted

but that was years ago.

I remember one was made of marble

and another looked like a goose

some days and on other days a white flower.

Many of them appeared only in dreams

or while I was writing a poem

with freezing fingers in the house of a miser.

Others were more like me,

looking out the window in a worn shirt

then later staring into the dark.

None of them ever made the lacrosse team,

but they all made me as proud

as I was on the day they failed to be born.

There is no telling--

maybe tonight or later in the week

another one of my children will not be born.

I see this next one as a baby

lying naked below a ceiling pasted with stars

but only for a little while,

then I see him as a monk in a gray robe

walking back and forth

in the gravel yard of an imaginary monastery,

his head bowed, wondering where I am.

It's late Saturday night.  I've played one church service for the weekend, with two more to play tomorrow.  My daughter is living her best life with her significant other in a city 20 miles east of me.  My son is up in his room, gaming online and swearing at his friends.  My wife is putting together a grocery list.

This life I lead is the result of choices I made a long time ago--to take piano lessons, fall in love (is love a choice?), get married, have children.  Sure, I think about my un-choices, too.  To not teach full-time at a university.  Not have a third or fourth or fifth child.  Not get a degree in computer science.  Not work in the healthcare industry anymore.

I'm not haunted by the ghosts of my un-choices like Collins is haunted by his unborn children.  Regrets are useless.  I can't change the past, and I don't know what tomorrow holds.  All I can do is be present in this moment.  And then the next.  And next.

Tonight, Saint Marty is going to be present in setting his clock back one hour and getting some extra sleep.