After the Gold Rush

When I was 14 or 15, I experienced the unmitigated joy of becoming a published author for the first time. Then I still had ambitions to be a writer. Soon after, an opera singer.

I don't think I'd ever seen a prouder look on a face than the one on my mum the day that cheerful orange book edited by New Zealand author Graeme Lay arrived in our postbox. The book was entitled '50 Short Short Stories by Young New Zealanders.' My story, 'Women From Other Places,' was an homage to my Scottish nana's skill on the sewing machine. I decided to pen a story about nana altering my pink fluffy dress for the Year 10 formal.

My nana Isla had always had a talent on a Singer machine. She had once fashioned me a hobby horse from nothing but some old stockings and a broom handle. I'd clearly been horse obsessed at one point in life. I do recall a tenth birthday somewhere in the haze where I finally saw my beloved My Little Ponies metamorphosise from plastic playthings into real life four-legged beings that could jump and clomp. I was, naturally, too terrified to ever climb up on one.

Where my nana could fashion something from nothing, I could spin a yarn. I had a flair for the dramatic, and even at this young age, a gift of antagonising others.

You might think the bible story of the parable of the talents might be deeply appropriate here, but the publication of my first short story was more of a Joseph moment - one of the early ones where he's flaunting it. No sooner had the story been published then I was invited to read the piece in class. One of the girls - loudly - attempted to take me down a peg or two, questioning one of the lengthier adjectives. 
"Is that even a word?" she intoned.
The English teacher assured her yes, it was a word. A very good one.
The girl set her murderous eyes at me.

Several years later, I'd thrown away the ink and I was at music school with an idea of my own importance as misplaced as Joseph's confidence in a flash coat. I had finished up singing a precariously long Mozart aria with a peripheral Greek tragedy attached to it. Some young siren was leading Idomeneo's ship astray. I'm certain my performance of it was as memorable as it sounds.
While at the school, during a masterclass, I had the chance to sing this Greek lament in front of members of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music. I jumped to an immediate assumption I would be taken into their ranks upon first listen. I was all of 20 at the time. They didn't offer me a place.

I was a recipient of some exhortations of wisdom that year from a New Zealand singer who has since made her debut at Covent Garden. As I now approach somewhere near the middle, her words stay with me - the gist of them was this: pride and the fall.

At the time, I couldn't hear those words, but circumstance and experience have hastened my divination of their meaning.

We learn, and through unexpected lessons we acquire the knowledge God requires of us, piece by piece. I persist through many stumblings and painful abrasions. And finally, blessedly, revelation. 
By the graveside of a friend, or saying goodbye at an altar where we once used to worship: This is where things are buried and resurrected. 

I said goodbye to Malcolm Putnam this past Friday at a small service in East Finchley. I first met Malcolm last year on my walks to the Heath and too soon our daily conversations were ended. His dog Lucy was adopted by a wonderful New Zealander who lives in London, and she was so kind to come all the way to the memorial. The little Jack Russell started whimpering as the coffin entered through the doors. A small gathering, just the four of us, to commend Malcolm's to God's hands.

Stairway to Heaven played. Malcolm's brother had come from the home. Lucy recognised him immediately and went to clamber onto his lap. As the service commenced, the whimpering became frantic and accusatory. It seemed to speak to answerless questions. As I moved to reassure the creature, my own tears came. The dog then turned to comfort me before finally collapsing with a resigned sigh onto my coat. 

"There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven."

We gathered by the grave. Was Malcolm ascending a golden stairway as we sang out the waiata, Pokarekare Ana, and the sun rushed through the spring trees?

As I finished another week and ended my first funeral in London, I retrieved thoughts of a singing teacher from that earliest era in Wellington - before 9/11, before America and all my ceaseless travel. Every Saturday spent travelling to her studio brought new and simple promise. I thought again of early gold. Oldest gold. My first songs: Schumann, Mozart, Handel, and Elgar.

You ring on my finger,

My golden little ring,

I press you devoutly to my lips,

To my heart.

I had finished dreaming

Childhood’s peaceful dream,

I found myself alone, forlorn

In boundless desolation.

You ring on my finger,

You first taught me,

Opened my eyes

To life’s deep eternal worth.

I shall serve him, live for him,

Belong to him wholly,

Yield to him and find

Myself transfigured in his light.

You ring on my finger,

My golden little ring,

I press you devoutly to my lips,

To my heart.

A few days later, my mother imparted the sad news that my teacher had passed away. The Schumann Lieder assigned to me as one of my earliest songs I leave in memorium of Loretta Lander, my first singing teacher and Khandallah matriarch of the highest degree. The second piece by Led Zeppelin Malcolm sang as he went climbing last Friday.