Long ago, the hubs and I did a prank message on our answering machine that has the title above as its punch line...but this post isn't about that. Trust me: if you're curious about that story, I can tell it in another post. And I probably will.😀
This is about a realization prompted some time ago when I heard "The Swan of Tuonela" on Music Choice--and was swept away with memories.
But also, with wonder at the genius of God's timing.
Let me explain.
Jean Sibelius's "Swan of Tuonela" was one of many pieces on a listening list for music theory and ear training for me, 44 years ago this summer at Harper College. And, yes, I remember most of the pieces almost indelibly, for many reasons. One of which was, it was one of the few times in my life I've ever gone to summer school. The reason behind that, and how what came next unfolded, leaves me in awe to this day.
I was in summer school to take semester 2 of Music Theory and Ear Training/Sight Singing for the Music major track. Our instructor in the 101-102 track had alerted us that we needed to take these over summer; if we didn't, the 102 courses wouldn't be offered again for another year, and that would screw up the sequence of being able to accomplish two years' worth of music education in, literally, two years. 😉
A very small group of us took these courses. Maybe a dozen, total. Of which one was my future husband. Which I didn't know at that point...because at that point I was already (unhappily) married to someone else.
Come the fall of 1979, my ill-advised (and invalid) marriage dissolved...and I became friends with Patrick. And, as they say, the rest was history. But consider, for a moment, how God arranged this timing.
It's only dawned on me recently that Patrick wouldn't have been in those classes, in that sequence, with me had he not started at the same time I did--which was January of 1979--in Music Theory 101. But he graduated from high school in the summer of 1978. So the logical time for him to start in Theory would have been fall, not January.
Only for some reason known only to Harper College (and God), the Theory sequence didn't begin during fall of 1978. Had it begun at the point a freshman might reasonably expect, he'd have been ahead of me. Which means we might never have met...had Harper College (and God) not timed their course offerings the way they did.
Had he been in a "track" a semester ahead of me, we would never have done homework together.
Would never have been thrown together for tutoring, as one of our professors did when she realized I was pulling As in Ear Training while he was struggling.
Might never have been in chorus together, although that's still a possibility...but that association was so peripheral that were it all we had, it wouldn't have carried us into the closer relationship that sharing the same classes, for the rest of our music education, did.
I've always said I "lucked out" in terms of meeting Patrick, and getting to know him, when and how I did. Because there were three guys in our Music Theory track: one was married, one was stoned half the time...and then there was Patrick. And I was the fortunate woman who ended up catching his eye.
But I wouldn't have ever been able to catch that eye had we not been plunked into the same classrooms together, slogging through the same theory and analysis, and gradually growing closer by the day. Because we helped each other. We made each other laugh. Eventually, we fell in love.
And God, who knew we needed to meet and bond in these particular ways, not only arranged my life and Patrick's, but an academic schedule, so that could happen. When it did. How it did. And to the splendid, heartbreakingly wonderful conclusion it did.
Part of that plan, I know now, was summer school.
And listening lists.
And Sibelius.
And God's timing was perfect in all of it.
If anyone ever doubts how much God cares about whether we're happy in His will...this story ought to help reassure you.
To a musician, timing is everything.
And I praise the Lord who knows that. 🙏
Thoughts?
Janny
