Around the Lake, Around the Sun, to a New Year (Roland Kovac, Schubert, Eden Ahbez, Mozart)

All photos by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, from Dec. 28, 2024 to January 7, 2025

The above photo, from my window on Friday, January 3, seemed to express 2024, and particularly December 31, 2024. Whatever one's life was before the opening of such a great cataract, one's life cannot be the same afterward. One goes from there -- hence, into 2025, beautifully!

This fit with other thoughts ... I took my first walk of the year on the first warm and sunny day of the year, January 2, on my way to my local pharmacy, and noted how my neighbors are making their post-Christmas offerings to the local animals ...

... and how autumn's beauty is drifting down into the evergreen succulents, refreshed by the on-time winter rains...

I was feeling well, if not as strong as I might have been ... a slow, relaxed pace in the sunshine fit me well ... and thus I encountered Mr. Dawnstruck again, four days after meeting Gentle Giant Nurse!

Now I was not dressed to impress ... not Blumenkinding, but I did have on a burgundy jacket over my black sweatsuit, and the sun was behind me. Now I could tell from a long way off, for he was coming up the street, that Mr. Dawnstruck was in the head space I am often in: thinking about his responsibilities, in all gravity. What people don't understand is, when you are a person of great responsibility, there are no extended holidays. Stuff has to get done, and if the world goes back to work on the first day after the New Year, so do you. I was going to the pharmacy before completing a work project, and there he was coming up the street.

This poor man ... he just physically reacts to my presence ... he saw me and suddenly noticed that he wasn't dressed to impress either ... if "Oh, NO!" was a physical movement ... the man just about had a convulsion in the city streets. But again: we were going to pass each other on our way to do necessary things. He never slowed his pace, and neither did I until we met at a narrow place and he stopped to let me pass through. It was the one courtesy he could do, and he did it.

"Thank you," I purred at him.

"You're welcome," he said, and I could hear the smile I glimpsed as he passed on. But he kept moving, and so did I after I turned and looked for a moment ... sure enough, he had come from doing business in the great street through which I had to pass, and was going on about his business.

This highlighted a pattern ...

1. The Cherubic Painter who painted me in spirit without us having met rarely paints outdoors. Not in dozens of walks since have I seen him.

2. Mr. Dawnstruck and I have had our yearly encounter, and never have we met when not about to pass each other, with things to do.

3. Gentle Giant Nurse is working at Urgent Care ... the connection was quite remarkable, but unless I get really sick, I will not see him again.

The common element is me, and what struck me so hard is that yes, I am meeting the gentle, responsible men that I like, and all three are types I find physically attractive. Gentle Giant Nurse and I fell into blessing each other so much that given just a little more time ... but there was none.

There is no bridge ...

This also reminded me of Emily Dickinson's most favorite poem, and its two first lines: "Because I could not stop for Death/He kindly stopped for me." Masculine insistence has been darkly portrayed this way many times ... Schubert also tackled this in "Tod und die Maedchen," or, "Death and the Maiden" ... and of course, if one is to believe this frightened woman was to get calmed down and carried off, OF COURSE, there is but one bass voice for that ...

Kurt Möll actually does a little too well here, in that he has it sounding like a good idea for maidens to just let life go and slumber in Death's mighty arms. I did not listen to that often from 2022 through 2024. That is not what you want to do while an aging maiden in recovering from intense grief ... but here is the underlying issue, and I can manage it in 2025: the text there in how Death convinces this young lady to come with him begins thus: "I do not chide you: I am your friend." He answers her fear of him with the assurance that he understands it, and introduces himself as a friend ... and makes a successful case for it based on just this simple thing: he is calm, and gentle, and threatens no pain or misuse. In a cruel world in which she might live to be mistreated or simply live long enough to suffer a miserable old age, he makes the case that he is safe, and that she can rest peacefully with him.

In a world full of men whose ambitions are to please and enrich and deify themselves at the expense of all women, this is a compelling case to die as a maiden. It is again at the forefront of culture where I live, and around the world -- the "4B movement" in South Korea is picking up attention and adherents among young women everywhere. I am no longer so young, a week from being 44 ... but if I indeed had pneumonia, and Death had ushered me into Heaven last week, I would not have felt that I had missed anything that life had for me as still a maiden. To be at home, at rest ... far better. On whatever day my work is done here, know I shall be glad to be at home.

But when I could have died of grief from 2021 onward, the voice of Herr Möll was in the way -- not on his YouTube-extended watch -- and if I would have had pneumonia, Gentle Giant Nurse was in the way, and was seeing to my care -- not on his watch, either.

The only thing to do with all these thoughts was of course to get in a really good walk, and maybe to seek new ground... but not right away, because this beautiful silvery day was calm, but too cold for long exposure. I was tempted, for in turning in an extended loop to get a few things at my nearest store, there was beauty on every hand...

... but I had this lesson in August: I needed not dishonor the One healing me by overdoing. I should not even need correction, for I knew what I ought to do. "If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged" -- that is a thing, and that was the lesson of the day, extended perhaps a little more.

There was something that triggered a memory ... I had learned to gauge a path, and how to negotiate different types, from my grand old soldier ... how to climb hills, no matter how high ... we did more and for longer than either of us probably would have done alone... we pushed each other, and that set me up to achieve physically in my local hills safely. In that sense, his watch, though ended in person, had become part of me. There was no more need for anyone to tell me certain things -- I knew them. They, and thus his love for me, were mine forever.

Looking higher: "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" had become part of me to the point that while I knew there were times in life that required great effort, there was a bright line: while I was to faithfully and intently do all I was called to -- "be ye steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord" -- calling on more than mortal strength when needed, there was not one thing in the world outside of that for which I was to overwork and overdo, in the face of the grant of rest I had been given. I knew this ... a gentle reminder might occasionally be necessary and I got that reminder as I looked longingly into Golden Gate Park ... but what I knew was now a part of me, so to betray such love would be to betray Him Who loved me and also myself. Thus I turned the corner, got the necessary things at the store and went home in peace.

This series of events helped me to understand something ... to be loved is one thing, but to internalize it so it becomes part of you and how you live and move and have your being is an entirely different matter. Once you know ... first of all, even getting to knowing ... what has it not cost me to gain the knowledge, but also, what price would be too high? What value would you exchange for it? My grand old soldier represents almost 20 years and Gentle Giant Nurse represents not quite 20 minutes -- but the connection in both cases was a blessing of love that represents positive life change both ways.

In a world full of fear, and hate, and greed, and consumerism to the point of consumption of entire people for profit and pleasure, what is it worth to learn that there is, in fact, not only another way to live, but that there are others willing to live in such a way around you, and that now you see them, and they see you?

At last the right day came, and I set foot on Middle Drive below Blue Heron Lake, determined to head off in a new direction -- new ground for a new year and new reality. I had not yet been up Middle Drive southward ... for many years Middle Drive marked the westernmost bound of my walks with my grand old soldier from my home ... but now, and still, onward ...

... past the westernmost sight he and I normally saw, the silvery waters flowing down to Lake Lloyd, and the portal of time through which I would not on this day pass, even in retracing the steps of the past.

The day was a day with electrum light, electrum being an alloy of gold and silver ... sunlight through high clouds is common in a wet winter even on warm days, and that made some of the sights along the way even more striking ...

... the first new crossroads seemed unremarkable, but that light, though...

Past there, autumn gems still remained, for in San Francisco, winter, if it is not violent, is just the season of subtlety between the spectacular sights of autumn and the spectacular sights of spring ...

... and there is still autumn fire left ... this foreshadowed coming sights...

... and, about here, from a long way off, I heard the voice of the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past ... having a life of his own meant he had his own favorite places in the park, and he liked Blue Heron Lake a great deal ... being tall, and long-legged, and also in his immortal form, it was no hardship for him to go to the top of Strawberry Hill and sing, and he had been doing that quite often in 2024 ... but not for the crowds ... he was just vocalizing ... beautiful as that was, he was just warming up ... it was drifting down at moments through the northerly breeze ... it was a warm day for winter, but the polar vortex that has come down upon most of the rest of the United States still was announcing its nearness. The voice and the wind and the sounds of nature around me gently contended for my ears as I went on ... but I was walking south, and upon climbing up and over this hill ...

... I only heard the sounds of the place I was in, where the Blessed Hand began to provide me sweet snacks ...

... and the quietness of this southern central portion of the park became apparent to me.

Few ventured here ... Blue Heron Lake attracted almost all of the attention that most sought in a waterside in the park in its southeastern half, but was seeking a lesser-known lake, and in fact had already walked too far east. So I retraced my steps, back down into the vale of golden fire...

... and across the road ...

... down an unassuming path where in the distance, the bare limbs of weeping willows cast a golden mist over a background with hints of shining silver ... though it resembled no picture available, I knew Elk Glen Lake was known for its willows ...

... and at length, in a moment shot through by both gold and silver, was at last at its humble, lovely shore, in winter.

Elk Glen Lake is actually most passable in the winter, for the willows hang low, and when they are heavy with green it is not easy to pass around its northern shore ... but on this day, into the golden mist curtains...

... and beyond them...

... to a scene in which the electrum light seemed to flow toward me ... the lake in its quietude welcomed me...

... and about there, the portal of imagination having been opened for some time already, there, I heard a deep, soft voice behind me -- the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past had overtaken me there, and said to me what he had said the previous year when I crossed the bridge at Blue Heron Lake ...

"Wilkommen zu hause, Frau Mathews," he said, and by that welcome signified that the new ground of this place, and the year, was now mine to explore and make part of my life. He then added, in an even more hushed tone but charged with deep emotion, "Ach, mein goldenes Blumenkind, mein Herz jubelt fuer dich ... mein Herz jubelt fuer dich!"

I was glad enough that he had positioned himself behind me to my north ... it became that much warmer there because he blocked the wind ... but also, the voice alone seemed to punch up the gold of the light ...

Not yet had he remembered a word of English ... in such a intense moment of calm joy his mind did not yet remember the effort was necessary, because he was well within the limits of my German ...

"Ich habe es dir gesagt, mein Blumenkind," he said, and he only meant that as a gentle tease ... I told you so ... but he had. Last year in the halcyon of winter, later in January at Blue Heron Lake that year, he had added abiding in the way I was called, and then later in the year, just before the summer, adorning ... and that had begun my whole Blumenkind era after I had found out that he was getting kidded on high by the name of a rose that looked like antique marble blushing in San Francisco's Rose Garden: "Old Blush," which of course comes out in German to Altesrouge in the same way that flower child comes out to Blumenkind. The further adventures of Herr Altesrouge and Frau Blumenkind had started there as a joke ... but had taken on a life its own ... I had "glowed up fashion-wise, and he literally had started a whole new role: K.M. Altesrouge, the sweet singer singing for his supper whom somehow opera had missed ... a joke sized for the spirit of Germany's greatest and funniest basso profondo of the second half of the 20th century!

We had stayed in that mode all summer ... so many lessons of just abiding and adorning myself in the peace and joy and quietude into which I had been called ... only in the autumn to be completely discombobulated by a full circle opportunity I did not expect ... the community I had left reached out to me in pain and for a little while I was surrounded by it again ... and left the second time! If making myself an orphan once had not been enough ... but I passed through and beyond ... though why and to where and to whom I did not know ... and yet, on our last two trips to Blue Heron Lake for 2024 ...

"Ich habe es dir gesagt, Frau Mathews..."

As you walk, abide, and adorn yourself as you are called, you will appear and reflect the light you are walking in to those that will respond to their calling. Quietude looks exceptionally lovely on you, Frau Mathews.

Sometimes, although this does not come without peril, it requires darker times for people to see the difference between their will-o-the-wisps and true light. Walk, abide, adorn, and appear as you are called, and you may be surprised to see, as people realize they do need real light, what happens. There will be many surprising blessings in the years to come.

"As you continue to walk, the moments in great light will come. Walk, abide, adorn, and you shall appear -- it is inevitable, and now that you know how you must navigate, you need not have any anxiety! I am forever saying, Keine Angst -- nur ruhe! More and more you will meet the depths of that, until you find they are fathomless in eternity -- keep walking!"

And so it had occurred ... right down to Gentle Giant Nurse, who had not just seen another patient, but had seen and opened his heart, even in that brief time, to me, for I had appeared to him.

"Genau -- precisely, Frau Mathews."

"Found that English at last, I see," I gently teased him.

"You will have to pardon me, meine liebe Dame. Vergib mir, bitte -- between this glorious lake and the sight of you gently glowing in this electrum light ..."

"... as I have said before, quietude is exceptionally lovely on you, and you are walking, abiding, adorning, and appearing among your fellow beauties, set aside only for those willing to forego the clamor and noise of the world. Even though daily I live on high amidst beauty it is not lawful for me to tell you of, in this world it is rare to meet any natural gemstone in its proper setting ... a virtuous woman, her price above rubies, to whom I came in love, and was received thus in return.

"Die Erinnerung, Frau Mathews, has a light also of its own ... I have known you three years, and you have brought me to walk and to sing in the most beautiful places in your city... so the memory of all that, plus the anticipation of today ... forgive me for being dazzled, Frau Mathews."

I kept forgetting ... teasing him was dangerous ... in a battle of hilarious wits he was not often defeated, but if he were in the kind of mood he had been in since late November, he might just opt to melt me down into a big pool of electrum butter ... and when you are by a lovely lake and are given to naturally induced psychedelic experiences, that's just not the safest thing to be doing. It is a good thing the northern shore of Elk Glen Lake is not an easy walk ...

... one has to concentrate to get safely round the western side and turn, so, no melting either way!

"It is steep and rough here and still damp here, Frau Mathews ... I will come closely behind you coming up, and then go before you coming down ... carefully, mein goldenes Blumenkind, for though we shall meet spring's own golden heralds ...

"... and even spring's things finding a "spring" of their own ...

"... we must work our way carefully down this starkly beautiful rise ...

... until we are safely down among the willows of the southern shore."

Back again into the golden mist curtains, the sun now behind us and for the moment in thicker clouds. He had not lost his train of thought.

"There is another piece of that, Frau Mathews, that might be instructive to you," he purred. "You were ill, simply dressed, and in the hospital, but Gentle Giant Nurse somehow did not need all this ambiance ...

"... to be quite taken with you."

"And like I said, I did my follow up appointment in that big hospital, and of course, did not see him again," I said.

"And," he added, "I dare you to tell me with a straight face that even though that is the factual outcome to expect, you were not even a little disappointed."

I stopped, and looked him in the eye.

"One has to have appointed expectations to have them disappointed," I said, "and never put me on a dare. You will have to change my nickname to Frau Eisenmädchen."

"I have thought of that before," he said. "You are, when put to it, quite the Iron Maiden. I have followed just a bit of excitement around numbers on Hive this week ... the good, the bad, and the ugly ... and then at your workplace ... I am going to send some more flowers over there and will need a few funeral sprays for the careers of some people if they do not get their lives together over there! I do know who I am dealing with, Frau Eisenmädchen!

"But that goes around to my point ... once the iron is brought out of you, that is not a good thing for whoever has done that unwise feat. But that is a mode you have had to operate in that is not what you would prefer ... this is you, Frau Mathews, blessing and being blessed in rich, beautiful ways."

"Now consider how you have used the iron in your nature for yourself ... iron-heeled, in that you walked resolutely away from so many things that were taking you out of your proper element and came here, in all those meaning. Consider the long walk to your appearing, and consider it from the perspective of being expected, as a woman, to always be beautiful and blessing others. Consider how difficult it was, to just change over to doing that out of being able to center yourself as you are most blessed."

"Now, Frau Mathews, try to look at what of course you cannot fully understand ... but you are an empath, and that helps you in the attempt ... consider the journey of a man with your basic temperament, but expected to either get or be gotten, kill or be killed ... for him to get to where he can be in his element is in some ways even harder, because by doing so he is going to have to give up the respect of his fellow men who are lost in the cycle, and give up any hope of being with women who want the spoils of men who are successfully ruthless in this world and also is lost in the cycle. A man's need for respect is somewhat more pronounced ... so this is a great trial."

I considered this, and then said, "Everyone wants a gentleman, but a truly gentle man is not always respected. I have observed this."

"But a gentle giant is a bit of the exception to the rule, in that his size suggests that he can do damage if he chooses, but is choosing not to. A few extra bonus points if he has a deeper voice."

"I imagine that as tall and broad as you are with that voice," I said, "that few people wanted to meet you on a day when you were not as likely to be described as 'a kind man with a gentle soul.'"

"You imagine correctly," he said. "My prepossessing size and deep bass voice were a blessing ... but as I say, the expectations are still different. You are expected to be nurturing and loving -- and you are. You are also pushed in this culture to be a materialist, which means that you are pushed to seek a man who is not loving and nurturing, because he is supposed to be adept in materialism to provide you the dreams of avarice. This is the great paradox ... but it is a paradox you have rejected."

I thought about this for quite some time ... one could boil many of the modern arguments between men and women down to how both were failing to succeed in getting both love and money form each other. It is possible to have both, but not while prioritizing the latter, and not doing that requires a journey outside the mainstream culture to a quieter place ...

"Tell something, Frau Mathews ... all those years ago ... how did we meet, again? Indulge a sentimental old bass who loves your golden contralto voice telling the story!"

I laughed at his playful way of phrasing this ... and answered him with a flight of fancy befitting his playful invitation ...

"One day I heard the voice of a man of stone -- Commendatore -- with a heart of gold ... and while there are many such men, this one was different ... such joy in his work and with his colleagues ... there was no sense of prima donna and competition about him ... but also, such majesty and gravity when the more serious parts of the last offer of redemption were presented ... and such grim sorrow when 'there is no more time' ... and even, now that I think about it, such gentleness in making sure not to hurt Samuel Ramey, who was absolutely dwarfed ...

"And although of course there are many basses in the world, and although I traveled YouTube far and wide and enjoyed much of song and singers, there was none like him, who would not make a revenge play when it would have been so easy with his size and strength of voice and person, whose warmth of love and gentleness came through and made something nobler of the scene ... oh, the majesty of love and mercy offered sincerely ... oh, the damnation of one who would reject it ... oh, the sorrow and yet grim, just resolution of him whose will it was not that Don Giovanni perish, but have everlasting life, but yet when rejected as ambassador of mercy had to become ambassador of judgment, and was a faithful servant, both ways!"

There was a long silence as this faithful servant lived his whole Herr Altesrouge life to the hilt, his marble features blushing quite intently.

"I want you to think about what you just did, Frau Mathews, and look at my reaction to it. You did the same thing to Gentle Giant Nurse as he displayed his gentle mastery ... you encouraged him in eloquent terms in the very thing he is dedicated to ... and even, as he began expressing admiration of your care of yourself though ill, reciprocated with a blessing of your gentle mastery of certain health matters ... and he was completely open to it ... for in a world in which kindness is taken for granted, and kindness in men is not respected even by most women, when a kind man and gentle soul meets his match in a woman who affirms him as he truly is, thereby showing her capability to love him as he is, he can go over quite quickly because ... I shall have to let Nat King Cole explain yet again ... ."

"There are blackberries among the reeds!" I cried as I rushed forward, because, like St. Francis of Assisi in the opera about him by Olivier Messiaen (now that is like five entire posts to discuss), there is a moment when an angel visits to show him a glimpse of heavenly joy and plays a melody so beautiful that it swoons the tender-hearted monk ... a thing I completely understand since a sufficiently beautiful day is enough to overwhelm me ... but I could also understand now why for two full years, with me in beautiful places in my element, and me becoming so much in my element in person... I could understand why from Jan. 1, 2023 men were just going over. Getting into better shape hadn't hurt ... Blumenkinding hadn't hurt ... but none of that explained Gentle Giant Nurse. He, being in his element and not having seen me at my best, had none the less opened his life and heart to me in minutes. Meanwhile, this particular ethereal gentle giant had told me when he arrived:

Even though daily I live on high amidst beauty it is not lawful for me to tell you of, in this world it is rare to meet any natural gemstone in its proper setting ... a virtuous woman, her price above rubies, to whom I came in love, and was received thus in return. Die Erinnerung, Frau Mathews, has a light also of its own ... I have known you three years, and you have brought me to walk and to sing in the most beautiful places in your city... so the memory of all that, plus the anticipation of today ...

He was doing to externals -- he had once said that the job of the interpreter was to make the inward meaning external to the listener -- what was happening in the hearts of some! he had gotten completely turned around and I thought he was going to fall into the reeds, but now, that was not the right direction, though my warm declamation about him as Commendatore had nearly swooned him ... but he caught his balance just before I reached him.

"You keep trying to roll me into every lake, Frau Mathews -- but after this long I am prepared!"

I laughed at this running joke, very much relieved ... and he, seeing that A. I had forgotten he could not be harmed by anything of this earth any more and B. having forgotten, was so genuinely concerned for his well-being, went on and followed his actual momentum. Falling into the reeds was never where the gravity was going -- as the sun came out brightly behind him, and his face and smile were brighter still -- I realized what all those men might have gladly done had they thought they were welcomed beyond a few moments in my life -- as if I would not have beaten them quite to death with my hiking poles or died trying had they made the attempt ...

An unwelcome flashback ... someone I knew from a church I used to play at had slid his arm around me a bit too low in overtaking me in line at a restaurant. He had found my cane of those days at his nose quickly.

"Be thankful I actually recognize you, sir, but you do not know me like that. Don't you EVER ... ."

I am indeed Frau Eisenmädchen when put to it, and when men in professional and personal life switch the Iron Maiden part of me on, it is not pretty for anyone. But Gentle Giant Nurse, with my life in his hands, had no difficulty. I knew him, from the first moments ... just as I knew my favorite gentle giant bass's heart. So, at least in Q-Inspired, the latter had no difficulty in utterly wrapping me up in his arms ... for after all, long before then, he had embraced my heart and carried it off in his legacy of love. I had no reason to be afraid. I knew him, from the first moments.

"And now, I know you ... dear kind-hearted, gentle-souled tender woman ... ach, mein goldenes, geliebtes Blumenkind, meine liebe Dame ... .

Up, up, and away ... away from that flashback, away from the gravity of earth ...

... for he, laughing, completely overjoyed, lifted us far above the shores of Elk Glen Lake, between the silvery clouds and the blue where the sun shone as if it were again summer -- as if the halcyon of winter had come early -- and there covered me with gold and silver jewelry studded with sapphires and rubies and topaz and pearl -- all the colors of the day, gold and silver and blue above, and the rest around the lake itself -- and then danced me clear around the Equator, where it is forever summer ... again, and again, and again ... definitely getting the absolute most of Q-Inspired physics, I must say!

It occurred to me what I was seeing ... when people who are of loving temperament meet people who are the same and can be in their element, this was the joy and comfort of it ... he kept looking down at me smiling back at him, and around we went again, him caroling some German waltz from memory between peals of gloriously beautiful laughter ... and I recalled the previous few months ... indeed, around me, as such people as I was appeared to me and I to them, the circle of peace and joy had grown and deepened ... and someday, it might indeed be that as I had met my grand old soldier, who was a gentle gentleman at heart under the iron warrior exterior, and he had held on and walked with me around the sun for almost 20 years, and as Gentle Giant Nurse and I had been given less than 20 minutes, but we had made the most of them, so it would ever be, as I walked, abode, adorned, and appeared as I was called. There would always be time to be blessed, and to bless with love.

"Wir sind gesegnet, und wir sind selig -- blessed and blessed," I murmured, and my dancing partner laughed all the way up into a higher octave -- and suddenly around the sun we went, Knockout Zone physics now having to kick in!

At some point it occurred to him that the Earth was waltzing by opposite our direction ...

"Ach -- I am going backward -- you shall be a toddler in another few loops!"

"No wonder I feel so young and footloose and fancy free!"

He laughed and reversed course ... and it occurred to me what I had not thought of ... he had taken me halfway to his present home ... through the first and second heavens, but still inside the Solar System ... but we had indeed flown past the moon, and played among the stars ... I saw what life was like on Jupiter and Mars ... I had sent him, and he had taken me with him ... I understood then what could happen, when love kept blessing love and met a man who was ready and confident ... and like it had been with Gentle Giant Nurse, and my grand old soldier, I might not even think to resist! For that matter, said basso profundo had carried my heart off with six minutes of singing -- and his grip had not diminished in three years!

Another several loops around the sun, and we touched down again among the golden mist of bare willows on the right day in 2025, and then, with that wonderful stage timing of his, we stepped out into the sunshine and the sight of this wonderful golden panorama of the southern shore of Elk Glen Lake.

"And next week is your birthday, Frau Mathews," that deliriously happy bass was sweetly intoning. "I held back a little today ... but next week is your birthday!"

I just laughed ... what else was there to do, when love met love and overfilled the stratosphere?

"Quite the lesson you gave me today about that, Professor," I teased him. "Next time, can we try a geosynchronous orbit so as not to be doing all that time travel?"

Oh, he laughed ... the entire lake danced in silver ...

"I will have an entire flight plan ready, Frau Mathews," he purred. "I have a song for you ... you made a good observation about almost 20 years and almost 20 minutes ... I think you will appreciate a gentle gentleman's perspective on time ... do you remember Löwe's "Die Uhr?"

"I do, but I confess I did not understand it well in 2022, although you sang it so beautifully," I said.

"You are ready now to understand, Frau Mathews. You have walked far enough in your journey, and abode, and adorned, and are now appearing where you can understand ... that is the viewpoint that is not possible for those who have not pressed into a quiet, peaceful life. You were in such grief and having just come out of so much trouble that of course it was not time for you to understand it ... but you pressed your way, Frau Mathews, even to 2025 in quietude, and now ... and now I can bless you even more."

He literally shuddered from pleasure at the thought of blessing me even more ... and San Francisco's life hung in the balance, because there came such a beginning of an earthquake...

"Remember: geosynchronous orbit next time!" I said, and he laughed, snapping out of it ... partially ...

"Oh, for all you know, we may tip over to the Andromeda Galaxy," he said. "There is more room between your home and mine than you think ... but I think I can coordinate a time-centered loop, since ... well, you will know next week, as you begin your 44th journey around the sun! Your city needs time to update its seismic standards anyhow for 2025!"