A trip deferred
Way back in the Fall of 2019, I decided to look ahead towards taking my sabbatical in the Summer of 2020. I had ideas of traveling to London and Paris where Shane and I would take in the sights, tour churches and cathedrals and soak up the local culture’s art, history, and of course, music. By March, worries of COVID-19 started to rear it’s relentless little head, inspiring the staff at All Saints’ to find creative ways to provide worship and to help parishioners keep community. Personally, the learning curve and the sheer amount of work that went into producing virtual choir projects and weekly online worship videos began to take its toll on me. By May I needed a break to allow me a chance to catch my breath. So I decided to split my sabbatical into two parts, with three months beginning in June of 2020 and then three months in 2021.
About a week into the first half of my sabbatical, my mother’s health took a turn, requiring administrating intravenous medicine every day. Also, the pandemic flew into high gear. This required us to stay local, though my sister was able to help out on occasion.
During the second half of my sabbatical in 2021, travel to the United Kingdom and France was still not possible for Americans. We both were vaccinated and fully boosted, so we decided to spend some time domestically in Washington, DC along with our dear friend Stephen Clark. The primary goal of this trip was to relax, enjoy the District’s great restaurants, worship at St. Paul’s, K St. (in my opinion, one of the best music programs in town), but especially to experience the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture.
Beyond a doubt, everyone must set apart at least one day to experience this museum. There’s not enough space in this article to sufficiently describe the gravity and meaningfulness of each exhibit and artifact. However, I will describe one thing: I remember being on the bottom floor. I saw inscribed on a stone wall quotes from slaves from the 1800s. I walked up to read one, and unknowingly triggered a recording of a voice reading that very quote aloud. I remember being caught off guard by the eeriness of the disembodied voice, but then taking in the meaning of the voice’s words, which were of resilience and strength in spite of oppression. That’s what I took from the experience of the museum. No matter how hard a person or community can be pushed down, there can still be a glimmer of hope for the world to change.
But in 2022, I decided that we were to finally take our trip over the Atlantic, and started reviewing my French when we had the first big snow. I subscribed to French newspapers for English readers, watching for the rules to change regarding travel from the US to the UK and France. Finally, in February restrictions on travel fell away, making it possible for us to vacation there.
So in May we met Jan Sutton, dear friend and former parishioner, in London. She had gone over a week earlier to visit with her son who lives there. We spent the afternoon at the Tower of London to try to adjust to the different time zone, as well as to see what jewels Her Royal Highness wasn’t wearing that day. The next day we took the Eurostar from London to Paris, which was such a pleasant experience. We stayed in Paris for eight days, loving the location of our hotel in respect to the Metro and lovely intimate restaurants. Parisian highlights included: lunch in the Jules Verne, a restaurant on the second platform of the Eiffel Tower, a cabaret show on the Champs-Élysées, a dinner cruise on the River Seine, hearing one my favorite French organ compositions played at Saint-Eustache, experience my first non-domestic Disney Park: Disneyland Paris, and hearing a classical guitar concert at Sainte-Chapelle that was just about too much beauty for the senses, just to name a few.
But my most meaningful experience in Paris was ambling into Saint-Sulpice, taking in all it’s architectural beauty, and then sitting to down to read more about it on Wikipedia (isn’t that what everyone does?). It then dawned on me that I was sitting in the same space where many of my favorite composers were organists, which mean that it was likely the very place where they composed some my favorite pieces. I was breathing the air that once held the first few notes of those works. Of course, these names would only be known by organ nerds, and you know who you are: Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, Charles-Marie Widor and Marcel Dupré.
We returned to London on another delightful train ride beneath the English Channel. With the few days that we had left, we attended Evensong at St. Paul’s (something I have to do every time I’m there), toured Westminster Abbey (standing in the same spot that coronations have taken place for centuries), took a boat ride to Kew Gardens to see all the gorgeous plantings there (tulips were in full bloom), and enjoyed the best fish and chips and Indian food of my life.
One of the most meaningful experiences in London was seeing a production of “Come From Away” in the West End. Initially I knew very little about it, but was blown away by the telling of the true story of how the citizens of Newfoundland embraced the passengers on all the redirected flights on 9/11, all with an Irish musical flavor, as that part of Canada was settled by the Irish and Scottish. Told with a continuous crescendo of excitement and joy, it is a story of how much richer a community becomes when you welcome “outsiders” in, and how lasting relationships, and even love, can flourish. If you ever get the chance to see this show, don’t walk and do run to the ticket office.
Our trip was just long enough to be ready to come home, which I think is just right. I know that this trip being deferred for two years made it all the more sweeter. Experiences were more poignant and more vibrant. I could tell that folks, especially the French, were grateful for tourism to be coming back, which added an undertone of excitement and joy to our interactions, which became pretty infectious.
And after the two years or more trying to avoid a COVID infection, I’ll surely take an infection of excitement and joy.
Hope, excitement and joy to you,
Brian Sapp-Moore, Dir. of Music & Coordinator of Communications