(I have been a bit hit and miss with forum posts lately. The reasons for this relate to several current threads, so I have taking this as an obligation to start a new one that reflects some of these lines of thought in a slightly different context. Partly, my slothful postings betrays the need to carefully manage my own “spoon collection”: Without a lot of reserve, it is not possible to take on an unlimited program. Also, in true spoon tradition, choices must be consciously made--in many cases, for basic survival--that most people are blissfully unaware of. On the other hand, there is the need--for me, at least--to keep working, for many reasons, both material ones and those of human psychology. On the third hand, some days it all comes down to utter fatigue, whence the “pedal” of staying vital hits the “metal” of physical endurance. And yet, all life wants to live. What follows are a few observations on this theme to start us off; I would appreciate the thoughts of all of you.)

“All life wants to live”? Seems so banal, doesn’t it? Yet the simple tautology of that pronouncement begs contemplation of why this is so.

This last week has been busy for me professionally, and quite draining on many levels. The project concerns the world premiere of a new composition by Jake Heggie, with a libretto by Gene Scheer, entitled Another Sunrise. (The concert was last night; tomorrow and Thursday we do the recording.) Commissioned by Music of Remembrance, and beautifully sung by soprano Caitlyn Lynch, the music is an extraordinary telling of the extraordinary story of the Auschwitz survivor, Krystyna Żywulska. In short, it is a tale of how ordinary people manage to survive, if they do, in the face of unimaginable (and nearly un-tell-able) horrors, in a world where the assumed rules of life no longer make any sense.

If this seems vaguely familiar to Weggies, that is precisely my present point. No, our tormentors are not humans who would, for tribal reasons, bring evil upon us; yet, for us, certain rules of life no longer have, shall we say, the imprimatur of authenticity. (Simple modesty is often the first “rule” to go: A couple of years ago, the ideal of discussing personal body parts and processes with absolute strangers would have been unimaginable. But other guides to muddling our way through life also become, in the heat of battle, merely that: “guidelines”, rather than hard and fast rules. In that sense, “All life wants to live”, though still mysterious, becomes decidedly less trite. Life, with all its attendant trials--its aches and pains and hardships and frustrations agonies and woes--is all about our recording another sunrise, every morning, until we don’t.