The Darkest Night

It is the Solstice and technically, the darkest night of the year. But in my neighborhood last night, we were without power for some 8 hours, so that was truly the darkest night. And felt yet more deeply because it was the time for our annual caroling party!

 

From the beginning, there seemed to be much working against this celebration of our 43^rd neighborhood caroling. I chose the date a few weeks ago and immediately regrets came in from people I hoped might come because of travel or prior commitments. For the first time in a long time, my daughter Kerala and the grandkids couldn’t come down to San Francisco (though I will see them in Palm Springs), the date fell on my nephew’s birthday so neither he and his wife (great singers both!) nor my sister and husband could make it. This old neighbor was busy, that one caught a cold, the other didn’t want to drive in the dark and so on. 

 

On top of that, rain was predicted. This would certainly turn others away and put a damper (so to speak) on getting out to the streets to sing after going through our whole repertoire around the piano at the SIP Tea Room where we now meet. I was nervous about getting caught in a downpour outside with my guitar and kept checking the weather to see what the prediction was. 

 

Then while walking in the park that afternoon, I got a call from the owner of the Tea Room asking if I still planned to go ahead with the caroling. I was confused about why she would ask until she told me that the power in our neighborhood was out and there was no prediction yet as to when it would be restored. The World was not cooperating with our plans! But I agreed with her that we could sing by candlelight and people could use their phones to look at the words on the sheet. 

And here is where my suggestion a few posts back to memorize words, songs, musical pieces so we don’t need to depend upon books, screens or electricity bears fruit. I can play every Christmas carol on the piano without reading a note, know at least the first verse to them all and some of the other verses and the piano at the Tea Room was not an electric one (and if it was, I could have played guitar or we could have sung acapella). So my answer was a clear, “Yes! Party is still on!”

 

I came back home to my darkening house and thought maybe I should send out one more group e-mail letting folks know but —oops! No Internet! So after a candlelight dinner, off my wife and I went to walk the seven blocks to the Tea Room with a flashlight and battery lantern in hand. At once eerie and magical to walk those familiar blocks at night without a single streetlight or lights coming from the houses. On Irving Street, the traffic lights were out, the stores and restaurants dark and empty except for Pascuales Pizza where people where finishing their dinner by candlelight and the Fireside Bar. We got to the Tea Room at the appointed hour of 6:30 and there was only my wife and I and Shannon the owner. We set out the little lights she had, one friend came in and said she had to park and then gradually, others arrived. By 6:45, there were some 30 people! Neighbors, ex-neighbors, school alums, my daughter Talia and her boyfriend Matt and other friends, adults and kids alike. 

 

And so we sang. Gloriously so, going through the alphabetical songsheets from Angels We Have Heard on High to Winter Wonderland. There was magic, mirth and music in the air— the English, French and German carols, the American ones mostly written by Jewish songwriters, the lively ones, the quiet ones, the funny ones, the serious ones, the ones that invited motions, the ones that suggested harmonies, the Winter songs that never mention Christmas, a few Hanukkah songs, a rollicking black spiritual, the ones split into high voices/ low voices/ all voices, the choreographed 12 Days of Christmas split into three groups. All of it while the little lights twinkled inside and the world outside was wrapped in darkness. 

 

And then we took to the streets, luckily without rain. With the businesses and restaurants almost all closed, we chose the blocks with the houses and people came to their doorways and windows, astounded and delighted and for once, not having to decide whether to pay attention to us or keep watching TV. One came out with drinks and cookies, another requested the two songs we don’t do—The Little Drummer Boy (purposefully omitted from the songsheets because it’s my least favorite carol) and some Hawaiian Christmas song, yet another motioned us across the street and gave some money to one of the carolers, who then passed it on to me. I stuck it in my pocket, thinking it was perhaps a $5 or $10 bill. Later at home, I took it out and it was—$100!!!!! What an unexpected surprise!

 

Remembering all the people in the Fireside Bar, we decided to go there. There were maybe 40 people inside drinking and chatting loudly. In we went—including some 8^th graders!— and began singing The Twelve Days of Christmas. 

At first, most people kept right on talking and ignored us, but I’m proud to report that by the 12^th Day, everyone in the bar was singing along with us!! A proud music teacher moment! (My daughter later told me there was a guy in the corner who was mumbling aggressively, “Get the hell out of here! This is a bar! We don’t want you!” But luckily, no one was paying attention to him.)

 

Our last stop was the gas station at 7^th and Irving, where somebody at the house that bordered it threw open their window and asked us to sing. While we did, Matt and I noticed that there was a Waymo at the left turn spot on Lincoln that didn’t know what to do because the stoplights weren’t working. Some cars going the other way stopped and motioned for it to complete its turn, but apparently those invisible drivers are dumber than we thought. I later heard reports of other such cars just stopped in confused stupor and blocking traffic. Matt and I, both ardent Waymo-haters, were so delighted!!

 

Finally, we bid goodbye to each other and walking home, suddenly noticed the streetlights and stoplights from 6^th Avenue down were on! While 7^th Avenue up was still dark. Hooray! It meant I didn’t have to read my bedtime book by phone light!

 

That’s the story of a most memorable caroling night. Happy Winter Solstice!