Time is flying. It is already becoming early winter. Not too far before it gets frosty here. I have been planting winter/spring vegetables like broccoli, spinach, cabbage, onion or leek etc. My sore left knee won't allow me work so hard as before. But it is still a fun and relief to be in my tiny garden farm.
The problem of solitude seems inherent in our age of elderly. I could not help thinking of that lately. Physically, in retirement, we live apart from the society. No company to do with around us. Moreover, mentally, we seem to be betrayed in darkness in a sense. With our capabilities obtained in young days being lost, we should go without the seemingly infinite and boundless power in youth.
In the end, we should go through dying all alone like when we were born. It is the absolute solitude.
A psychiatrist, Mieko Kamiya, whose works have attracted me since my med school days, used to say that when a person is dying, he/she will be in absolute solitude. The dying person must be physically as well as mentally in solitude and could never be understood by the others, even if they try to sympathize the dying person.
Having worked for those with leprosy for a long time, she might have encountered such a situation for many times. She could not do or tell anything for those dying people as not only a psychiatrist but also as a human. All she could do, as she said, was to hold their hands without any words.
She might have the problem by herself. A heart failure issue which ultimately deprived her of her life.
It is a highly individualized problem which could not be solved with an answer. The hand given to us dying could be from our beloving ones, certain belief in religion or words of philosophers. I believe some kind of music could accompany us in that situation. Music is a mysterious thing which could not be seen or touched. It is an experience for the moment. It comes into our mind and accompanies us.
One of those music is this impromptu by Schubert composed in his very last year. I don't know what situation he was in when composing it. Translucent chord and never ending melodies. I still feel he has created it in or near the absolute solitude. It won't be the solution which leads to get out of it. But, feeling it to be close to us, we are much relieved from them.
This performance by Pires is sure moving us. Especially, the 1st piece in f minor. She has got out the hardness in physical problem in her 40s when she recorded it. It might render profoundness in her playing.
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