One Really Special Moment

Last night Warren and I attended a talent show, an annual fundraiser put on to support our local developmental disabilities board. We did not realize until the show started that, except for three "guest" acts, all of the other acts, whether solo or group, were performed by individuals who were developmentally disabled. That made for some unexpected moments of both poignancy and hilarity, depending on the act and the performer.

The show theme was a World War II style USO show. The acts were unabashedly and enthusiastically patriotic. The audience clapped and cheered loudly for every singer, dancer, and actor. More than once I found myself swallowing around a large lump in my throat one moment, and then cheering loudly the next.

As we drove home, Warren and I discussed our favorite moments and I recounted several. Then I said, "no, there was one really special moment."

Partway through the first half, the next act listed was "God Bless America," to be performed by Mickey McNamara. Mickey, an older man of indeterminate age, came awkwardly onto the stage, a small accordion hanging from its strap around his neck. He smiled nervously, pumped the bellows once, and then played, not "God Bless America," but "O Beautiful."  Laboring over the notes, he made it to the end and grinned at the applause. The emcee thanked him and we all waited for Mickey to leave the stage. Instead, he leaned over and said something to the emcee, who announced Mickey was playing an encore. The audience quieted down.

Mickey studied his accordion. He tried one chord, then tried another. He made a false start and frowned. He tried a different chord and must have heard something he liked. Mickey then started playing his encore piece.

It was hard to recognize the music at first. The tune was broken, the rhythm was irregular. There were missed notes which Mickey went back and replayed. But all the same, a rustle started in the crowd and many of us started stirring in our seats.

A few of us stood up, then a few more stood. Soon the whole audience was on its feet, singing along to Mickey's tune.

He was playing "The Star Spangled Banner."

Mickey never looked up from his hard work. He concentrated fiercely on the chords and notes, drawing the bellows out and pressing them back in to make the breathy tones of the accordion. He had no idea we were all standing, singing along to his erratic beat.

When he finished and the accordion went silent, Mickey finally looked up to see us all standing and applauding. He smiled - a great, face-splitting smile - and then left the stage.

We all applauded hard as he walked away. We clapped for our country, for our national anthem, and for Mickey, who passionately and seriously, to his own rhythm and tune, gave us one really special moment in a night full of special moments.

To an Unknown Concertgoer

Today's poem is also based on a true event. At the March 2010 concert, someone in the audience was so struck by the soloist's performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto in D Minor that he called out the moment she lifted her bow off the strings. Clearly the concertgoer was deeply moved by the performance he had just witnessed. A few weeks later, in rehashing the concert with another attendee, I mentioned that moment in reference to the virtuosity of the performer. The woman with whom I was talking pursed her mouth sharply and made the comment captured in the poem.

Over a year later, I still find myself reliving that moment. The air was still vibrating and someone in the audience could no longer hold in his emotion over what he had just experienced. I'm glad he couldn't.

*********

To the Unknown Concertgoer

There are those who attend to concerts with precision:
Never clapping out of turn or being the first to rise in appreciation.
And, heavens, no shouting "Bravo!"

He was not one of them.

When the last note of the violin concerto was played, he cried out
The moment the soloist lifted her bow in completion
And there was that half beat of silence
Before the conductor lowered his baton.

We could all hear his call, like a mourning dove up in the dome of the hall,
An aching, yearning "ahhh" that he had to release.
It hung in the air just before the wave of applause broke.

A patron pulled her mouth tight recounting the moment.
"Well, clearly that was not someone
Who has been to concerts frequently enough
To know how to behave."

I wish I had been that listener in the audience
    Crying out in appreciation
    Crying out at music so moving that it would break the heart to keep silent.

I wish I had been the one to not behave so beautifully.

October Notes and Scraps

It's Concert Week, which means Time, speedy little bugger that it already is, flies faster than ever. Here it is early afternoon Friday, dress rehearsal is tonight, Season 32 launches tomorrow night, post-concert reception after that, and this household is at sixes and sevens.

In short, life as usual for when you are married to the Symphony.

In all my running around today (the post office, two grocery stores, dropping off library books, getting the car back to Warren so he can use it), I managed all the same to call a time out and scrawl some notes for October on the back of the grocery list. Two hours later, as I sit here typing, I look at my notes. They read like this:

dress tonight
walking - running into Don and talking
Large inflated cat - 10 feet? makes me smile
ghosts of Halloweens past
drumming rain in early morning move closer to W
impossibly blue
Deciphered, they mean this:

dress tonight   There is dress rehearsal tonight. I will be at Gray Chapel much of the evening, helping set up the ticket and lobby areas. It will be a late night (no surprise). So will tomorrow (no surprise).

walking - running into Don and talking   Although I was driving this morning, our one-car status continues and I have been spending a lot of time on foot. I like walking, a lot, although when you have to walk, you are far more aware of the extra time it takes to walk. Have to be at the courthouse by 12:30? Build in that extra 15 minutes to get there. Walking home from the courthouse yesterday afternoon, I was deep in thought (Legal Clinic, Concert Week, bills, supper, chores) when someone called my name. It was my good friend Don, who is the director of our amazing community resource, Andrews House. He darted across the street and we talked for about 10 minutes. As I walked on home, I found myself thinking that if I had been in the car, I never would have run into Don and we never would have had that conversation. That's but one of the many upsides of walking: the constant opportunity for community and friend interaction.

Large inflated cat - 10 feet? makes me smile  Driving to the grocery today, I went past a house on a corner which has heavily indulged in the inflatables market for Halloween. There are pumpkins and bats and ghosts and a huge (truly) black cat with an arched back and upright tail. The cat is easily eight feet high at its back, and the tail makes it even larger and taller. Warren and I are not inflatable folks, but the displays of others never fail to make me smile. Especially when it is an enormous inflated cat on a quiet residential street.

ghosts of Halloweens past   I can't look at Halloween decorations without thinking of my own boys. When Sam and Ben were young, we had a series of Halloween windsocks - pumpkins, skeletons, vampires, Frankenstein - that hung on the front porch. The annual hanging of the windsocks was a big deal to two little boys once upon a time. (And I'm glad my two guys predated the inflatables trend.)

drumming rain in early morning move closer to W   It rained early this morning and I woke up just enough to hear it drumming on the roof. I moved closer to Warren, sound asleep, and let the rhythms lull me back to sleep.

impossibly blue   A few hours later, the sun was out and the sky was the color I call "October blue." October blue is impossibly blue, especially when a flaming golden maple is stuck up against it. It is so blue my throat aches just looking at it. The sky is that color right now.

The day calls and I need to turn back to the tasks at hand, which are multiplying rapidly. There are other posts still out there, tugging at my sleeve, tripping my thoughts up as I walk, but Time is tapping its foot. For today, these notes and scraps will have to mark my place, tossed into the wind, tossed into that impossibly blue October sky.

It's That Kind of Day

We are both recuperating from last weekend's concert, the events of the week leading up to the concert, and the weeks and weeks of preparation that lead up to last week's events and concert. We are both tired, we are both a little worn and edgy, we are both painfully aware of how many tasks and chores went by the wayside during April (and even March) as the concert (and United Way and the grant writing) ate up our time.

The concert - which was the season finale as well as the Ford Made in America concert - was absolutely stunning. Stunning? Amazing! Incredible! I had tears in my eyes watching Warren play Chasing Light…, the signature piece. At several points in the work, his hands were moving so fast over the vibraphone that the mallets in them were blurs. All of the musicians, along with Jaime, our conductor, played their hearts out, not just on the Big piece, but on every piece. At the end of the night, the audience rose in waves to acknowledge the beauty and power of what we had just heard. I raised a bruise on my right palm from clapping so hard.

[Note: the performance is archived and available online. It's the May 1 event. That's Warren speaking at the start of the concert. He is in the percussion section on the right side of the shot during the first half.]

The concert and the composer residency held in conjunction with it were probably the biggest event of the Symphony's 31 years, probably the greatest accomplishment of Warren's in almost 20 years of managing the Symphony, and probably the largest, sustained community-building event by an arts organization ever in Delaware.

Small wonder we are exhausted. Small wonder that by Sunday night I felt my throat start to go scratchy, that by yesterday I was snuffling and coughing, and that today I feel as if my head is full of wadded up plastic grocery bags. I want to put my head down on my desk, like we used to do in grade school, and close my eyes.

It's that kind of day. Kind of a "I wish I felt better" day.

After taking Sam to work this morning, I came back home, did something or other - I don't even remember what now - before walking slowly to a meeting downtown, following by dropping in at United Way offices to sign allocation letters.

It's that kind of day. Kind of a slow-moving, slow-thinking day.

It's Primary Day in Ohio and Warren picked me up after my United Way stint to go vote. He is an R and I am a D. In this county, that means he gets a full ballot, because there are Republicans running for office every time you turn around and almost every race this primary was contested. The Democrat ballot is anorexic by comparison. So I was through voting long before Warren was. I stood out in the hallway at the polling place and greeted friends going in to vote.

It's that kind of day. Kind of a community-gathering, friend-greeting day.

Afterwards we swung by my parents' house so I could pick up an empty planter and replant it for Mother's Day. I saw that my dad already has his garden tilled and some of it planted. I was so jealous! The garden is one of the tasks that went by the wayside last month, other than I have a worktable full of plants begging to be let outside. (And while writing this, I shot an email to the friend around the corner who has the "dirt-eating machine" I used last year in my sod garden, asking to get on the list to borrow it.) I plan on spending much of this weekend making up for lost time.

It's that kind of day. Kind of a look at the garden and look at the plants and think about introducing them to each other day.

My older son Ben just got back to Montana from Portland, Oregon, where last Thursday he and my almost daughter-in-law Alise went through a commitment ceremony at Reed College. When I saw his note on Facebook that he was back, I asked "pictures," and he sent me a link. I have not seen Ben and Alise for two years. I got teary right away, but then realized I have not seen Ben with hair that short in more than a decade, so that distracted me from crying. Seeing these made me realize that in all the concert preparations of recent weeks, we haven't even discussed the upcoming wedding this summer in Montana.

These are three of my favorites. The photography is by Molly Gingras (a Reedie). I suspect the stuff being thrown is glitter.


It's that kind of day. Kind of a look-see at their first big event and looking forward to seeing them at their second later this summer day.

Tomorrow are the 4th Grade concerts, here and in Marion, and Warren and others will be arriving shortly to load the timpani. There are dishes calling, there is a meeting tomorrow for which I need to prepare. Tonight Warren has a rehearsal, so supper will be bumped up against that and anything else going on. Life goes on. The cold I have will pass, there's always another concert in the wings, and the garden will get tilled and planted.

It's that kind of day. Kind of a small moments day.

My kind of day.

Diving In

I learned to swim at the old pool (the old, long gone pool up at the fairgrounds) over the course of several summers when my mother enrolled me and my brothers in Red Cross swimming lessons. There was a progression to the classes - first we were Tadpoles, then Minnows, then Something Else. With each class, we gained a few more skills, a little more confidence in our ability to navigate the water safely.

Somewhere along the line - the summer I was 10 perhaps - whatever level class I was in required us to jump off the high dive and dog paddle to the ladder in the deep end before we could complete the class. My best friend Cindy (who was in the same class) and I agonized over this requirement for days. The board was so HIGH. What if we lost our balance and fell off the side? What if we got dizzy? What if we hit the water the wrong way and hurt ourselves? What if our suit straps came undone? What if, what if, what if…?

The real question was, of course, what if we were too chicken to jump and had to climb back down?

The day of the Big Jump arrived. I can't remember which one of us went first. (Me, I think, but that may just be a trick of my memory.) I remember though that all-alone-at-the-top-of-the-world feeling I got when I stood at the edge of the board and looked down at the impossibly far away water. Our instructor called up encouraging words. There was a line of others behind me. There was a host of butterflies in my stomach.

Somehow, somewhere inside of me I willed myself to bend my knees and jump. There was a sensation of the water rushing up to meet me, then submersion, then the incredulousness as I broke back through the surface of the water. I remember paddling to the ladder thinking "I DID IT!"

Cindy did it too. We laughed and shrieked at our accomplishments. Giving high fives had not yet come into vogue, but we would have slapped each other's hand silly if it had. On the way home, we both reminded our younger siblings (still Minnows, still Tadpoles) that we had jumped off the High Drive.

That jump is on my mind because we have come to the end of April, four months into a year already rushing along at breakneck pace, and I am once again feeling like I am climbing the ladder to the high dive. The week just starting is concert week, always an intense time in this household.

But this is not any old concert week. This is Big Concert week - the biggest of Warren's tenure as Executive Director, the biggest of 31 seasons of concert weeks. This is Chasing Light… week. It will be full of talks and special events and extra rehearsals and a reception midweek and, well, you get the picture. (If you don't, click here.)

"50 states. 58 orchestras. One remarkable composition." (I wrote that line, incidentally.)

Last year, the Symphony was chosen to take part in the Ford Made in America program, the largest composition consortium in history. As such, it will be performing Chasing Light…, an original composition by Pulitzer Prize winning composer, Joseph Schwantner, at its May 1 concert. Just being asked to participate in the program was a huge honor.

But wait, there's more!

Warren asked about the chances of having a residency with the composer. Despite being told the odds of receiving one were slim, Warren, being Warren, nonetheless put together an ambitious and creative proposal that tied together music, poetry, and the creative process of composition. Last July, he got the call telling him the Symphony had been selected to receive a residency with the composer.

Schwantner arrives in town Tuesday.

To say next week will be a full one is an understatement. To say this household will be stretched to the limits in terms of time and activities is also an understatement. As I type these words, Warren is in the shop, finishing reengineering his vibraphone, which he will play in the concert. Five feet away from me is a stand he built to hold four crotales needed for the piece. Beyond that in the front room are the metal frames of gong stands and trap tables. There is an impossibly large Chinese gong propped against the couch. I see a score on the arm of one chair; the triangle playing machine (which he invented for this concert) is just on the other side.

This is Chasing Light… Central.

I don't pretend that I have responsibilities and duties like Warren does this coming week. Oh, I'll be pitching in - proofreading, running errands, hauling instruments - throughout the week, just like many of his Board members. But the burden of this week falls on Warren, who goes to bed later and later each night and gets up earlier and earlier each day as the time winds down and the activities crank up.

But if Warren is on the high dive about to jump into the coming week, I am right behind him, next in line. When you are married to the Symphony like I am, you know that whatever the week holds in store for it and Warren, it also holds in store for me.

One summer long ago I learned all about climbing a ladder and leaping into thin air, hoping for the best. I learned I could do it; I learned I liked doing it. I did it again and again that summer.

From where I stand now, May 1 looks impossibly far away. I know, though, it will rush up with speed and intensity. I know that by this time next week, we will already be out of the pool, laughing and cheering.

It's time to jump.

The Weekend Wrap Up

I had planned on writing about our Farmers Market, but I am too tired to do so.

Monday I was exhausted. Way past the limp dishrag stage. (What's more tired than a limp dishrag? I don't know, but that is what I was.) Tuesday was better but I was still drained enough that a colleague at court said "You're still worn out from this weekend, aren't you?" (He was too polite to add "because you look really awful.")

So here it is Wednesday morning and the needle is finally coming up off the E.

I knew going into last weekend that it would be a full one. Our symphony was playing a free holiday concert on the 4th, then turning around and heading to Lake Erie the next day to play the same concert at Put-In Bay, which is a 30 minute ferry ride from the Ohio shore.

Being married to the Symphony as I am, I double as a roadie. A double concert weekend is roadie hell. And that was before the rain issue came up Saturday evening.

This year was the Symphony's 24th July 4th concert. It has always been held outdoors, somehow managing to take place between storms when they have come up. Sometimes there are afternoon showers and volunteers start toweling off seats at 6:30 p.m. More often than not, there is no rain and no concern.

This year all the radars showed a solid wall of green bearing straight down on us. There was no rain per se, just a lot of sprinkling off and on. So we set up outside as we always have, eyeing the sky throughout the day.

As Executive Director, Warren makes the final call as to whether to move inside. He held off. The crowds started arriving. It was sprinkling.

Then it started sprinkling harder.

Strings players will not play in sprinkles. They all clustered inside like chicks in an incubator. Warren kept the percussion equipment inside as well. Knots of people - Warren, the production manager, some trustees, me - formed to talk.

Moving the concert inside posed a host of logistical issues, the least of which was resetting the stage. The need for a cover for the outdoor stage came up more than once. Then one trustee said "could we get enough pop-up canopies to cover the musicians?"

His words electrified us. The fire chief volunteered one immediately and called the station for two more. The symphony had one in the office one block away. A church group in the audience had a very large one that they agreed to bring to the stage.

Suddenly the outside concert was a go. What happened next resembled films you see of military units scrambling on alert: we were running from tent to tent, some of us popping them up while others hustled chairs, mics, and stands out of the way. (Thank you, Pete O'Flaherty, for jumping in to help to raise the roofs.) One up, another up. A third up. The sixth and final tent was 8 miles north of town and would be en route as soon as it came down. A couple of us waited on a side street to race it to the concert site as soon as it arrived.

The concert went on, about 20 minutes late, but it went on with the musicians under the tents and the crowd under the skies (which never did open up). Afterwards, as we broke down the stage and packed for the next morning's trip, we all congratulated ourselves for Making It Work.

All the same, it was a late, late night before everything was done and we were home.

The next day dawned clear and early. Too early. Warren and the production manager, Dick, were on the road by 9:00 with the truck full of stands and percussion. At 10:30, I went to our high school to meet the bus and help check in musicians. There was mass confusion about who was hauling the basses to the lake. A horn player had not shown up (she wasn't riding the bus, it turns out). Good thing those took some extra time to sort out because at 11:00, when we supposed to depart, our teenage vocalist came flying off the bus exclaiming "Reuben is on his way! He just left his house!"

(I have known Reuben since he was in middle school, so I had no qualms saying to him "we almost left without you…and I will never let you live this down." The only thing I didn't say was "just wait until I tell your mother.")

The trip continued to be full of small snags and disruptions. There was confusion at the ferry landing: the employee checking us in wanted one set of numbers, the employee running the tickets wanted another. We finally settled on counting the yellow Symphony passes going over, but agreeing that every musician would have a ferry ticket (now all in my possession) coming back. The van with the basses had not yet arrived and would have to take a later ferry. That caused great consternation among the bass players.

By the time we arrived at the concert site, I was tired (no surprise), hungry (breakfast had been hours ago), hot (it was sunny and very warm), and frazzled (courtesy of the bass issues, the ferry ticket snags, the heat, and the hunger). In short, I was on overload.

I was not awful to be around, but I wasn't very nice either. I wanted to be left alone, alone, alone.

Poor Warren.

But the quiet passing of time helped. Sitting in the shade on the porch of the visitors center with a cool lake breeze helped. Knowing we had managed to shepherd the musicians to the island, despite the snafus, helped, especially when the basses arrived on the next ferry. Knowing a box supper would be arriving shortly helped. Missing Warren, who had wisely moved to the porch on the other side to give me some space, helped.

Pretty soon I had recovered enough to ask him if the offer to go up the tower at Perry's Monument, which he had so happily made when I first arrived and was not fit to be around, still stood.

Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial is part of the National Park Service and commemorates both the key naval victory of the War of 1812 ("Don't give up the ship!") which took place in the waters just off the island and the long-lasting peace between Britain, Canada and America. It is only five miles from the Canadian/American border, the longest undefended

border in the world. The monument, in the form of a Doric column, is 47 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty. You take an elevator to the upper deck platform, which is 2 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty's torch.

The upper deck platform is a great place to view the world and recover your spirits, especially if you are me and Warren is anywhere nearby. By the time we came back down, I was grounded in more ways than just physically.

The concert at Put-in Bay was stellar. Perhaps it was the setting, perhaps it was the local islanders in attendance, perhaps it was one of those times when the audience and the orchestra are in perfect synchronicity. The emotional highlight was when our vocalist Dominique sang "God Bless America." Audience members began rising to their feet to stand

silently while she sang, whether out of respect for the song or her voice or both. By the time she finished, many of us were in tears as we applauded and called out our admiration.

After the last note of "Stars and Stripes Forever" died away, it was time to reverse our morning route. We struck the set, loaded the equipment, headed to the ferry, waited for the ferry, boarded the bus, and rode home. The basses beat us back this time. By the time we got to bed, it was already Monday.

And now it is Wednesday. I cancelled appointments Monday, knowing I was too tired to think straight. Tuesday I had the meeting I had moved from Monday, and that was when my colleague politely inquired about my well being.

And I am still tired today.

But you know what? It was worth it. It was worth every moment, even the frazzled, frustrating ones. It was worth it to see the smiles of the musicians reflected in the smiles of their audiences, it was worth it to see Dominique (newly gradated from high school) woo not one but two audiences, it was worth it to rush to set up tents so the show could go on, and it was worth it to once again watch my husband at his best as he solved various production problems and then took his place in the percussion section as if there was nothing else in the world but the notes on the page.

For me, who has not lived in the orchestral world until recently, music is a miracle. Out of the confusion - misplaced parts, broken strings, sore hands, wrong notes - comes the sublime. Each concert is the musicians' collective attempt to make the world new again with music. Sunday night, our musicians did just that.

By the time our ferry left Put-In Bay that evening, the sun was setting. I stood on the deck watching the reds and purples wash across the horizon. The family in front of me held their young daughter up to see the colors. She laughed and clapped her hands, smiling into her parents' faces, reaching towards the sky, reaching towards the miracle.