Soul Music

We’d bought the last tickets for the concert and our seats were in the back row. The program didn’t matter. This was Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw hall famous for its unparalleled acoustics. At first, all I could do was marvel at the splendor of the concert hall. Teardrop chandeliers sparkled throughout, illuminating the high-ceilinged, rectangular space. Red upholstery, rugs and curtains contrasted beautifully with the decorated pale beige walls and gilded pillars.

When the conductor raised his hands and the musicians readied their instruments, the chandeliers were slightly dimmed, leaving the hall in a glittering tenuous light. And the music. Oh, the music. It soared and rose, taking me with it, transporting me to a place of light and beauty.

Afterwards, I regretted we hadn’t remembered a program. With my mind brimming with travel impressions, I couldn’t remember the name or the composer of the violin concert that had cast its spell over me.

    Today, two years later, I turn up the volume on our kitchen radio. A magnificent violin concert strikes a chord within me, but I’m at a loss to identify it. The notes penetrate my core, triggering a sense of splendor and euphoria within. Why is this concert so familiar?

At the end of the piece, the announcer identifies the orchestra as Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw and the piece as Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, Opus. 64. Suddenly, I know why the concerto is familiar and moves me so.

 I’ve recovered something precious that I’d thought lost to me.

Fiddlesticks and Beyond....

Is it possible? It’s been fifty years since the assassination of Martin Luther King. Fifty years. And fifty years since Richard Nixon was elected U.S. president. And half a century since: Yale decided to admit female undergraduates; the first color photograph of earth “Earthrise” was taken by humans in orbit aboard Apollo 8; the musical “Hair” opened on Broadway; Rowan and Martin’s “Laugh-In” debuted on television. 1968 was also a year of multiple anti-Viet Nam protests.

            I’m propelled into a state of disbelief as I read the news from 1968. I was a young woman working at my first teaching job then, after two years serving in the Peace Corps. The realization hits me that I’ve been living a long time. I’m a senior citizen now and dealing with the well-known ailments, both physical and cognitive, of advancing age.

            My oldest hometown friend, Paula, in California and I were sharing our aches and pains over the phone. She’s just a year younger than I. Although she suffers from disabling arthritis, we can still relate and laugh over our multiple old-age frustrations: difficulties retrieving words from memory, tripping, energy loss. Frustration with a capital F is dropping things because then we must PICK THEM UP. Our bodies don’t appreciate the bending position.

            I tell her that I’ve taken to swearing when these frustrations interrupt my life. And I’ve advanced from lady-like swearing (fiddlesticks, darn, damn) to more hard core vocabulary. I confess that the F word is my chosen swear word now. “I know,” she laughs. “Sh__t just doesn’t cover it.”

We howl in laughter.