The Things They Longed For

To describe this past week would require the eloquence and subtlety of a long and abstract poem--the kind that only speaks symbolically and rambles on, grasping towards an unspoken feeling.

Instead, I will merely write a list: Friday night with Schubert, a glass of wine, and a delightfully expressive video of Perlman and Zuckerman; Saturday morning lesson with a blizzard backdrop and a new sonata to delve into; two performances of Mozart rewarded with a warm cup of coffee and a sore shoulder, only to meld into another rehearsal, more notes, half-hearted attempts at reading the black dots of Nielson; a frantic Monday night scurry to a show I have only known from the stage, yet finally witnessed from afar (and how strange it feels, to be without my viola!). Finally, tonight, a small reprieve dedicated to preparing for my upcoming travels, and perhaps a bit of alone time with my instrument.

Life piles on life.

I am reminded of a book I once enjoyed, by Coetzee :

Like leaves blown on the wind, pell-mell, they pass before him. A fair field full of folk: hundreds of lives all tangled with his. He holds his breath, willing the vision to continue. What has happened to them, all those women, all those lives? Are there moments when they too, or some of them, are plunged without warning into the ocean of memory?

-Disgrace

Lives entangled.

In an unabashed moment of music propaganda, the next concert: