In lieu of writing my own blog post this time, I cheated and collaborated on a concert review for Three Hundred Words. I’d love to elaborate, but I have lots of work to do tonight. Enjoy!
of dances and doors September 16, 2008
We are all in a room fraught with doorways. Or is it really a room? The bit I can see through the pressing crowd seems to be so. But so many doors… how do they all fit on one wall? No matter–more important right now are the faces around me. We are a harlequin-printed cloth, a crazy quilt patched together from scraps so different we don’t seem to belong together, yet when juxtapositioned just right we are a masterpiece. We are iridescent–the pattern changes as we dance in the light, as we switch partners or drift to the edge for a rest. In the midst of the whirl I hallo, how-d’ye-do, farewell hundreds if not thousands, each one different. Sometimes the intervals between greetings and goodbyes pass with gracious leisurely steps; at other times I can barely learn my companions’ names before they disperse. And when I think I have seen all, met all, in enters another upon another through doors which previously were shut. I am enchanted to discover these new faces, these new lives. The delight in my soul is astounding–it is as though each fresh being brings with it a new color, a new dance, a new song into my immediate reach which enriches my experience…
Early on I notice that not every part I learn remains with me. I make an attempt at recalling the steps, the melodies, the particular hues introduced by this company, but there is so much to remember, I cannot contain it all. Thankfully I manage to meet up with the ones who first taught them to me and they refresh my memory with the correct elements. But there are always a few which escape permanently. I haven’t really minded this before; the bits which are now missing are those which I never really learned in the first place, so my dance does not diminish in vigor nor in variety whenever a fragment ceases to exist.
We dance on indefinitely, it seems. Time matters not, except to know that it does not end here in this symphony. No one really cares how long we have been here in this grand hall. Personally, I have become comfortable in and among two or three different clusters; I float effortlessly from one to the next, re-learning the steps I have lost and absorbing new ones from those who arrive later than myself. I am now knit together with a new set of colors. Collectively we spin and twirl and gracefully make our way down the length of the ballroom as we become acquainted with each others’ unique gyrations. All is splendid here…
And then I notice something new.
Not the kind of “new” I am used to. This is not the recognition of something that has become; this is, rather, going through the motions and discovering a gap where something is no more. A step is missing. A note has faltered. Some bright shade has faded out of my range of vision. But where? Who? I turn this way and that, only to meet a multitude of questioning glances. Then above the confused cacophony of altered melodies and dancers out of step, I hear it. Or, at least, something like it. The source is a mournful-looking set I used to dance with, and they are trying to recall the precise melody they have lost. I remember that tune… where did it go?
A door slams shut, silencing the buzzing and humming in my little corner of the ballroom. With quick strides I soon come to it, pressing my ear against the wood, hoping against hope that I will detect some unfamiliar song which has no bearing upon my dance. But through the portal, now bolted shut from the other side, I catch the final refrain of her melody. One last chorus, and it is gone forever.
The door is shut. And now I can’t reach her. But with my imperfect, fallible memory I do what I can to retrace the steps, to recall the notes, and to refresh the bit of color she left with me while she was here.
Dedicated to Sarah Chapman
