Let's face it. . . I'm not a particularly emotional person. At least I'm not someone who, say, cries at movies easily. I don't easily well-up with tears when saying goodbye to people, or hearing a sad story. Don't know why. . . just don't.
If I do get caught feeling an instantaneous welling up, there is usually music involved. . . . or else some memory of raising my boys. Triggers are funny things. Sometimes just the thought or image of some past event can cause the reaction. For example, I can burst out laughing out loud at just the thought of a cherry tomato dropping to the ground and bouncing across the floor. You would have to ask my friend Joan to explain that one, but I suspect that if she's reading this, she is laughing out loud as well. How lovely to be able to bring up uncontrolled laughter. Tears are another thing altogether.
I never cease to have an emotional reaction to the sight of a young woman with two small boys in tow. If I could have one day in my life to do over, not to improve it necessarily, but just to live through it again, it would most likely be any random day with my two boys when they were about 5 and 8 years old respectively. I miss those days alot. . . I'm lucky to be able to dream about them now and again. I have dreams where my boys are that age, and they are talking in their little boy, unchanged voices, I can smell their little boy smells, and we are doing the stuff we used to do. . .maybe in the car on the way to soccer practice, or hiking a trail in the Smoky Mountains, or shopping for junk food on New Year's Eve. It is always bittersweet to wake up from those dreams, but I am thankful for them. I tried to appreciate those times while I had it, but I don't think anyone ever does. So I'm busted. . . . I've just admitted that the sight of a woman with two little boys always gets to me. And if I have the opportunity, I sometimes say to her: "Oh wow. . . appreciate this time. It goes too fast."
Okay that's one instance. So today it's raining steadily and I just spent the last hour in the amphitheater listening to the orchestra practice for tonight. It's community night, and anyone who plays an instrument can sit up in the orchestra and play along. So they pick well-known and easy listening classical music. I had with me the book I'm currently reading because nobody does multi-tasking better than I do. I can read a couple of sentences or a paragraph while the conductor is stopping to give directions.
I didn't have my paper with me and I couldn't quite remember the line-up of pieces, but I knew I would recognize most of them. So they start the second piece and I can't quite place it. It's soft and slow and I decide to continue reading. Then suddenly an electric shock goes through my body as the orchestra gets to one of the main themes of the piece. And I know this piece. It's Howard Hanson's Romantic Symphony (#2). And the reason I didn't know it at first is because I'm most familiar with this one theme. It's the Interlochen Theme. When I worked at the National Music Camp at Interlochen for 5 summers, this 8 bars of music was used to end every concert. It is a beautiful, slow,schmaltzy tune. And boy does it hearken me back to sitting in Kresge Auditorium of a cool summer night in northern Michigan. And it was funny too, because the tradition was that at the end of that theme, there was to be no applause, but just a quiet getting up and leaving of the audience. It was even printed in the program that this is what was to be done. Well, of course, like up here, there were first timers in every concert. So at the end of every poignant playing of the Interlochen Theme, there would be a smattering of applause by the newbies, followed by a deafening "SHHHHHHHHHH!" from the rest of the regulars as they attempted to force the tradition down everyone's throats. So instead of a gentle ending to the concert, there was the sound of millions of leaking balloons. . . every time. Rarely did it work the way it was supposed to. Ahhhh. . . .memories.
So today I'm wrenched out of my book by this gut-wrenching theme (which plays several times during the movement of the piece). Each time I can feel the emotion in my throat as I remember the wonderful summers at NMC. But then, in a "piling on" gesture by the universe, on the last repetition of the theme, I look up in the choir loft behind the orchestra and there is a mother with her two little boys watching it all transpire. Let the sobbing begin. . . . . . .. .
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