THE PERFECT DAY

It seems silly to call this the perfect day because then what have all the other blissful days at Chautauqua been, if not perfect?

But this is hump day of week 9, the last themed week of the summer, and the days events unfolded in the most glorious and memorable way.

Earlier I wrote a blog about "Just Saying Yes."   Because as it turns out, I have loved my library job.

Last night at dinner at Andriaccio's Italian Restaurant, so close to the grounds that we can walk there, Jared and the three librarians re-enacted the evening during week 2 when we had our beginning of the season discussion.  Only this time we were 8 weeks better friends than we had been back then.  And among other things discussed, we mutually decided that we loved the job enough, and Jared loved us doing the job enough, to agree to go again next summer.   That felt really good.   And allowed us to have discussions aimed at closing out this summer with next summer in mind.

So after that lovely evening I woke up this clear, crisp, sweatshirt demanding morning and walked over to the amp, as I do every weekday morning.  We set up our third-to-the-last Motet Choir rehearsal, practiced a piece, and sang it at the church service.  I have enjoyed singing in this choir.  It's not the Choral Arts Society, but it has it's own personality, culture, and challenges.  Learning a piece every single day during the week and performing it after one rehearsal has been fun and not at all easy.

After choir when we finally got all the music put away, I attended the lecture.  It was Lynda Johnson Robb and Susan Ford  Bales. . . . presidential daughters who gave the most delightful talk about what it was like to have a father as president.  Both of these fathers took over their presidencies under traumatic conditions.  Both of these women were young women at the time. . . Lynda was in college when JFK was assassinated.  She had the most fascinating story about being in college and finding out about the death of JFK and what happened next.   Susan was a senior in high school when she was thrust into the life at the White House.   I remember all these years vividly as I was a young woman at the time also.  So to see these women and hear their stories was wonderful.  Chuck Robb (former governor of Virginina)  and Susan's husband were in the audience.  Both women were very poised and funny. . . particularly Lynda Robb.   So that was a memorable lecture.  Perfect!

Next was Jared's final organ recital in the amp.   He had told me that he needed me to turn pages for all 4 pieces.   I was still feeling the post traumatic stress of having turned for last week's concert.  I guess I never blogged about that.  But it was a scary ride for sure.  He played the music of Franz Liszt which can tend to whiz by.  The score is nothing but black notes that move at a breakneck speed.  And then he opens a score called (I'm not making this up) "Death Dance" which is really a piece written for two pianos.  There is no pedal part in the score (when the going gets tough I follow the pedal part!).  He's flying through this piece playing a little from both parts. It is virtually impossible to follow this music.  All I could do was hang on for dear life and hope to not mess him up.  After that performance last week, I was seriously doubting my competence to do this job.  But he needed me today.  So I remembered my favorite graphic which shows the big circle that has written inside "Where the magic happens."  Then separated from the circle is a little square that says "Your comfort zone."    So I boldly walked up to that organ and faced down my demons (solidly out of my comfort zone).  And boy did the magic happen!  The four pieces were challenging but follow-able (not sure that's a word).  And one of them was the spectacular Franck Chorale in a minor, which I played on my junior recital in college.  To be up there watching that score go by as Jared played it was like seeing a long lost friend that you had loved from college but had not seen in 40 years.  My fingers practically itched with the memories of how it felt to play that piece. It was all I could do not to just be reduced to tears during the playing of that one.  What a gift to me.  And then the last two pieces went well and were spectacular.  Even the finale, again by that wild Mr. Franz Liszt who traumatized me the week before.  But I held on tight and was transfixed and transported by the splendor of the music and by Jared's virtuosity.  I floated out of that amphitheater and straight into the company of my choir friends who had attended the concert and were waiting for me.

Because we had been invited out on the lake for a boat ride by one of the tenors in the choir.  I have been longing, no aching, to get out on that lake every summer since I started coming here.  And now, as a choir librarian, I was in the select group that was invited to get on the pontoon boat for a 30 minute ride to Bemis Point across the lake where we docked and had lunch at a restaurant called the Italian Fisherman.  Such a nice time.  Complete with spiked coffee for the boat trip back.   Sweaters were needed, but sun was shining brightly.  Paul drove us north so that we could see the complete shoreline of Chautauqua from the water.  Such a blissfully fun getaway!

I got home in time to get ready to go see the last classic movie!  It was The Mortal Storm with Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan.  Not a happy topic. . .pre Nazi Germany, but a wonderful movie.  Had never heard of it.   So glad I saw it.

The Capitol Steps perform in the amp tonight.  I'm going to complete my perfect day by NOT going to see them.  For some reason I find no humor at all politics these days.  I'm so tired of the whole thing that I don't even want to see anybody make up funny songs about it.   

Nancy's coming over for a glass of wine on the porch.  The perfect ending.  In a week I'll be home and Brigadoon will fade away for another year.  And I will always remember how this beautiful day made me feel.  From beginning to end.