A Day of Long Shadows

The most beautiful thing I saw today: shadows. Wherever I walked, wherever I looked, sun announced itself.

The most beautiful thing I heard today: a concert at the College that ended with Rhapsody in Blue. That piece, like the sun, casts its own shadow. For the first third of my life, I made music, and piano was my first and longest-played instrument. The last work I learned was Rhapsody in Blue, a demanding, difficult, joyful piece. I still remember my inability to get the count right in one passage, above which my teacher wrote, "huck-le-berry-huck-le-berry."

The young man who played tonight smiled at the conductor and at the music, letting himself show his pleasure in the music. For the duration of the piece, I felt Gershwin's heat like a sun, warm on my back, so much so that by the time I got home, I wondered where that person who made music went.

I am not she now. I am only the shadow of that musician.