Curtain Call

Oh band. I'm so...high right now, like back in the old days when the stage still meant something and putting on concert black was like prancing about in a tutu and tiara, just, totally casting a spell and stepping into another world. And music still holds that mysterious power to make me forget, for just a little while, and be totally immersed in my task. I've been fighting off a cold and just, lack of caffeine induced utter exhaustion all week, but as soon as I look up and there is music going on around me, magically my nose isn't running and my body isn't aching, and it always seems to be such a ---revelation.

I wanted to say we killed tonight, but not quite. The truth is, at points I was honestly expecting the director to stop and start again, it was that bad. But the main thing is we were so on, had such the connection to the 20 or 30 people in the audience, that everything seemed to line up, and pull in just the right times and places. You could feel it too, once we got a couple of pieces into what is for my totally non-music oriented school a pretty heady program, and everyone slowly sat a little straighter, and played a little brighter.

It was almost epic, I have to say, in that moment in time with the rain dripping in the background. I held my breath a little, thinking back through every other curtain call, every other barage of applause, every other gut wrenching first entrance. I looked out over the band, and they joined every other ensemble of which I've ever been a part in my mind's eye, in a transparent mesh of song and moments.

I am wondering where a year and a half from now will have me be, and what role the pulsing of sounds and banging of beats will have.

And mostly, I'm wondering how I'm going to write a three page analysis of Juan Ramon Jimenez tonight, en espanol por supuesto. But for now I really want to just go frolic in the rain in my tutu and tiara, and not break the spell quite yet.