2001-05-12 - 10:28 p.m. - ad_te2

Hello.

Again, I have many things floating around my mind. Here are a few...

I went today to see my friend's senior violin recital. She plays very well, with feeling. Would that I could express myself as well as she could. She still has some technical issues, but she has time to work that out, and she's going to Rice in the fall... so she has a good career ahead of her. Best of luck to you, if you're reading this... *blows her a kiss* The stuff she played was overall pretty familiar, except for a Handel-Halvorsen duet which really could have been better. Her Nigun has gotten much better, the Tchaikovsky-Kreisler was divine (and to think that the melody's real words are something like "My love gets drunk and rows on the Volga!" I KNOW that's not it, but it's something to do with getting drunk. Anyway.) and the Saint-Saens, Beethoven, and Bartok were simply amazing.

Today was my youth orchestra's "open rehearsal," where we run through the piece we're playing on our next subscription concert. I'm always amazed by how coherent we are and by what we can do. It's one of the best feelings in the world, the knowledge that all of you are gathered to do something which on your own you could not do but which is more glorious than almost anything else I could imagine. It's almost like love, in a way. I am lost and consumed, but I don't mind at all. In fact, I welcome it and embrace it, seek it... this feeling is why I sit thorugh rehearsals, why I practice, why I perform music at all, and this to a lesser extent is also what I do with chamber music. Speaking of chamber music, my concert is at 10:30 in Hellman Hall at the SFCM (1801 Ortega at 19th). Please come, the concert is free and my group is good this year.

The piece my youth orchestra is doing this year (Mahler 2, "Resurrection") is wonderful. It's our 20th anniversary season and also our current conductor's last year, and so he's going out with a bang... some of my favorite parts include the brass chorale, 5th movement... percussion crescendo, 5th movement... the 4th movement, the end... all of it is great, actually, please come... onward and upward!

I didn't know you at first, nor did I particularly want to. But with time came respect, and with respect appreciation. You're teaching me to laugh again, with a sense of humor akin to my own, and eyes dark as mine. And now, it'll be hard for me when you have to leave...

...and for when you have to leave, too, you - kind enough to give me a ride home on that night, kind enough to take me home when the intersection I gave you would have sufficed. It was out of your way, and the night was young and you probably wanted to be with your friends, but you did take me, and that will not be lightly forgotten. You: talking to me, easy in your words: do you know how good you made me feel, that I was just for a moment comfortable in my body, in my humanity, secure in the knowledge that someone I respected liked me? Then doubt crept in, but for that wonder... You- what is it about that instrument you play that makes its players so often what I think I want? You will not read this, and whether that's for better or for worse no one knows. Here is my tribute to you, and to my fondness for you.

And to you, one of the first new friends I made at UHS outside of the freshman class - I have been given varying accounts of your character, but to me you have been friendly and... well, there most of the time. I wish you luck in college, oh you of the bright eyes...

...but not so bright as those of the first you, the you of last night's entry.

And to you, perhaps last, perhaps not, always more willing to build me up than I am myself - friendly to me and a wonder in 6th period.

Enough "you" for tonight. God, I'm becoming the boy-crazy person I always mocked back when I had the luxury of mocking the girls... little did I know how I would pay for this mockery.

Escape...

Which for me does not come easily... one of the avenues of escape still open to me is Queensland, not Queen's-Land as in Australia but Queens'-Land as in a haven for me and for others who are unhappy where they are. Set with lakes of midnight blue and towns of beautiful stone-wood buildings, sometimes Q is a better place to be...

Take care of yourselves.

Cheers,

J (:>