Marriages and Music

My high school friend Kanaka, whom I was supposed to wed if we were both still single at age 50, just got engaged! My fallback is gone, and I'm very happy about it. We weren't really a good match, anyway... and my, these grapes are sour! (Just kidding.)

I got the email yesterday, and was touched that he asked if I'd be around in the fall of 2004 for the wedding. My immediate thought was, "Good lord, how could anyone know what their plans will be two years in advance?" And then I realized it was next year. Like, less than a year from now. I feel like someone keeps increasing the speed of the treadmill, only I can't see them.

Yesterday, after a somewhat weepy afternoon (for no apparent reason), I roused myself enough to go to a classical music concert that my office sponsored for foreign residents in Seoul. Quartet 21 is a four-person Korean classical music group. They played Haydn and Dvorak before being joined by a pianist for a Shumann quintet.

The hall where they performed, Miral Complex, is a brilliant building, distinguished by the use of ceramic artwork as sound diffusers. I know nothing about acoustic science, but I know that getting good sound acoustics in a hard-surfaced room is tough to do, and to my amateur's ear, the sound was perfect. I don't know how they did it, but the effect was cool, arty, and modern. Go Seoul!

And the sound -- I don't know why this is either, but in the past few years or so, whenever I've gone to see a classical music concert, I have to fight back tears in the opening movement of the first piece. I always forget how beautiful strings sound in a concert hall, how smooth and sweet, silky and rich, like melted chocolate, or a swathe of silk rippling in a breeze. Last night was no exception. I just gave up and let the tears fall down.

I can't figure out why I was so moved last night. I felt like I understood the music (none of which I'd heard before) and could appreciate it in a way I couldn't before. How could I have missed this before? I thought. How can I have spent so many years not appreciating this? The hush of the hall after the one of the movements in largo was the quietest moment I've experienced in many months.

Maybe it's getting older that does it. Appreciating music, appreciating friends, appreciating time to study, being interested in the world and its happenings. Every stage is better than the last.

I wanted to make the above insightful and profound but I'm too tired to try. Must go to bed and try to catch up on some sleep. 'Nite.