Musicians

As it turns out, the jazz concert I had stumbled into in my last blog post was part of a music festival and it is an ongoing daily one hour concert during lunchtimes. It gloriously would go on till Sept 14. So every weekday lunchtime, one could find me sitting in the bleachers and smiling like I had won a million dollars. This is life. I missed listening to live music so much. I wish it never ends.

Last Friday's music theme was "Tango" and all the four artists played varying aspects of tango. One gave a small lecture too about it's history. I have learned that Tango originated in Argentina, in a small port city called La Buka (I hope I spelled that right). In such a place, there were a lot of different nationalities - Russians, Colombians, Africans and even Japanese. Most of them are immigrants, so it is then that Tango is also known as immigrant music..interesting.

One thing that struck me while I was listening and watching the musicians play was how visibly one can see from their faces the emotion that their music draws from them. To me, it was very moving. It was as if they were all alone playing their instruments in an empty room and noone was watching. I couldn't remember when was the last time I wore my "heart" out like that. As far as I could recall, my journey to maturity have included being able to master my emotions and for me, that also entailed not having it too visible for people to see. Cultural expectations on Asian women may have had a part of it too as well as all those trainings in honing ones job skills where one is required to stay calm in emotionally charged scenarios or not reveal anything in most circumstances. Then again, it might also be that I have always been surrounded by left-brained people where numbers and over use of the mind and logic is the norm. So it's not surprising why on my spare time, I would be drawing, painting, writing or be drawn to lunchtime concerts like these because a large part of me lives through my emotions. And so it marvels me to watch people who spend most of every day, living at that end of the spectrum. As I watched the way the artists held their instruments, the way they close their eyes as the notes filled the air, how peaceful their faces looked, how passionate their energy, the shape of their fingers as they pressed those keys or pulled those strings, I wondered how it would be like to live the life of a musician where one's work requires one to feel, to reach into the depths of the heart and soul and find that unique music that is there and then to play it with eyes closed..it must be nice.

On a Sad Day

Sometimes for no particular reason at all, I feel sad. It may be because of some weird hormones, or stress or some negative energy I’ve picked up somewhere or maybe tiredness or some “thing” but whatever it is, I woke up sad today. There is this melancholy cloud hanging over my head and some emptiness in my stomach that I couldn’t attribute to any tangible cause. It was just a sad day, with nothing in it. If I was watching a movie, any movie, I would have burst crying at anytime. So consequently, on this sad morning, I didn’t pack my lunch and only packed those for Julia.

It didn’t help that Julia began crying and wailing on the way to her new daycare/preschool, nor did it help to see her sulking all by herself in a table when all the other kids were crowding in another table obviously having fun, it didn't help to see the unaffectionate face of the “attendant” watching over the many children in that preschool/daycare and it certainly didn’t help to come in my office after going out for coffee, to have my officemate visibly harboring a grudge at me because my cellphone rang when I was out and I have forgotten to turn it to vibrate mode. An apology didn’t make a difference. Of all days, it had to happen today, on my sad day. Someone had to call me on my phone at the time I was out when I forgot to turn on the vibrate mode which irritated my officemate who happens to be anal when it comes to phones ringing and sounds that I make in general. But such is life isn’t it? Things happen in moments when you least want it to happen. There is a term for this principle.. which predictably I forgot because one cannot be expected to think straight on sad days anyways. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the rest of my day was filled up with a rolling snowball of more sad events after another. A spilled lunch perhaps? My PC crashing in the middle of finishing my report? More phone calls coming? So during lunchtime, I said a short (but desperate) prayer, that I may have the courage to face the rest of the sad things coming to me today and to please, please, if possible, stop all the world's cruelty at once. Then I went out of our strained office to get some fresh air and my lunch which I've decided to get from Chinatown, giving me a nice enough distance to walk and breathe.

While I walked towards Chinatown, I heard some music. And it so happened that my feet convinced me to follow that music which on any other day, I would have easily ignored. But on this particularly sad day, I could go anywhere my feet wants to go. For all I care, my feet was THE boss today. So lo and behold, what glorious miracles happen when one follows ones feet for a day. Out in an open air stage with neat new bleachers filled with upbeat and positively glowing people, was a jazz band playing the most beautiful jazz songs from the 60's-70's that I've ever heard. It just melted all the ice that was starting to build inside me. I have never liked jazz before but today, I fell in love with it. There is nothing more enjoyable than listening to a saxophone, flute, two guitars and a viola playing in an open stage on a summer afternoon. It was like I stepped into heaven and a flashback was shown before me showing me how busy I have been with whatever plans I had in my life that now in heaven, I am being shown "the way"..all I needed to do was to sit down and enjoy a nice piece of jazz music in the middle of the open park on a particularly sad day. What pleasure! It nearly felt alien to me, I almost felt guilty savoring it. But savor I did for from now on, I am savoring life, in all it's forms and that sure includes jazz music. I never thought I'd be a jazz music enthusiast but I am now. Sad days after all are not that bad. They lead you to paths you may never have thought of taking and you end up becoming someone you never could have imagined you'd be.