Bliss!

The Oregon Symphony had a special offer on tonight: show up at 6 p.m. with stubs from tickets of friends who attended Saturday or Sunday, and you got available seating for $5. The guest performer was Jon Kimura Parker, playing Mozart's Concerto #20, and the orchestra played Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances and a couple of other pieces. I got a seat on the THIRD ROW, center--so I could see the stubble on the men's beards, the wrinkles in the stockings of the women, could follow every lift of eyebrow, the moments when the first cellist made eye contact with the first violin, the smile between two violinists when the French Horn missed a note, the moment when Kalmar turned and looked at Parker and waited for a slight nod.... And the sound. Oh my god. The sound reverberated in my breastbone and up and down my spine. It was divine.

I have attended many concerts, but seldom since I retired, as I can't afford them now. I had forgotten how much I love them. But for $5 I got the best seat I've ever had in my life, and I sat there transported, breathless, bursting with happiness. I am so glad I lived long enough to attend this concert. It makes all the headaches worth it, to be alive to have beauty knock me out, blast me into some other dimension entirely, and smack the breath out of me. The crescendos, both the Mozart and the Rachmaninoff! Carlos Kalmar, the conductor, likes to draw ALL the sound possible from the percussion, the horns, and the basses. My hair vibrated. I think my molecules all got rearranged. I am so happy I think I'm levitating.

The picture was made at dusk. After you wait in line for tickets at 6, you have to wait till 8 for the concert to start. Good picture-taking time.