Seven and a half weeks may not seem like a long time, but when the entire time is spent packing and unpacking a suitcase, it is a weighty time, full of expectation and observation, elation and frustration. I write this on the day my seven and a half week trip comes to a close, the very end of August, a time of year usually marked by nostalgia. The usual overhearings of “where has the summer gone?” are marked with a melancholy sense that perhaps we missed something, that our only option in life is to be resigned toward the endless parade into the future. Time spent walking around in very little clothing, sandaled feet, allowing the sun to kiss the skin, the ocean to bathe the body, and most significantly, a more relaxed daily agenda – marks a seasonal pattern of logic that our bodies comprehend intuitively.
I’ve never been in Europe at the end of August, seeing the streets become depleted of visitors, the hotels empty out, hear discussions of shutting things down for the winter; and I must admit it feels strange to participate in this transitional moment. At home in America, we celebrate the changeover with a holiday. But in Europe the changeover has no holiday; it is the last weekend in August. Here in Vallombrosa, a high, mountainous region in central Tuscany, the season closes with a concert at the Abbey – the one Angela Lee (cello) and I played last Saturday. I chose to add two days to relax and reflect before boarding the long flight back to San Francisco, but I hadn’t realized that the general affect of the place would precipitously drop caused by the mass exodus of people. The melancholia in the air effected me by making it all the easier to find the necessary stillness required to reflect back on a summer of, for me, many changes.
I’m choosing to shift, slightly, the direction my career is moving, how I wish to spend my time in the upcoming year (and how I need to spend my time), recognition of the people I gravitate towards and those whose vibration (or energy) doesn’t mesh with my own, how best to make music, and how to move forward with my nascent nonprofit, The Resonance Project. I’ve made new goals of increased language skills in French and German – largely because, on this trip, I really started to see the deep humanity of the many people I came in contact with; whereas, in the past, I believe I understood people more in terms of their job, their position, their function. It’s a subtle shift that I’m trying to describe, but it’s one that makes me wish to be able to communicate in language as well as I can in music.
Mostly, the feeling that I’m left with, at this transitional moment of the year (of my life?), is that of overwhelming gratitude. Nineteen performances, being saved from the snares of death when I had pneumonia in England, a lost iPad (with all of my music on it) which was found a few days later (that story for a later series of blogs), safety on the road, several thousand happy hearts enriched by music, the opportunity to play on some amazing instruments (most notably in France and Germany), and consistent kindness and generosity everywhere I turned.
Yes, seven and a half weeks is an extremely long time to be living out of a suitcase, and this may mark a turning point in long European concert sojourns for me; but I doubt the transition I feel would have felt so clear had I come over for a shorter period of time. God’s master plan? I leave that for you to decide.