Facing the Music

The last night of my 74^th year— well, technically the 75^th, since our birthday celebrates the end of a completed year, as when we turned 1— was well-spent folk-dancing with this oh-so-joyous group of some 80 teachers, lovely souls each and every one. All with live music put together this afternoon by my colleague James Harding. The last dance was the Brazilian ciranda and then samba led by Estevao, another colleague who never fails to infect everyone with his exuberant dance. Though he could, he never shows off but invites us all into his orbit. At the end, the Brazilians kept playing and when I left the theater after an hour, they were all still going at it. 

 

In my short walk back to the room, there was the full moon and the night sky and the predictable evening chill. It feels right to sit out on my little veranda to soak it all in and write a few words in my handwritten journal. I can’t quite shake the weight of that number associated with this 5-year-old, 15-year-old, 25-year-old and more, all still glowing under all the layers added to them. It’s easy to accept philosophically mortality as the companion that keeps us honest and grateful and determined to savor every precious moment of this life, but when we honestly face the music, we question why we just can’t keep going on forever. At least I do. Trips to the dentist, mid-term elections, the takeover of machines and all.  But if we have to face the music—and we do— let’s take Irving Berlin’s advice: 

There may be trouble ahead
But while there's moonlight
And music and love and romance
Let's face the music and dance.

 

Or to paraphrase e.e.cummings

 

who are you, little i

(five or seventy-five years old)

peering from my window at

a July moonrise

(and feeling: that if day

has to become night

 

this is a beautiful way)