The Buzz of the Crowd

It’s a Tuesday morning and some 100 kids and another 100 plus parents are gathering in the school Community Hall. Soon kindergarten, 2^ndgrade and 4^thgrade will be up on stage performing in their Spring Music Concert. The crowd is a’ buzz with excitement and anticipation. Me, I’m on the piano bench taking a moment to savor it all.

 

Remember the pandemic? I often lost sight of what it feels like to be in a crowd like this not worrying about six-foot distances or masks or number quotas. Sitting in a crowded restaurant or a movie theater or a concert hall, gathering in the Orff workshop circle, gathering at a political rally, all those experiences we took for granted as normal, receded further and further into the distance during the pandemic and were difficult to call back in the imagination. After fifteen months of sheltering, I finally taught my first Orff workshop and when we gathered in a circle, the moment when we held hands was like an electric shock of a needed recognition that this was what we are meant to do. I remember just standing in silence for a minute or so before beginning a song, just wholly amazed to be reunited, a deep thirst finally quenched with that first cool drink of life-giving water.

 

I recalled that all for one moment today, now so thankfully back in a norm of gathering that we take for granted. As we do when our fervent hopes and dreams and longings and wishes are finally met and in that first moment, there is a deeper layer of appreciation and gratitude and amazement. Which quickly becomes just the way things are and loses its luster. That’s normal. But nice to take that moment and drink in the “roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd” as young children were preparing to offer the gifts of their hard work in concert preparation back to the audience. For some, it may be their first taste of the power of the performing arts, as memorable as their first ice cream cone and as refreshing and sweet. 

 

I also thought about fellow retired music teachers who chose retirement as the time to close the door to all of that, to enjoy solitude or travel or pickleball and not look back. They may have loved every moment of their previous teaching life, but when it was done, it was done. No regrets, no nostalgia, just ready to move on to the next chapter. If they had been in that room, they might have thought, “Why am I here?? And will the pickleball court be free when this is over?” 

 

But not me. That low murmur of children’s voices still is music to my ears and I’m still happy to assist them in their musical journey any way I can. It doesn’t make me better or worse than my colleagues in the closed-door category— it just happens to be my truth. Someday I may choose the old Indian idea of retiring to the woods and spending my days with morning birds, flowering gardens, star-filled night skies. But for now, children singing are my birds, garden and shining firmament. Go figure.

 

And for the record, the kids performed enthusiastically, joyfully and flawlessly and all in that room were refreshed. A good way to start a Tuesday morning.