What is YOUR Heroic Symphony?

Last weekend we went to one of the fabulous children's concerts at Disney Hall, put on by the LA Phil. These concerts are so wonderful that last year Jonathan and I were practically in tears over the beauty of the music.

So last Saturday we went again (with the boys still dressed in their new baseball uniforms).

The day's theme was "Heroic Composers."

It began with Beethoven's Heroic symphonies, but then highlighted four "heroic" pieces composed by students who had been studying composing on a special two year program. The students seemed to be college age or just past. Or just before. Young.

Each piece had a well-thought out theme, which the conductor explained before it played so we could listen for it. Then the conductor told us what to listen for. For example, the first piece was based on a Nordic creation myth, about the Gods bringing two pieces of driftwood to life. The piece began with "woodwinds," the Gods were represented by magical metallic sounding rhythms and melodies, and "life" was represented by drums--which slowly grew into a hearbeat.

The second piece, written by a video game aficionado, was about an oppressive ruler, an oppressed people, a strain of a folk-song that kept their souls alive, and finally a rebellion. You could hear those things happen!

The third song was about a hero trying to hear his own melody, his own soul, among all the distractions of life, and the modern world. So the beautiful melody was often drowned out by the cacophony, frenzy, allure of the loud, full symphony. But the hero's melody kept coming back, gradually finding itself, and growing. Nice. It reminded me of Jonathan and Theo.

The final hero's journy was about a regular person/hero. This piece was about a hero who had a series of adventures, all separate, barely linked--at least in no obvious way. They were simply movements, separate, beautiful, only vaguely connected. At the end, the "hero" is dying, and at last finds peace, as he looks back at his adventures.

That felt like me!

I know that storyline is in all the myths, but it was so good to hear it as a symphony. That is how I feel about my life. It is composed of a series of adventures. I know they are supposed to build off each other, feed into each other, reflect some larger, well-laid plan. But for me, that has not happen. I have had many "chapters" or "adventures," and the only thing that seems to link them all is me. But I love them all--all my chapters, my adventures--I would not trade one of them in.

I exhaust myself sometimes, looking for some pattern that I hope is there, that I believe is eluding me, and will only emerge later. But for me, I think the only common thread is a sense of adventure, of my own desperate attempt to experience all the world has to offer--in whatever way I can.

And that is enough.

I do not need to find a thread of meaning.

I hope that I, too, when I lie on my deathbed, will feel peace about my adventures.

I also hope I never stop having them.

I say that, because I feel like I am transitioning to a new adventure right now. Funny. This adventure is not grand. There is no leaping from a cliff, climbing on an airplane, growing a baby and birthing it, involved.

But I feel I am on the cusp of new things, new challenges, new ways of being. A new chapter.

And I feel like I need go out and find my Heroic symphony. I will not hold myself to actually writing it--but at least some piece of music that I love, and that seems to speak to some part of my soul.

Perhaps Chopin. Perhaps Mozart. Perhaps Stravinsky.

I will let you know when I find out.

What about you?

What is your journey? What piece of music tells your story? What is the soundtrack of your life (as they say at KCRW)?

Tell me, please!

You Never Know What Matters...

I try so hard to feed my sons' brains and hearts and souls. To expose, but not pressure, to encourage discipline, but not cripple with expectation. It is hard. I feel I have no model. I had lots of exposure--by Seventies standards--but not much attention to me, and what I might have been good at. Whatever. I am just trying to pay attention for my boys.

Theo has music at school. It is a sweet program and I like the teachers. They have been doing a lot of Peter, Paul and Mary--which is an orgasmic experience for me, the child of the Sixties. It was a time when folk music was so far-reaching that even my buttoned up US Navy father played the guitar, the ukelele and endlessly played Peter Paul and Mary. We sang those songs over and over, in the car, in the rocking chair, everywhere.

So now Theo learns.

A few weeks ago they started learning This Land is Your Land. He learned one verse, and he was proud. And when we drove to Phoenix through the desert he sang it. I told him there were more verses, and I tried to remember. I stumbled through a few. When we got home I searched on the internet and printed out the words. Sometimes I come into his room after I have tucked him in bed, and there is the piece of paper with the words, folded and unfolded, lying on his bureau. He got up to verse 2, then verse 3.

Last night I told him I would come to school sing today. This morning, after I hauled him out of bed, I saw him crouched on the floor in his bedroom with the piece of paper, reading and rereading the verses. Hurry, I shouted. Hurry.

We went, and sat as his class sang with Teacher William. I saw Theo crouching behind his friend, with his wad of paper unfolded, all the verses of This Land Is Your Land in front of him. He was ready to sing, verses I-5.

They didn't sing that song today. But of all the things I do, who would have thought that printing out the words to that song would have meant anything at all?

I guess you just have to throw it at the wall and see if it sticks...