One Year Passed

March 11, 2012

One year passed. 

The bassoonist swayed lyrically to and fro as his part soared from his instrument.  The texture he created deftly joined the other timbres of the orchestra, creating a most intricate musical lace.  Each individual voice perfectly matched and blended.  

The orchestra breathed together.  They created an aural ecstasy that swelled through the air in waves of crescendos and decrescendos.  But despite the perfection and bliss of the music itself, I was particularly moved by the perfect silences. 

The second movement of Dvorak’s New World Symphony is one of the most sublime pieces of music ever written.  Emotions course through piece to the climax, not in a tremendous swell of the entire orchestra as in the final movement of the symphony, but rather in gentle, tender silences amidst a quartet of strings.

As I sat in the auditorium, bathing in the aural bliss of the Prague Philharmonic last Saturday, I could not help but let my mind wander back…back to a year ago this very weekend.

A year ago, this weekend found Karl and I cuddled up in our apartment permanently attached to the internet talking to family and friends.  Desperately reading the news.  The massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami and nuclear disaster had just occurred.   

As I listened to the orchestra, I reflected on the past year.  How quickly time has passed.  Mozart, Beethoven, and Dvorak accompanied my thoughts…creating a kind of tangibility to my feelings.  The delights of Beethoven’s Pastoral symphony reminded me of the beauty of the Japanese spring.  That despite the tragedies of those events, Japan still sprung into a stunningly beautiful season-full of blossoms. 

The people of Japan have remained strong and hopeful.  One year passed finds the disaster areas well on their way to recovery.  And still, we remember those lost and those who lost...homes, loved ones, lives. 

In the perfect silence, we remember, reflect, rebuild.