Feeling Foolish

I had a dream last night that I could suddenly go to Fool's Fest (only a 6-hour drive from Urbana - I do love dream-reality) and so I hopped in the car and set off to see the Scrumptulescence folks and I suppose some Acapulco people too. Whoever was there last year. It occurs to me that I may actually know Drew from FF2006. This dream was largely disregarded by me, occurring in a vast sequence of school-related mini-nightmares: missing classes, skipping my MA exam - typical back-to-school sorts of affairs which makes me wonder how this dream fit in. Do I miss frisbee in the offseason? MK did head down for Terminus which I've always wanted to go to (but alas, the siren's call was in Michigan this week) but I've been caught up more in climbing recently than ultimate. I fear that in losing my frisbee friends when I left Chicago that I may lose ultimate as well. There are sources of hope though - my last name being adopted, some rough-housing on the line, Angelo asking to throw after work, Jason telling me he was glad I came to pickup (how could I not? It was 55 and sunny after sub-freezing temps two days earlier), small victories that I hold on to, hope that I will find a place with this team. We are changing names, perhaps we will change tenor as well and after a winter of turf-practices I will have gained some acceptance and shed some of the new-unknown player stigma. (This is generally more prevalent when small and female, although I suppose I'm prejudiced...) New captains, new recruits, maybe new cleats, new jerseys. I wonder about missing the summer since I'll be in Chicago - will I have time for tournaments? Will I miss regionals for a conference in October? I am still unsure of the balance of ultimate, school, Ethan. Now there is teaching and climbing. I remember my dreams, sometimes for years, if I bother to focus on them when I wake up. Sometimes I mistake them for reality. I wonder if I'm supposed to (in some cosmic ultimate sense [oh yes this is corny]) take off for the weekend, let go, and just float down a field, conscious only of the spinning plastic bright against a blue clear sky.

Alfred Brendel

The ceiling is rippled, striated for better acoustics, the walls a warm knotted wood, dark pine, absorbing and muting at the edges. The armrests are covered and plush and the seats narrow but wide enough that I can lean to the side, resting gently on my extended fingertips as I find my window to the stage. His hands are reflected in the smooth front of the black paint, dancing and sighing over the keys, flourishing up after a chord to let the subtle tones ring out, holding the silence. No one claps between movements, the first concert I've ever been to without the cardinal mistake. I have a moment of indecision during the Impromptus - two in a row by the same composer - what does that count as? - but I hold my peace and am right to do so. The old woman behind me sucks her cough drops noisily but when I can relax and unfocus my eyes and slip into the repose that is far too often lacking in my life I am drawn out by the undertow of the chords, tickled by the trickling arpeggios, Mozart's swirls of chromatics. So long since I have been to any sort of concert, so long since I have been to any whole sort of concert. Ethan is bored after the first half and wants to leave at intermission so we run to catch the bus - but today, today I am alone (where is Nathan?) and happy to be so. The seat next to me is empty, the other filled solidly by a middle-aged professor discussing with his wife the goings-on of class. I am invited to meet Classicists afterwards in the lobby for some social occasion but I bow out ahead of time knowing I will savor the quiet walk past empty streets and forlorn buildings into a silent world of my own making. I do not communicate well after concerts, I abhor human interaction. I relish the moment of pure emotional solipsism, feeling and surrender, that is so precious and rare. Yet I am bursting in some kind of vulnerable efflusion and I think of calling Ethan, my mother, my sister, someone to unhinge my mind upon and to call me back into the momentary world. I sit, instead, feeling the emptiness that is full, or the fullness that is empty, flicking this: may it fill a void.