Driving away

[vaneramos]

When I dropped the girls off at home today their mother was at work. Brenna was happily surprised to discover renovations on her bedroom had been completed over the holidays, and invited me upstairs to see it for the first time in seven years they have lived there. It touched me to see love that had gone into the work, and how happy it made Brenna. Both bedrooms had prominent, nicely framed portraits of me with the girls, taken at my parents’ 50th anniversary several years ago.

I got into the car, enclosed myself in solitude, and turned on the radio. On CBC Eric Friessen reviewed Murder Duet by Batya Gur, a mystery novel revolving around Classical music. The first chapter involves an argument about the distressed first movement of Brahms’ First Symphony.

Afterward Friessen aired the entire work, progressing to the final movement’s horn solo and subsequent hymn theme in the strings, two of the most beautiful melodies ever written. Alone for the first time in two weeks, I couldn’t immerse myself in the music as I wished. My thoughts wove in and out. Entire passages of tumult, resolution and majesty unfolded, eluding my apprehension, slipping into the ether.