What Could Have Been

The Return of the Jedi.....ahhh. How I love the Star Wars saga, and I know I'm not alone. It
resonates for a reason, that simple reason being it rests on the greatest themes of all time.



Lately this image from the end of ROTJ literally keeps appearing in my mind. Trying to figure it out I've realized that I have many friends who are grappling with the permanent scars life is lashing on them. Myself, I have angled to try to convince myself and others that these dramatic and painful events aren't permanent, that we can overcome, that by lending our thoughts and our efforts towards good -- towards The Force, if you'll forgive me -- is the way out.



I've always identified with Luke Skywalker from the "could go either way"perspective. I'm not an Obi Wan, always clear and focused, without doubts and never truly in peril. I recognize and look up to those people, but I could never claim to be them. (Maybe in about 30 years....)



But I'm not an Anakin all the way, either. I battle darkness, and anger, and the occasional conviction that I can overcome what hurts me with more hurt. But I don't really believe that. And I don't want the people I love to ever believe that either.



So I look at my friends in pain, and I see their turning point. And I think about my own. There are clear moments to me when the woman I could have been, the woman I wanted to be, was lost to this life. My personal spiritual beliefs tell me that even if we go the wrong way, we will be restored to who we could have been through love. But you know.....I want to see that person, those people, NOW.

My heart is hurting for the turning point of losing ourselves in this life.

Life's Rich Pageant

Last night I had the privilege of attending the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra's performance of Beethoven's 9th, Ode to Joy.

Prior to the performance beginning, conductor Grant Cooper requested a moment of silence for the fallen Montcoal miners. It was one of the longer "moments" I've been a part of, and it was absolutely silent despite the dozens of people present.

The live performance of classical music is something timeless, unique, and awe inspiring; and the introduction of this particular symphony with a moment of shared grief was not ironic but somehow complete and fully human.

We've all read stories of people attending live music performances during intense and strange circumstances: bombings in London, occupations in France, under the eyes of Nazis, even the witnesses who speak of musicians performing as the Titanic went down to the depths of night and the loss of hundreds of lives.

We humans are a strange lot, and that's putting it mildly. But whenever I feel despair over how very dark and driven by evil our kind can be, I put my mind to this -- We spend years fashioning instruments to make exquisite sounds. We train our voices to express the richness and over the top joy and pain of human emotion. We come together to put our voices and instruments to the task of not only telling our story, but sharing it. And we come together to experience what cannot be said in words, but only played, and sung, and felt.

I don't go to the symphony to hear music. I go to be a part of something insanely gorgeous and strange. I'm thinking about season tickets.