Running Commentary #14

Running Commentary #14
October 31, 2010 -- Wednesday

     As I headed down the straight three mile stretch, on my way to meet Laura for our early morning Sunday run, the early fall landscape spread in front of me was the sight of an empty street. No people--only deer. This is a fairly typical sight the morning after a loosing UTX football game. Front doors shut tight, shielding sour moods. The deer, though, were out and about and rambunctious. Their mood was good; they had extra free street-room to run.

     My car herded a mob of deer down a full block before they broke to let me through. For one glorious moment, I imagined I was Running with the Bulls in Pamplona--picturing and pretending for another mile I was in Spain. Then my thoughts drifted to yesterday, catching the remembered sounds of music floating by, generated by going to a concert--on purpose--actual live music.

     This story begins with the Sunday family moving from the house in the hollow to Bartlesville. The two home structures were separated by about 100 miles of pavement and gravel and 100 degrees of cultural difference. The new, eight hundred foot, low mortgage G.I. Bill, Bartlesville house became the place I would live, from age 10 until age 16. This new house even included an inside bathroom--in my eyes--quite a palace.

     To mother, 133 was Tara and, like Tara, would grow in size through the years. Over a fifty year period, 133, according to mother, just about doubled in square footage. One Thirty-Three, initiated the start of what I call mother's Gone with The Wind era. Her three daughters were safely out of the woods and she was hell bent on molding a trio of 'Charlotte O'Hara's.' High on the list of our 'genteelization' was music. My domain was the French horn and piano lessons. Baby sister got the clarinet and flute. Memory includes the sounds of a few piano scales from my older sister. Maybe, her latent talent was un-coaxable, as her piano sounds quickly fade from memory.

     Baby sister was a different case. The sounds she brought forth from the clarinet and flute were so loud and discordant, mother moved her out of the house to a front yard chair for daily practice. I guess there were complaints from the neighbors because these sounds soon faded, too.

     Mother then discovered I could carry a tune and decided I needed voice lessons. She found a teacher and took me in for an eye-to-eye meeting. Instructions were given to come back, with sheet music, for a second lesson. I did, and walked in with mother's selection--From the Halls of Montezuma--I think mother must have been trying to merge World War II and the Civil War. Or, maybe she got them mixed up. I was embarrassed; mother was proud; the voice teacher didn't quite know what to do. Imagine--Les Paul and Mary Ford; Rosemary Clooney; Georgia Gibbs; and Patti Page, were left on the shelves. Rock and Roll was just around the corner. But, I continued to sing and play the piano and French horn. Music became an important part of my life.

     That is, until June 19, 1984, the day my eldest son, Eric, died. The day the music stopped. I took every radio out of the house; every stereo; the piano; sold all records, music books and sheet music from the 1950s. Music became painful; I wanted it gone from my life. And, it was. I made it so.

     Yesterday, I went to a concert--on purpose--to listen to live music. A barrier of unimaginable psychic pain was breached. What causes deeply buried memories to make their way to the surface: What causes aged old unspeakable suffering to begin to heal? Driving down an empty street on a beautiful Sunday morning? Herding deer? Perhaps no explanation is needed. Yesterday, I went to a concert--on purpose--to listen to live music.

     The Sunday run was beautiful.