completely off the subject

symphony, tango and meditation

At the symphony hall-the music begins. I am torn between closing my eyes as I usually do and the visual feast of the lights reflected off the instruments. As I watch, I am mesmerized by the movements of these expert musicians. Yet it is more than just their movement. It is the connection between player and instrument and the organic way the music is coaxed from one by the other. I see nothing of the technique I know this requires. His fingers must be placed just so on the frets and the bow drawn across the strings with an exact pressure at a precise speed. What I see is more like a lover's caress that draws from the body of the beloved a sigh, or a cry, or a shiver. And I am suddenly overwhelmed with the realization of how like the tango I love this interaction is. The leader is the virtuoso, playing the instrument-his partner, but it is she from whom the music is born and grows to life. Each touch of the leader's hand, each small pressure of his body and movement of his core, plays in her a note in perfect pitch bringing forth a crusada, an ocho or an adorno. This is what draws me to the tango. This connection, this relationship between two people that makes it impossible to see the technique. How does she know he desires a boleo now and gancho then? The answer is she does not know, she feels and she flows. As if the two were one body, one mind and one heart.

And then I do sit back and close my eyes, allowing the music to fill in the in between. To fill the space between the air and my breath, the space between the heartbeat and my blood, to feel it's vibration echoing in the space between the synapse and my thoughts until I am full with it. I am completely immersed in this moment and this space-needing nothing, giving nothing, asking nothing. I experience for those few moments a deeply sweet meditation. When the music finishes, I walk the 10 blocks back to my car very slowly, exquisitely aware of the warm breeze on my skin and the texture of the suede of my sandals cradling my feet. For once I am not in a hurry and walk quietly drinking in the strange mixture of sights and sounds pouring out of the city's pores. And then I am driving home in the silence. I leave the radio off for a change, content not to fill up the space between my thoughts with sound., content to exist for just a few more moments in that barely discernible expanse.