I was the youngest person in the crowd, the youngest on a
Sunday afternoon at a classical music celebration. The grey hair of wisdom
moved around me and filled the wooden seats and I wondered – why was I the
youngest in the room? An hour and a half of “music therapy” ensued, the sound
of the playful flute, the weeping violin, the cheeky guitar followed by a
concerto of voices that filled the amphitheatre a cappella.
What is it that drew me to this place of sound on a
Sunday afternoon? And I begged the question of myself, why was I the youngest?
Is it the childlike state of old age that draws us back to
our innate appreciation of that which is beautiful? The natural beauty of music
that evolves in melodies unfathomable, which in its purest form, only the
childlike can perceive? Much like the world famous violinist who stood on the
railway station, playing the most intricate of pieces, on a 3.5 million dollar
violin for some change, who went unnoticed by the throngs. Except there were those
who heard the sounds of the virtuoso and
wanted to stop. Not to throw in some change or because they recognised the
violinist but because their beings recognised that which was beautiful. And
they were the children.
As the poet Billy Collins mused all babies are born with a knowledge of poetry, because the lub – dub
of the mothers heart is an iambic meter, it is life that slowly starts to choke
the poetry out of us.” Children have
the ability to perceive the beautiful and the strange and the confidence to
stare at it, even to their parents’ shame. I perceived myself as the child
among the aged and my soul was listening, to the sounds of rhythms, tones and
sweet harmonies from the creators of music. And at once with the turning of the
string, I found myself as a kin among the aged, knowing the burden of life and
feeling all its heaviness and my soul sighed.
Whomever I was, aged or child; I
have returned to the childlike being inside of me – the one who admires beauty
in all its glory and who is not afraid to stare or to sit on a wooden chair on
a Sunday afternoon and enjoy the musings of music and all its fancy and I smile
because I have come home.