Cadence of a better place

At 11 am yesterday my neighbor Ethan Tong, 16, stepped out onto his back porch and played Mendelsohnn, a violin concerto.

I could see the sound of it go out into the air and then catch a breeze and go furthur, perhaps all the way to Washington DC, as if my wishful thinking was a political strategy. For 12 minutes or so the world was full of beauty, wonder, youth, hope, faith, charity, good works, intelligence, grace, real devotion, and every other positive human expression now absent in our national life, and an audience receptive to such possibilities.

I imagined people were listening in the nation's capital, grateful to be released from a noxious and by now tiresome presidency and administration--failing on all accounts, symbolically and actually--and enjoying the 12 or so minutes of gorgeous sound provided by Ethan as an unexpected benediction.

Such is the opportunity provided by the imagination--it tends to either conjure up ideal circumstances or stoop to real and self-created fears.

Ethan Tong plays Felix Mendelssohn, May 26, 2020. Photo by author.