When Mr D died we were away for the weekend together, celebrating as I was about to start a new job. The transition had been messy, I had to start my new role part time whilst completing a demanding semester of lecturing, so I was working long hours to keep up. I was going to have a proper leaving ‘do’ later on, once I had settled into my new job, but of course that never happened. So, I left the place where I had studied, gained my PhD and worked for the last seven years without a proper goodbye, or even telling people where I was going. This made it hard to tell anyone what had happened. It’s hardly a great conversation opener ‘sorry I left with saying goodbye but, by the way, my husband died’. A few months later, as I picked up the shattered pieces of my life, I decided to contact a few people I probably wouldn’t ever have bumped into again, but instinctively knew could be important to me. I had already started the process of holding useful people close, and letting unhelpful people go. A personal tragedy brings out the best and the worst in the people around you, and you realise very quickly who your true friends are, who will get you through.
One of the people I had contacted asked if I wanted to go with them to a Prom. I hadn’t been for years, certainly not proper ‘promenading’ as I had done in my youth. Suddenly I felt like my old self, twenty years earlier, full of hope and excitement at living in London, being able to go to the Proms for the price of a sandwich and hear something new, as long as I was prepared to queue in truly British style. So it was that I found myself standing in the arena at the Royal Albert Hall, on a hot weekday evening, as the opening of Passages* washed over me. Hypnotic, rich, deep cellos swelled out of the heat. A single alto saxophone began to weave above them. This was joined by a countermelody on a soprano saxophone, then a flute, dancing above the cellos, swooping into the spaces they made. I stood transported, eyes closed, my senses overwhelmed. As a typical insistent Philip Glass rhythm began to push purposefully on, I opened my eyes and looked up at the surreal acoustic mushrooms, around at the red and gold splendour; feeling the heat of hundreds of other bodies in the arena, all attention focussed forward as the sound filled the space. It is a dangerous but exhilarating combination when you are shell-shocked, wearing your nervous system on the outside, raw and exposed, all senses heightened. It seemed unimaginable that I could experience something so beautiful. This was something Mr D would never have the opportunity to experience, which filled me with sadness and regret, but I could. I am here. I am alive. The rest of the music was stunning – beautiful, exotic and truly inspiring, perfect for a late summer evening. Perhaps it made me feel a little heady, but I realised I also felt a glimmer of optimism. I went to several more Prom concerts. I ordered Passages online and the retailer kept promising to deliver but it never came. Then, around a month later they said they were going to stop trying to look for it. I could stream it online but I have always felt a perverse desire to own a physical ‘full fat’ representation of any music that has truly moved me (even if it is only a CD, I am not a vinyl purist although I truly love the format). I started to try harder to track down a copy. As the Proms ended and the seasons changed, a CD finally arrived. However, it felt like the moment had passed. I left it on a shelf, not even bothering to remove the shrink-wrap. Then one day I decided to unwrap it and put it on. As the cellos at the beginning of Offering washed over me, so did the intense feelings of that night. I have listened to Passages a lot as Autumn turns to Winter, and I move closer to the end of the hardest year of my life. The woodwind trio dancing above the stately swell of the cellos still brings a lump to my throat and makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, but Summer will come again, they represent hope… *Prom 41: Passages by Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar Performed by Anoushka Shankar and the Britten Sinfonia 22:15 Tuesday 15 Aug 2017 Royal Albert Hall https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/e8c3d4
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