The Cold Sunday Morning Trip Home from the Airport

Kent left for Washington, D. C. this morning. He will be gone until Wednesday evening. We got up early, spent some time together, then, on our way to the airport, stopped off at Charley’s Bagels where we always stop every single Friday morning. This morning, we had lox with cream cheese with tomato and onion, on a toasted sesame bagel, with coffee.

Then off to the airport we went. I dropped Kent off. On my way home, I was listening to Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93 -- a rather violent and depressing work, actually. It was released in 1953, the year before my birth, and the year of Stalin's death. For Shostakovich, this was the end of a repressive political climate, and resulted in the release of many new works, this symphony among them.

The symphony ends with a triumph, perhaps representing Shostakovich’s own relief from the repression of Joseph Stalin.

Shostakovich had many demons. He was a man of great complexity and conscience. He was fighting repression. One dictionary defines “repression” as, “the rejection from consciousness of painful or disagreeable ideas, memories, feelings, or impulses.” I’m left wondering if that is my issue.

It seems that I’ve come to a crossroads in my life. This is new to me. I have a need, perhaps a yearning, to play violin again. But why? Why now, after so long? Is it to immerse myself into something beautiful and wondrous, and lose myself in it? Can I regain my art? Should I try? Can my body do the things it used to do to create sound and art again? Kent feels that I should try. Otherwise, I will always wonder if I could do this. If I can’t, I can’t. But then it will be behind me. But it won’t be the same. I simply don’t have time to put eight hours a day into practicing, let alone giving it the kind of emotional involvement that I did years ago.

But the bigger question is, what am I hiding from? Is it repression? Is my reality of inequality any different from that of the repression that Dmitri Shostakovich suffered? He couldn’t express himself for fear of imprisonment or worse. In my reality, I realize that I’m but half a citizen with no way to gain full equality. He couldn’t express himself or be himself. What is the difference? Both of our souls have suffered. Why do I care so much about this, as I am here for such a short period of time? Yet, I anguish over this. People judge me who do not know me. Music does not do this.

I think I know how Shostakovich felt. Will there be a triumphant ending to the repression I feel, or will it outlive me? I suppose it’s futile and senseless to worry about such things. Many would say, “Enjoy life. Don’t worry about the fools.” It’s not that easy for me. Maybe that’s why music and art exists. We can place these displaced and painful feelings onto canvas or into performance, suffering along with it, and getting rid of it on that media, thereby dissipating the reality that it is all around, for some of us.

Now, onto Gershwin...