mid-winter cheer

J and I are too busy. Super busy. We're busy the way that everyone is busy. We race around, pass like the cliched ships in the night, sometimes forgetting to see one another. This week we decided to try to slow things down. We wanted to be more deliberate, to see one another more. So we plotted out a week of fun, a silly list of activities, one for each day so that we'd actually take the time for each other. We tried something similar last summer and we both felt like it brought us closer, reminded us why we enjoy being together, witnessing, as we were, each other's experience of the world. Of course during the summer it was easier: we brought blankets to Fitler Square and lay in sun -- well, I lay in the sun and J in the shade, our blanket positioned just so. We took long rambling walks and admired Philadelphia's architecture.

This week, though, we needed to plan around the cold. So we went to yoga together, something we've both come to love and practicing together feels especially fantastic. We made dinners. We went to the movies. We watched a lot of The Sopranos (a show that rewards devoted watching). And last night we went to hear Ken Vandermark's rendition of Don Cherry music. This was something about which I was NOT excited. Experimental jazz, ahh, no thanks. J, though, loves this stuff. Heck, as an undergrad at Northwestern he even hosted a radio show of just such stuff. When we showed up at the venue last night, my worst fears were confirmed. I found myself sitting in a crowd of middle-aged men, graying folks who instantly seemed to be jazz buffs (and I loathe the buff more than most things); the guy next to me tried to covertly set up his bootlegging equipment, a digital monitor attached to his eyeglasses. Oh my.

But here's the amazing thing: I really, really liked it. There were parts of it, in fact, that I loved. Unlike me, J is devoted to sound in a particularly intimate, intense kind of way. So it never occurred to him that I would fall hard for the visual elements of the show. But the vibraphone player was miraculous. Watching him play was like watching modern dance, his whole body riveted over the instrument, the sound making him pulsate from head to toes. The thing that I would have never guessed -- but am thrilled to discover -- is that watching this kind of jazz is like watching the best kinds of drama. I couldn't take my eyes off the individual players, struck dead by their relationships to their instruments. They would cradle them close and then throw them away, haranguing them to make the sounds they desired. Amazing. A fine close to a week of fun....