Well it finally came at Christmas time in 1959 or perhaps 58, memory fails me and of course, it was Bay City Michigan and it was 3000 degrees below zero with snow.
I had to wait for week to be able to get in a view of the Moon which I thought was going to be bigger than life. It was late January and I think it was about midnight I snuck out because my parents thought I was crazy if I did go, and put the little tripod together and aimed the telescope towards the first glimpse of moon I saw. Well not the first one I saw but the one that came visible after about 3 weeks of snow skies. Anyone who lives in Bay City knows exactly what I mean.
I was in awe as anyone is the first time one looks out into space. The moon was as I imagined it would be only more so and I didn't even have a powerful telescope. But what I thought was more entrancing was looking past the moon into the deepest black I never could imagine. There was nothing and it seemed to go on forever and in an actuality it did.
At the same time I was studying piano or at least making an attempt at it and one piece I was able to play and thought was just absolutely stunning was Clair de Lune by Debussy.
I'm not sure if Debussy ever looked at the moon the way I did lying on my back in the snow off Carroll Park in Bay City Michigan in January, but I saw the same Moon that he imagined and that piano piece became alive in my mind and still is 60+ years later.
Such exquisite music. Reminds me of when I was young. My mother would play piano after she put my brothers and me to bed. I loved listenig to her music.
ReplyDeleteThis is a lovely memory, Harold, and Claire De Lune is one of my favorites- so haunting and yet familiar.
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