Seats 1-4
Upon reflection... Seats 1-4 on July 4, 2016
Seats, moments, introductions, memories,
Promises we make and promises we keep,
Ideas that come to us and ideas we pursue,
Words in our minds that flow to our tongues or fingers,
Melodies that make their way from notes to string...
This is what comes to me as I consider these four seats at Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts.
When I was a young thing, my Aunt Donna introduced me to the music of James Taylor. This introduction, that shaped my appreciation for folk music came while sitting around a treasured, new-fangled, and prominent piece of furniture... an octagonal console stacking record player in an otherwise simply furnished and well loved living room at my Grandma's house. Any night could become magical with Donna at home, sharing her music, back tickling contests, silly stories, and lots of laughter.
As young adults discovering our shared musical appreciation for JT, my eventual husband and I seemed to bring his music into our lives on a near daily basis... dancing in the kitchen, playing tapes and cds in the car, dj-ing when the work was done for the day or when we were working and playing around the house. Through the years, we also attended multiple concerts when he toured in Indianapolis. At one point, we even orchestrated an adventure to Tanglewood on the lawn with our two eldest kids... when they were little. Even while living in Melbourne Australia, we found ourselves celebrating Valentine's Day at one of his "down under" performances. We attended a concert in Michigan with our now adult daughter and her husband. We've shared blankets on the lawn in the rain and sunshine with our additional sons and my brother and sister-in-law more than once and other friends in other places throughout these years as well.
But, these.
specific.
four.
simple.
wooden seats.
in Tanglewood.
were like a circle.
finding its starting point.
They housed a "heaven on earth" moment I didn't know I needed and a promise kept that I didn't know I had made.
In March 2016, we bought tickets online without the actual seat assignments at the time. Arranging to share these unidentified seats with Donna emerged as a quiet idea and quickly shifted to an urgency in my being. With a lot of finagling and configuring schedules, drives, and responsibilities, Donna made it to Lenox, MA accompanied by a dear lifelong friend of hers named Becky.
Becky, Donna, my husband, and I sat in those four simple wooden seats and experienced something together that had spanned, encompassed, and woven together 45 years of my life. In all those years... Donna had never been to a concert of JT's... even though she had given him as a gift to my ears, heart, soul, and imagination.
To sit there on that exquisite July evening soaking up the front row in those four simple wooden seats with Donna at my side, James Taylor with his guitar and cheeky spunk on stage took me back to that octagonal record player and I felt my heart nearly burst with excitement...
A circle of deep connection was complete in that moment.
It was "heaven on earth".
And maybe that was a wee window into what heaven actually can be.
Connection.
