A Concert, Bare Legs, And Random Mental Meanderings

Yesterday G and I took another one of our occasional Sunday outings to attend a concert in Beacon followed by dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant, Cafe Maya. 

I was expecting spring-like temperatures, and it was warm, but not as warm as the previous day,  when I was over-dresssed for the spirit of the weather if not the actual temperatures.  I felt like wearing a dress, but I knew it wasn't quite warm enough for the Stella McCartney but I didn't feel like wearing a wool dress either.  I rustled around in the closet, which is once again in transition due to both seasonal and weight-related changes.  

I came up with this dress, purchased from Athleta last fall and thought it might be just perfect.  Truthfully I was a little on the chill side. Before the cold weather set in, I often wore this with leggings and ballet flats, but I didn't feel like leggings yesterday.  I think I was seduced by the spring-like warmth and sunshine of Saturday, so I decided to bare my gams.

But of course Sunday, while about the same in absolute temperature, felt cooler as it remained cloudy all day and I was a little cold.   And so I fretted.  I could have worn leggings.  I could have worn tights or even sheer hose.  I could have worn something else altogether. I worried that my 53-year-old knees were no longer up to the exposure.  I haven't given up sheer hose yet, and given that I was attending a chamber concert where the average age seems to be around 75 with 90% of the audience being over the age of 60, classic nylons would not have been out context.  In fact the bare legs were probably more out of place.  

So I spent part of the concert fretting about my knees, my bare legs,and various other things.  This was not really the fault of the concert or my sartorial choices as I have been sleeping badly and have been somewhat overwrought over a situation that I am not ready to share.  Not to worry, it has nothing to do with G, but it has rendered me occasionally unable to sit and just enjoy the moment.

But the concert was, overall, quite good. We heard the Jupiter String Quartet playing Schumann, Kurtag and Mozart and the concert was just lovely, although I am not quite sure what I think of Kurtag quite yet.  The Kurtag piece was "Hommage à  Mihály András" and it was very interesting, and at times arresting, but I could not wrap my head around it.  This may be more a reflection of the state of my head than the music, but this is something I will only figure out with more exposure.

I do think it is telling though, that although I loved the Schumann Quartet in A Major, and I thought the performance of the Mozart Quintet in A Major was fine, I could not really keep my attention on the Mozart.   The music was very familiar of course, it is a work I with which I can easily hum along, unlike the Kurtag, and perhaps that was part of the problem.  As I listened my mind wandered.  I started off listening and then, as I listened, I suddenly remembered that this piece was played in an episode of M.A.S.H, I believe the final episode and I was flashing back to that episode.  This led me to consider if I knew any other films in which the clarinet quintet was used.  Well, Mozart is very common in film and television, almost to the point of being ubiquitous, which I do not generally think is a good thing, as if we hear something enough we start to take it for granted and stop actually listening, as I was not listening yesterday afternoon.  I can think of lots of films with Mozart, but the only one I could remember with this actual piece was Venus, which we watched recently, and perhaps that too, the film's position in my fairly recent memory, along with my own scattered state, is what prompted my absent-minded musings.

So it was a fine afternoon if scattered, and I prefer, if I am going out to a concert, to be able to focus more on the work of the musicians.  I feel I owe them that.  But it was good.  G enjoyed it as well, although he is gradually becoming more and more scattered again, as if that Sunday of the first concert we attended was the high point of this recent reversal and now we are back on course, although still a long way from where we were.