Moments like this

I sit principal to the right of the conductor, front row. As I look up it's as if what I see is some lamely dramatic painting trying to make something like conducting look beautiful and graceful. But it is real life. And his conducting is beautiful and graceful. His lithe figure is outlined by one of the bright lights directly behind him. His graceful fingers are sifting through the air with delicacy as he gently pulls the music from the players sitting before him. His hands look so soft and each of his fingers moves with a delicate grace. He has captured an art form and perfected it in a way that I have never before witnessed. His wedding ring glints in the stage lighting. Everything about this moment - this split second really - stays ingrained in my head for years to come. Such a seemingly small, insignificant moment.1

Years later I see this man again, the same beautiful hands that move in such wonderfully delicate ways, the same expressive face, piercing blue eyes, and that same sort of eccentricity about him. This time I am not sitting with my clarinet creating music with him, but learning his art. Waving my arms about, plucking the air with my fingers in that delicate manner, moving my body. Feeling the music.