esrosedotblog

THE SEASON

The Sunday papers are all full of the new season.

The new films. The new plays. The new music.

Previews of coming attractions.

It is a sure time of change.

When we were in Boston it meant getting ourselves set for tickets to the concerts and then working around those to decide on plays and other events.

From September through May we were out every week one or two, maybe three, times.

In 20 years we saw or heard just about everyone and everything there was to see or hear.

We spent a lot of hours in those seats at Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall at the Conservatory.

Now, I'm in a different place.

I see all these things coming—LA is no less full of such events. But they are a long commute away.

There is a concert series here but the stuff is second rate. We get the B and C-list.

I don't want to be all snobby about it but we tried, and it is not worth the time. Or energy.

And that is where the nub of change lies.

In Boston, ten years ago, I was beginning to be weary of going out. Listening. Seeing. Hearing.

It seemed like work.

One becomes used to this kind of change as one gets older.

I was told about it.

Enthusiasms pass. Interests change.

The theater was the first to go.

I remember sitting watching some play and realizing that I was totally not engaged.

At first I felt guilty and then, realized, that I had been watching theatrical shenanigans for so many years that I could see right through it. The magic had gone.

I could smell the greasepaint and found it cloying.

I am not sure exactly when concerts became work.

Somewhere when I realized that, since college, I had heard just about everything there was to be heard or something like it.

Now I now that is not true. And I still love to listen to music today. But it is not the same.

Somewhere the acuity went. I realized that I no longer needed high fidelity reproduction because I couldn't hear all the range.

Maybe this had something to do with my lessened interest in live performance.

Now.

This is not about getting older.

I know. I know.

It sounds that way because it involves some of the dynamics of age as well as the eventual decline of long time interest and involvement.

But it is really more about finding new stuff.

I am sure that our declining interests in urban pleasures (and if theater and concerts are not urbane what are they?) led to our decision to get out of the city.

And not only that but to get out of our wintery seasonal life.

We found, instead, mountains. Biking. Hiking. Warm air living.

Not as an escape but as a new engagement. A new way of life.

And here we are.

I see the coming season and I am glad that it is coming. It is a sign that the world is not going to shit.

I will still want to see the films—at home.

Out of the stink of popcorn.

I will still want to hear the music (but not much of it)—on CD.

I still have a voyeuristic interest in the theater.

And so on.

Things pass and yet they remain the same.

Just different.

Labels: life