It's been a slice of summer this weekend in Appleton. We had a three-day weekend for Memorial Day, and the first two days were so perfect that it felt like I had travelled to a different city several thousand miles away and was on vacation. There were blue skies, green grass, blossoms on the trees, and room-temperature air with very little wind. Oh, and no mosquitoes yet!
The surreally bright colors might have been because I started the day on Saturday with a migraine, and I always get visual effects from them, but maybe not, because everywhere I went, everyone remarked on how beautiful the day was.
We spent a fair bit of the afternoon outside, in the final rehearsal for the Community Gamelan group. Gamelan is a Balinese percussion ensemble that is taught by repetition, no written music (although many of us have developed our own cryptic way of taking notes), and we're lucky to have a beautiful set of instruments and an instructor resident at Lawrence University. Our Community group, the LU student group, and the childrens' Gamelan all had our concert on Monday afternoon, after rehearsing our pieces since last September.
Although it was our last rehearsal, our instructor pulled the instruments outside anyway, even though it was different and a bit disconcerting because the sounds and cues were different, because Gamelan is traditionally played outside in Bali, for festivals and important life events. When you play it inside you need to wear ear protection, that's how much it's made to be played outside. But it was lovely and green and peaceful, playing out on the lawn in front of the university house in which we normally rehearse. Everyone who passed by, on bike or on foot or in a car, was smiling. The sound is a pretty joyful sound, and the instruments are lovely and gold, so it's no wonder, but it made an impression to see all those smiles without exception. Some people stopped to listen and watch. Our pieces were pretty close, and we didn't stop and start very much, so it was close to a show.
The next day, my sister was helping my Mom plant some flowers in the border of my parents' new condo, which they moved to in July last year, so this is their first spring. I went up to see their progress, and Dad and I stood and surveyed their work. Then we sat out on their little porch underneath their new umbrella for their table, and then Mom had the great idea of going for a swim in their community pool, two houses down.
The three girls had the pool to ourselves. We had white clouds in blue sky above us (which cleared to just blue by the end of our swim). We had the clear, rippling water, slightly warmer than the outside temperature. We felt the freedom of gliding up and down the pool, turning somersaults, holding the pool's side and kicking, dragging arms underwater, all these motions and feelings we hadn't felt in so long, during the long, iced-in winter. All around the pool there were birds active doing bird business - a father Mallard duck perched at the very crest of a neighbor's garage roof, neck craned up with authority, surveying the scene. A busy chickadee darting in and out of a spot in the back of an evergreen, where we thought he might have some chicks. Two sparrows getting busy with each other. A seagull, flown over from the dump but still lyrical and white in the sky. It was the kind of day even a dump seagull looked beautiful and perfect.
From starting the weekend with a stress migraine, the end of the day Sunday was a full contrast. I felt fully relaxed, light in my body, bouyant with the water and sun. Pure bliss. The next day, the day of the concert, the actual Memorial Day holiday, the temperature had dropped about 25 degrees and it poured rain all afternoon, so I felt bad for people who had that as their only day off, and for those paying respects to fallen loved ones in the spirit of the day, and for those who have family traditions like camping and cooking out. We were inside, performing the concert in a traditional proscenium theater, and barely noticed the weather, playing the music of a sunny outdoors place with a healthy glow still on our skin from the perfect weekend weather.
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