My childhood bedroom, circa 1977. Late evening—definitely past my bedtime. My father’s woodwind quintet was playing downstairs. I could hear his bassoon calling me, through the gap under my door. I slid quietly out of bed and tiptoed across the room. Very, very slowly I turned the cut-glass knob, opened the door, and crept silently down the hall. I lay down on the floor at the top of the stairs, hung my sleepy head down onto the first step, and let the music wash over me.

Performing Arts School of Worcester, circa 1986. My trumpet lesson was over, and I was waiting for my sister’s clarinet lesson to end. I had already finished my homework, and I had about an hour to kill. My friend Amy invited me to keep her company while she practiced. I was never a great trumpet player, but Amy was the star of the school. We went upstairs to an empty recital room, and I lay on the floor under the piano, and it was glorious. I felt the sound in my bones, in my stomach. I felt as if I were part of the instrument, and the music flowed through me.

First Congregational Church, circa 1988. My friend Suzanne had somehow obtained the key to the church, and permission to play the newly-refurbished pipe organ. Maybe she was going to be standing in for the regular organist for some reason, and she needed to rehearse? I can’t remember. But I remember the organ. The first thing we did was climb the narrow wooden ladder into the organ loft and admire all the neat rows upon rows of pipes, metal and wood, all perfectly lined up from tiny to huge. Suzanne went back down the ladder to the console and started to play, and I stood inside the music and wept for joy.

Then a big wooden plank clouted me in the head, and I laughed and called down to her: “Could you please turn off the tremolo?”

Memorial Chapel, Northfield Mount Hermon School, December, 2004. Nathaniel was sixteen months, and old enough to attend Christmas Vespers at Sarah’s beloved prep school. We stood in the foyer at the back of the hall, because we knew he would eventually start to squawk, and one of us would have to take him outside for a walk.

The house lights went down, and the chapel was completely dark. The door in the back of the foyer opened, and the choir rustled up from the basement, jostling each other to get lined up just so. We were surrounded by robed angels, each holding a candle. Nate’s eyes shone as he stared at them.

A single note was struck on the bells, and the soloist began to sing from the chancel:

Veni, veni Emmanuel;
Captivum solve Israel,
Qui gemit in exilio,
Privatus Dei Filio.

And the whole choir, all around us, burst into song:

Gaude! Gaude! Emmanuel,
Nascetur pro te, Israel!

And as the music filled us up, Nathaniel’s eyes opened wide, and he gasped in awe and wonder, as if to say: You never told me—I never dreamed—that anything could be so beautiful.

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