Cold pizza

I noticed the bright green T shirt in my peripheral vision, and I suddenly realized that he had been waiting patiently for me to finish. Music was reviving me as I stood listening to some discounted CDs in the music shop, with the earphones giving some relief against the driving bass coming from the PA system. While I waited for my youngest daughter to finish watching Pirates of the Caribbean 3, the unadulterated rock on The Cream of Eric Clapton made me forget everything, and then Lisa Loeb’s Stay made leaving difficult.

Music also revived me yesterday and made me forget the last week filled with hard work. I accompanied my oldest daughter in practicing with Teacher Perpy for the annual vocalist recital next month. My daughter did well, and we also practiced my contribution on sax. Last year I played tenor and alto, and this year I also get to play soprano sax to accompany some of the young vocalists. Perpy’s husband Peter, an accomplished vocalist in musicals and hymns, joined our practice yesterday and helped to tweak our delivery.

After going through Con Te Partiro (Time To Say Goodbye), When You Believe from The Prince of Egypt, Vincent’s Starry Starry Night, and Where Is Love from the musical Oliver, we found that we still couldn’t stop and ended up singing two of the other recital numbers just for fun, The Prayer and Ave Maria. These inspirational songs will touch my heart any time, and when I sing along I feel myself connecting to unnamed powers of the Universe, regardless of what religion is expressed in the lyrics.

Afterwards, loud thunder and heavy rain accompanied us as we ate a vegetarian pizza that had lost its warmth while we were under the spell of music.

As I made way for the music lover behind me and walked out of the shop with three albums for the price of one, Eric Clapton’s line came back to me, I can’t stand it, the fooling around with my heart.

I need music!


Photograph: Tazo green tea in my favorite mug.