Saturday, March 27, 2010

Dedicated to the Average Students of This World







1 comment:

My Daily Struggles said...

I'm a loner who engages in few activities. Small things are important for me. I can still remember that it was five years ago, during the summer of 2004, that I became acquainted with a collection of four piano pieces by Robert Schumann: the Humoreske in B flat, opus 20. The music is sublime. (I wonder if Aida Epstein is familiar with this music? Aida Epstein teaches piano at the Settlement School, in Philadelphia. Aida Epstein, incidentally, was Patrick Dugan's piano teacher. Patrick is Leonardo Dugan's brother. I worked with their mother, Michelle, at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia in the late 1970s.)

Not a week has gone by in the last five years that I have not listened to the Schumann Humoreske. It is my favorite piece by Schumann. It captures my mood.

If the truth be told I am not suited for the practicalities of life; my mind floats in otherworldly dreams, more preoccupied with the potential of the spirit than with everyday vicissitudes. I love language, books, and music, and the most splendid moments of my uneventful existence have been the few operas I have attended, or the books I have perused in isolation from my fellows. I treasure every detail of the times I have spent in isolation. As I read I imagine every sentence, every page and every chapter as a mirror of my life, my passions and my afflictions. I take refuge in this extravagant, romantic atmosphere whenever I feel weighed down by the vulgarity of life.