Day 61, Year 9: Revels Magic
Date: Friday, December 20, 2013
Weather: Partly Sunny and Warm (for December), High 50 degrees F
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, North Falmouth, Massachusetts
Mark ran errands all morning while Ollie and I cleaned the house for tomorrow night’s solstice party. Ollie actually helps me. I can tell him to take things to the playroom or the kitchen and he does it. When I use the vacuum, he vacuums as well. When I dust, he dusts. We make a good team. Then in mid-afternoon, we all got in the van and headed for Boston (actually Cambridge) to see Revels. The traffic was terrible and it took us almost three hours (instead of two) to get there. Thankfully, we went to an old stand-by favorite Vietnamese restaurant in Harvard Square and had a wonderful dinner with very quick service. Then we walked across the Harvard campus to Sanders Theater. It is more like a cathedral than a theatre and I always love just being there. Tonight’s Revels performance might be the best one we have ever seen and it was also the longest. But the best show was watching Sam, Jonah, and Oliver. Sam will be seven in a month, Jonah is four and half, and Ollie will be two in three months. Each boy has a very distinct personality and it was fascinating to watch how they reacted to the music. I so wish I could have video-taped them, but no photography is allowed during the show. So all I have are a couple of pre-show photos. Since it is 1:30 in the morning, I’ll make my descriptions brief, but I just have to try and capture the essence. We were in the front row of the balcony and therefore had a wooden railing in front of us. The big boys could stand and Ollie sat on Heather’s knees resting his hands on the railing. He was totally mesmerized and sat absolutely still except for his little chubby fingers. He would sometimes tap them to keep time with the music and when the adults in the audience clapped, he clapped. His eyes never wondered from the stage. Jonah has music in his bones and as he listened tonight his entire body would keep beat with the music. Even his fingers moved on the wooden railing as if he were playing the piano. But again, his eyes never wondered. To him everything that was happening on stage was real, not make-believe. Sam is old enough to know that what he is watching is a play, not real. Yet he is fascinated. He doesn’t move to the music like Jonah, although he really enjoys it. He watches much more like an adult. He’s growing up so fast. It was truly magic to watch the boys in action tonight. What a wonderful holiday gift.
Each year Revels finds a new way to present the solstice story. Since I’m writing this after mid-night, I can say that this is the winter solstice—the shortest day of the year. And as presented by Revels, the old year is dying and the new year is born. Welcome Yule!
 |
| 131220 Day 61 Cape Cod, USA–Revels |
