Blips on the Screen

It occurred to me this week, that often people pass in and out of our lives like blips on a radar screen. Some are significant, stay for a while, and others move through much more quickly, as if they almost didn't happen. Regardless, even if they are here and then gone, they leave something in their wake that perhaps we should try to be more aware of.

I suppose this is one advantage of age. Once you reach a certain level of maturity, you can look back over events, and see connections you have never noticed before. One of those connections for me has been the thought of how vast the world is and yet how powerfully connected we are as social beings. Let me give a couple examples.

As a little girl, I went with my class to see the Terre Haute Symphony. I had seen them many times, and I don't recall the concert. What I did find was the eight-year old me describing what I had experienced as a writing assignment. In it, I said, "I want to grow up and conduct just like Mr. Barnes." We all know that as children we encounter many things we want to do - for me, being a veterinarian and librarian and teacher were on the list - but I actually did become a conductor. And Dr. James Barnes was one of my teachers in undergraduate and graduate school - a man I genuinely liked very much and learned much from. A blip on the screen, returning with a powerful effect. I think of him when I step on the podium now and again.

Then there was the moment years later I happened to encounter Dr. Mallory Thompson at a clinic. She was taking over for John Paynter at Northwestern University. I was enthralled with the way in which she moved on the podium, how she was able to pull so much from us as we played for her, and how her manner made me want to find the best musician within myself as well. I often said how I would love to study with her. I did in fact, almost twelve years later, when I was able to spend a summer at Northwestern. A blip that somehow found its way back into my life with lessons I will always cherish.

Sadly, two blips on my radar passed on from this life this week. One, a wonderful band booster, whose children were joys in my classroom, and another, a local merchant whose musical gifts were such a pleasure to watch. Both were wonderful men, gone much too soon from our lives, and I never thought of the moments that we exchanged that may have been our last. One conversation I remember, another I don't. What I do know is that the exchanges we had enriched my life and I know they will be sorely missed.

I hope we can all remember that we are all blips on a screen for someone...that a kindness today might make all the difference in someone's life, just as a snide remark might injure an already tender psyche.  And each morning, try to remember to be the cause of the first, not the latter!
(written Feb. 13, 2011)