Blog Itch is Proud

Blog Itch has been away from the computers today and has depended on the Blackberry and the Axim to feel the comforting connection of technology. (Isn't that sad?)

The forecast was for flurries where I was this morning - the mountains of Western North Carolina north of Asheville. We went up yesterday for a special concert last night at Mars Hill College.

Have you ever known someone so overtaken with their life passion that it seems to even ooze from their pores? Have you ever known someone is so constantly aware of their surroundings that they have the ability to catch and file away in their memory and imagination thoughts and happenings that pass by most of us? Have you ever known someone whose thinking style is so global that they are able to synthesize everything that they are taking in with the passion that inhabitants their being to produce incredible new ideas?

No?

Then meet my son.

The concert we attended last night premiered his composition for low brass ensemble entitled "Landscape." It was a first for him...and us...as he risked a product of his passion...his soul...to others. Understandably, he was excited but apprehensive at dinner before the concert. He kind of reminded me of an expectant father watching his wife receive a Petosin drip to induce labor.
His piece was the second of a four piece set programed for the college's eight instrument  Low Brass Ensemble. Three euphoniums, three trombones and two tubas. I had asked him a couple of weeks ago if he planned to conduct. No. He played his tuba. He loves to play music. If it happens to be in the context of performance, that's just a bonus.

What we heard was the fruit of the blend of characteristics I described above. Depicted on the page in lines and dots that make up the written language of music, passing through the air that was vibrating with sound waves, the essence of my son's very being was on display inviting everyone in earshot to join him. To join him for just a few minutes in his deepest conception of imagination, of thought, and of sound.

I'm proud of him. Proud of him for conceiving. Proud of him for imagining. Proud of him for executing. Proud of him for making himself so vulnerable. Proud of him for succeeding.