OF A GOLDEN AGE

Sometimes before work I get my act together early and decamp to Starbucks for a little bit of reading.

One day very recently I sat, reading Sue Grafton, admiring that morning’s musical choices in the shop. Some semifolky classical knockoff came on and I longed for Clair de Lune, one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written, lovely, at once plaintive and powerful, understated, filled with enormous life. It makes me think of winter, and light glinting off of water, and my grandfather, who always tuned the radio in his Mercury to the classical station. The abused old baby grand piano I made my parents keep when they moved to their new house, because how can you get rid of a piano?

I stood and put on my coat, and what piece came next? Clair de Lune, as I live and breathe. “Hokey smoke,” I said. People turned but I left, and strains of the piece rang in my head as I walked to work. As I turned the corner I looked up and saw a flock of geese passing overhead, standing still in the strong winter wind.

Isn’t a pilgrimage a beautiful concept? These geese make one every year and its significance is on par with any religion: They live because of it. We grouse about the weather, the inconvenience, our dead car batteries or freezing groceries. But what we can fix with extra layers and patience, the geese must fly thousands of miles to find.

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