I wanted to share the curses...

The conductor’s baton rises and the music falls in place not by mere command but by a shared rhythm that supersedes the motion to deliver a single note.

• What is our shared experience?
• What comes next?
• Why do we romanticize reality?

— A Cough. #recognize

Over two thousand seven hundred years of experience gave birth to magic in a single moment. Over one hundred fifty souls stood on a stage to hone a single skill to mastery. Each with at least fifteen years of craftsmanship if not more prepared for this moment.

Did you ever notice the grandeur of it?

What I just outlined is nothing but a single instant of the combined experience of a full orchestra, choir, and soloist performing Othello last Sunday at the Kennedy Center here in Washington D.C.

A magnificent story of manipulation, deception, and human nature unraveled in front of a full house meaning to entertain, educate, and more than anything to bear us to connect.

And smack right in that moment of perfection, sporadic coughs intervened with candies unwrapping unapologetically and old folks whispering loudly.

Was the moment ruined? Could it be any other way?

In front of me, a gentleman was seriously disturbed. He would interrupt his attention and stare down the offenders shushing them sometimes or cursing them incessantly — not that I could hear his rich language but I surely felt it.

Was the cough to blame for destroying this moment or his attention to it?

— Tea leaves. #understand

Let’s pause here for a second. Join me for a cup of tea to unravel this mystery. Let the tea leaves boil and seep. Let’s allow them to come alive after their slumber. For they have died once and we are about to witness their revival. We cannot rush it.

The cough came at the cost of a shared 2700 years of preparation and it all went for nothing. At least for that guy sitting in front of me, that is the disrespect he has just witnessed and succumbed to ruining this moment.

And you are probably right. He is justified in his response. The travesty is too much to behold.

Yet as the tea leaves lose their color and die, the boiling moment brings them back in a different form and identity that doesn’t match their perfect state. And in the simmer of a new brew, we sip a breeze colored by a life lived and reborn.

And so the cough destroys the moment for it to become real. It is the boiling of the experiences dying on the heels of the moment. For reality is but the cacophony of imperfections witnessing the dream of perfection from the balcony disturbed by its flaws.

Such is the way of life in magnitude, beauty, and distress.

— The price. #accept

No, sadly it would not be. I give that answer and I am not happy about it.

Yet I’d rather listen to the cough ruining the moment than leave my attention at the mercy of the distraction missing the grandeur of the moment and its shared experience. We are eager to romanticize reality for its flaws failing to capture its majesty.

What is a cough in the face of 2700 years of preparation? Nothing. The applause rose from the benches in vigor validating the moment and recognizing it. It was deserved but more than anything it was a testimony to the connections invigorated.

Until next time,
Carlo