omagical,

so mystical—and yet so common, so universal. Maybe it was its very universality, its omnipresence, that made it so unique—a vivid, pellucid green that seemed to burn into my very soul.

Or was it the bright, clear sky blue that set off the sunlit green and made it so luminescent? The leaves trembling in a gentle breeze, boundless in their variety of shape and size, were gathered in my gaze into a vast thousand-piece mosaic, the impenetrable sky blinking through the shifting, swaying foliage. The whole scene seemed unfathomable, inexpressible in its utter beauty and transcendent perfection.

Tears welled in my eyes. I was seized by an uncontainable excitement—experiencing something so perfect and so emotionally overwhelming! In that epiphanal moment I glimpsed, perhaps for the first time, the innate complexity—and simplicity—of nature. Suddenly I understood how music and creating music, communicating through music, resonated with that same complexity and simplicity, that same potential for perfection and beauty.

Lying there in the warm, fragrant grass, gazing up at the crown of that elm tree and through its foliage to the sky beyond, lost in reverie, I had for a few moments forgotten that I was not alone. By my side lay the woman I loved, the love of my life, as enthralled as I was by the ineffable beauty of the scene. The warmth of her body, untouched, radiated toward me, the scent of her hair close by, her feelings intertwined with mine, bound together in a metaphysical communion that I could savor but only dimly comprehend.

It was a brilliant, cloudless summer day back in 1947; we were lying on the banks of the Ten Mile River, a small stream that flows through a tiny village with the Indian name Webatuck, 120 miles north of New York City. Our toes almost touching the water, gazing upward at that tree, breathing in the serene beauty enveloping us, we were in a trancelike high, the intensity of which I—and Marjorie—had never before experienced. Neither of us spoke for a long time. I think we couldn't. We were both caught in a dreamlike, spellbinding moment that we could feel but probably never fully express in words.