When I was your age, kiddo, I wanted to be smart and have insights and come to a reasoned judgment that I can defend as principled and now I just let the experience have its way with me.
I go to the opera because my love cares for opera. I put myself in her hands. We get in a cab and head for Lincoln Center. We pass the Dakota on West 72nd Street and I think of John Lennon and others whose lives were cut short, grandson Freddy, cousin Roger, cousin Lynne, my pal Barry Halper who gave me my first job in radio and was driving east of St. Paul when he took his eyes off the road to light a smoke and crashed into the rear of a school bus, and then, at the opera, I feel them crying out to me. In Spanish. I don’t understand Spanish but I understand them. Life is a gift, it’s a miracle that we exist and have each other, and when it’s gone, our understanding is complete.
