At Home

Silly me. Dare I even admit this? Walking around the huge Hannaford supermarket in Ellsworth last week I was overwhelmed with the feeling of being….at home.  The store where you’ll find me cursing when I have to walk half a mile for the apples I forgot, where the check-out lines are snaking thru the aisles, but also where I stop to chat with friends old and new. Shopping there that day just felt right. 

A day or two after the shopping experience it happened again…I was enveloped by the feeling of being at home. This time it was during the concert weekend for Acadia Choral Society, for which I’m the accompanist.  Busy and stressful…do I have all the music? My glasses? Lamp for the music rack? Extension chord? Not to mention just a tiny bit of nerves, masquerading as excitement and anticipation.

Our first concert was at St. Andrew Lutheran in Ellsworth, where the acoustics are marvelous and our mezzo-forte fills every nook and cranny of the space. We had an enthusiastic audience, many of whom I didn’t recognize, and joy simply beamed from their faces as they listened to the music.  It was a wonderful concert, despite the piano, which is a beast-brassy tone and poorly regulated. I have to work doubly hard on that instrument to produce a decent tone and my shoulders ache after a couple of hours struggling with it-aarrgh!

The next afternoon we performed at St. Saviour’s Episcopal in Bar Harbor, where the chorale has sung dozens of times.  As I walked into the pre-concert rehearsal the riser crew was still hammering and staging, setting up the lights, moving the podium, adjusting the piano to the perfect location. The choir was mulling around quietly as a steady stream of familiar faced concert goers filed through the doors.The director and I conferred on final details as I warmed up. The Steinway there is an old friend and my fingers adjusted immediately to its easy touch and beautiful tone-no struggles with this instrument. 

 As we began the program with a beautiful setting of Homeward Bound, there it was again, completely wrapping itself around me. I was at home.