Not real

January 23, 2009 / Uncategorized / 5 Comments »

Here’s the scene. Breakfast table. Teenage-son eating Cheerios and scanning the morning paper. Husband sipping coffee. I am in slippers and sweats making said son a sandwich for his lunch.

“You know that music you liked so much at the Inauguration?” son asks.

“Yes,” I say, thinking he is going to tell me he will download it for me.

“It wasn’t real. It was pre-recorded.”

I don’t believe him. I tell him so.

“Says right here,” he says. “It was pre-recorded. It was too cold to play.”

“No!”

“Yes.”

“No! No!”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Let me see that!” I am sure he is reading News of The Weird or someone’s comic strip or simply pulling my leg. But then I read the article myself and I see that it’s true.

That beautiful music, played by musicians who seemed to embrace the moment like it was a jewel, was pre-recorded. It was too cold to play it live, the article said.

I stomp away feeling like someone has just killed Santa Claus.

I loved that music. I loved the way the musicians played it with such heart and soul. I was amazed at how beautiful it sounded. How they didn’t seem to mind the cold. I figured they had special heat lamps that kept them and their instruments warm. Yay technology! I was thoroughly impressed with the sound, the beauty, the strength, the vitality. It was like a shining image of a nation on the cusp of renewed hope. We can get out of the black hole of uncertain economic times. See? Look how we make music when all around us is the chill of doubt.

And then this.

It wasn’t real.

I know it shouldn’t bother me that much. It’s not that big a deal. But we don’t always get to choose what bothers us.

I am bothered.

I want it to be real.