[Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered]
by Diana Day
Members of the Columbia Mothers of Multiples Club help each other out through all sorts of challenges faced by families with multiples. This Columbia Daily Tribune article explains how these busy moms are a source of support and comfort for each other.
by Diana Day
Babysitter secured, my husband and I made our way to Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall to see an evening of solo piano music by Keith Jarrett. Though this sounds innocent enough, it wasn’t — it’s the first live music I’ve seen since November 2002, when I went to a Beck concert in the very early days of my pregnancy.
The evening started like any pre-twins date night would have. We ate outrageously expensive tri-tip steak on plastic plates in the Disney Hall cafe and then meandered through the gift shop.
We eventually made our way to our seats, noting that my step-father Peter had been correct when he said that there is not a bad seat in the hall. We chatted about Frank Gehry‘s architecture and waited for the show to begin.
I made sure my cell phone was in vibrate mode, and I set it in my lap on top of my only dress-up skirt that fits after carrying two nearly eight-pound babies to term.
The lights went down, and then Jarrett came out and enchanted us with his improvised compositions. At turns groovy, ethereal and abstract, Jarrett commanded the Disney Hall with one treat after another. [See this LA Times review of the concert.]
I could feel the weight of the cell phone, a tether to my two little girls at home. It reminded me of hugging Dinah and Djuna — I try so hard to remember that every time I hug them, they’ll never be that weight or that height or that specific self ever again in time or space. In these moments, I let their weight sink into me as I sink into the present. And I try to preserve the moment in my diminishing brain cells.
Listening to the music, enjoying holding hands with my husband in the dark and thrilling to the feeling of being entertained, I still felt the cell phone waiting in my lap. Senses I haven’t used for years sparked and stretched their little limbs — I had forgotten that CDs and iPods are not the same as live music.
Jarrett played several encores, including some rapturous standards, like Stardust and It Might As Well Be Spring, a song also interpreted by the sublime Blossom Dearie. Djuna used to love to listen to a CD of hers when she slept in her swing as an infant.
For a moment, my cell phone floated into the grand space of Disney Hall.