Duluth Superior Magazine / September 2011 / Smile Because it Happened

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Smile Because it Happened

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.” ~ Gilda Radner

Like all good things, both my tenure with the DSSO and my treasured place in Duluth~Superior Magazine are coming to an end; the former winding down over the next few seasons, the latter with this final offering.

I, too, would have wished for a perfect ending. But winter fades, spring emerges — even, eventually, to Duluth — and the cycle continues tumbling on and on, end over end. The old dissolves, the new seeps in, we are constantly renewed.... this is the ineluctable modality of life. (A prize goes to those who get the reference there. Of course it’s only smug self-satisfaction, but really, now, what greater prize could you want?)

Personally, I’m now a better musician, a better conductor, a better music director, a better husband, a better father, and a better human being than when I came to Duluth ten years ago; for this I am grateful to the elegantly simple, warm, graceful, and vibrant-in-spite-of-its-diffidence community that is the Twin Ports.

My own immortality lies in the fact that the effect of my work here will remain strong; my values will shape the DSSO for the foreseeable future. The orchestra will carry forward my goals of maximizing its considerable musical talents; the audience will continue to find encouragement to absorb sound and allow it to take them to magical places. And I can say “Markand, job well done!”

Just kidding! Of course this will not happen, nor should it. My contribution will fade in no time, new values will take over; the musicians, the audiences, the board, the music director, they will all settle together into their own, new, comfortable sweet spot.

“A cord, stronger or weaker, is snapped asunder in every parting, and time’s busy fingers are not practiced in re-splicing broken ties.” ~ Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton

(Another prize to those who get Lord Lytton’s reference; aw – not necessary – you’re all surely going to heaven.)

So all we can do is enjoy the present, and wish each other health and happiness, as I do to the readers of this column with whom I have been honored to share my thoughts over the past 40 months.

Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened. ~ anonymous proverb

Let's.