Sight Reading

Everything appeared crisp and clear. Every turn of the soccer ball. Each individual ray from the line of street lights. Each object in that small park with its own particular detail appeared enlarged, magnified even, as an insect observed through a magnifying glass. On this particular night I viewed the world in high definition.

I could see clearly the expressions of happy couples on the benches skirting the park. Each girl's joy uniquely revealed by means of her own individual facial features. And their counterparts each brandishing that same soul-searching gaze that every man knows, whether as a genuine reflection of his inner man or a contrived act, the perfection of the artful diversion designed to mask deeper motives.

Not too far off was an enclosed area where there was a football match underway. Nothing too serious, but scrappy football at its best. As I studied these teenagers, nothing escaped my vision. The highlight of the night was a brief scuff over a disputed goal. With perfect clarity I had seen the ball bend just inside a black shoe marking the goal post. From my distant vantage point, I had not missed the shooter's frustration with the disagreement over a legitimate goal. Nor did my eyes miss the knowing look on the goalie's face as he adamantly argued against the goal. With force he made his case, but his eyes were revealing. Taking pleasure in the other boy's fury, he was well aware the goal was true. Despite the intensity of the argument, these friends were soon back to the game with angry words a thing of the past.

Panning across the park to the street view, cars moved rhythmically through the large roundabout. Here the traffic flows similar to a Handelian movement. Each musician knows when to play and with what dynamics, and, subsequently, each knows precisely when to rest. Weaving in and out, each vehicle smoothly made its round and flowed on to the next destination. I marveled at the clarity of brake lights fading off to distant streets. Taxis and buses, bikes and strollers filled the square and carried on with their part in the sonata.

This is life. No better and no worse than it always has been. To them, this life is simple. To understand it is to flow with it, to be caught up in the various melodies and crescendos that life offers. Yet sitting on my park bench seeing it all afresh through new glasses, I see with greater clarity, but still cannot seem to follow the rhythm.

Across the street is a cafe. This is where the men go. They watch Champions League football, talk business, and relax with old friends over a coffee. And before they were old enough to do so, their fathers were here. And one day their sons will come here. In the same way, the teenagers playing football have always done so. Every summer they can remember was spent forever perfecting that shot, practicing this move, and playing with a certain team.

And here I sit. On the outside looking in. My father did not have a favorite cafe where everyone knew his boy. That special one in which we watched our first football game together. When I go to a cafe no one knows me, or my father or his. I did not grow up watching Champions League or playing football. None of these boys or their brothers did I run around with on endless summer nights. As a virus invading the body seems my existence in this African life. It is unknown, foreign. To the natural inhabitants and defenders of the body, it could appear a threat or simply be ignored.

Though a new pair of glasses offers greater clarity of vision, at least one great composer has created beautiful music without such an advantage. This piece I am now learning is driven by a different beat; a new style for me, but hardly new in itself. All great movements find their beauty and rhythm in an ordered complexity, a culture that each individual musician must perfect over a lifetime.

Life is too intricate to enter into on a whim. Adjustments must be made gradually. Unwritten rules discovered with experience. Dynamics explored through feel and often dictated by varying circumstances. An outsider cannot step in here and play first violin. He must defer to those who are more familiar with the part.

With new glasses and new vision, I look over the sheet music with greater clarity. Details come into focus that were once too blurry for me to make out. The most important of which is scribbled in the right hand corner: "second violin". Those who play second violin recognize and accept that sight is only one piece of the pie, a pie that will never be natural to them. Those who continue striving to play first violin without the talent to do so merely bring undo negative attention on themselves from the surrounding symphony.

At no other time in my life has my vision become more clear. Had I not come to live in Africa, my eyes would have never been good enough to see just how much of the world was still blurry. I can now see more clearly the rhythm of life, though I struggle to follow. I can see the unique qualities of the beat, but it does not flow through me. And I can read each individual note as it lies on the page, though I will never play them as well as my neighbor. But, at least now I am on the same page.