A baroque band, a departure, a lot of questions.

Last night we saw Apollo's Fire, a period-instrument ensemble based out of Cleveland. They were truly incredible. They performed three of the six Brandenburg Concertos and also the Bach Concerto for Two Violins. When they walked onstage, tuned, began to play -- it was like watching a rock band. Indeed, one of the violin soloists sort of had the same set of facial expressions as Mick Jagger. Or something like that. He might as well have been wailing on an electric guitar playing Hendrix, not a Baroque violin playing Bach. As I watched them, many thoughts came to my mind: mostly, that there are infinite musical arenas to expore, even if one only played the violin for the rest of one's life. There is Baroque, bluegrass, Celtic of all kinds. Rock, folk, jazz. Contemporary techniques. Never mind all this stuff about songwriting and jazz voice and classical voice; and REALLY never mind about English literature and economic justice. The world is huge and there is so much to know. It honestly made me want to pursue a Master's degree in music, just so I could continue to try to absorb all the musical stuff that I possibly can. But who knows how long that will last.

I have only three more days here, including today -- I take off early Saturday morning. Suddenly as I walked to this library to check my email and update my blog, I became sentimental. I looked at the mountains and realized that they will not follow me where I'm going. There is probably a whole world of things here that I don't even know I will miss. That's scary. What impact has this place truly had on me? Ms. Heard smiled and said, "You'll know -- maybe in January you'll know." Until then, the whirlwind of constant change and the super fast passage of time are pretty incredible.

I don't really want any lingering goodbyes or questions about the future of these friendships we've made here. I want to return to my Nashville home and throw myself into creating some awesome opportunities for myself. But I will miss them: K.Z., B.S. especially.

Next post will probably be from Vanderbilt, where priorities are sure to be different.