A Lifelong Duet

How many of us can say we’ve had a friend since birth? We have photographic evidence of hanging out on blankets together, in cute little infant outfits of the day. We have been BFFs since decades before the term was ever invented. The photo below is from my 3^rd birthday party. Whoever gave Becky the baby guitar (ukulele? Casper the Friendly Ghost toy instrument?) possibly had prescient knowledge that she would grow up to be a violinist.

And me – for some reason I still remember that shirt.

It has been my great fortune in life to share baby blankets, elementary school squawking duets, junior high angst, college audition tapes recorded in the dark, cavernous gym at St. Francis Academy, adventures in Latin American orchestras, and our mutual favorite symphony of all time, Dvorak 8. We’ve traveled together from state orchestra weekends to summer band camp to summer music fests to regional orchestras and once we even played the Bach Double with the Wyoming Symphony. Beck has been my greatest music teacher, showing me that music is so far beyond the notes on the page, that it’s cosmic and familial and so much bigger and deeper than any of us will ever know in these human bodies.

My first memory of being musical together was sometime in elementary school. Beck was taking violin lessons from a nun, and our band director, Mr. S, made my classmates jealous by taking me out of class once a week to teach me to play the oboe. Beck and I figured out early on that we could play duets. All we knew about a duet was that it involved two instruments playing together. Harmony wasn’t a factor, because we both played the identical treble line. Dark Eyes was the first piece in our repertoire, which we played, undoubtedly in unison, in a dining room concert for assorted family members. There was beer and kielbasa for the grownups, and at the end of our brilliant performance, no one said anything to us. Not “Great job!” or “You both played so well!” None of that.

But we persevered. I went to her orchestra concerts and she came to mine. We played duets (eventually graduating to Telemann Canonic Sonatas) in the church balcony. We went to the pool in the summer and lay on our towels, talking about how mystical music was. We knew we would become musicians, that music would be our lives. One summer in high school, we both got jobs at the R Ice Cream Parlor and talked about Beethoven, conservatories, and how fashionable we would be in our wardrobe of black orchestral clothing. Beck also worked as a lifeguard at Clearview Pool where we went skinny-dipping one hot night. We didn’t get away with it because the cops showed up. Amid much screaming and scrambling, I realized that I’d put my suit (which was actually borrowed from Beck’s mom) on inside-out and the bra pads stuck out for a mile. We were too scared to think this was funny until weeks later. We rode home on our bikes, Beck’s violin bungee-corded to her back fender. We didn’t skinny dip again for a few years, when we were both living in Caracas and taking days off to go to Cata Beach or Chichiriviche. But that’s another story. . .