Viva la musica!

On Monday, I went to the symphony with a friend from work. I was excited, because it was the

¡Celebración Sinfónica!, so music from Latin America. Which sounded very fun and enjoyable.

Side note. It took me waaaaay too long to figure out why they were doing the Latin American concert that night. I mean, it was a whole big festival--dancing outside, a pre-show with local kids performing music and such. And I knew there had to be something going on. Yeah, after about half an hour of thinking about it, I realized it was Mexico's Independence day. It took me so long because in my brain, I was still thinking we were in August. I'm not currently processing time very accurately. Sorry, everyone. And now back to the main topic.

I was totally right. The concert was fantastic. The pieces came from countries all over Latin America. The conductor, Carlos Miguel Prieto, was Mexican but had traveled all over Latin America and the US and for each piece, he'd ask the audience who was from the piece's country and kind of speak to them about their cultural identity in terms of music and dance. And the music was great and the conductor was dancing and the audience was dancing and even I was dancing in my seat. It was fantastic and joyous. I know not all music from Mexico, or Colombia, or Brazil, or Peru is so full of life and energy and happiness, but they do have really great music, our neighbors to the south.

One of the great advantages of having a world with so many nations and cultures is that you get to see so many different ways of living and thinking and being. And you can say, "Hey, I like that. And maybe I can be more like that." Or even, "I'm not that type of person, but I'm glad others are so I can enjoy who they are." I don't know if that makes sense, but life is so much richer when you get to enjoy all the different kinds of people in the world.