the night of two musics

Guided by candlelight I find my seat in a dark concert room and let my ears be caressed by the beautiful fragile voice of a female singer-songwriter. Her vulnerability and pain and careful hope floats in the air above me and if I were to laugh it would break.

Touched, I make my way home afterwards and yet there is a relief in leaving this intimate darkness and breathe the fresh nightly air. I can almost see the pain and hope of humankind. The streets are deserted and quiet but music of another kind reaches me from somewhere far away. It is irresistible...

I follow the sound to the International House. Its large windows are thrown open wide to let in the winter wind and spilling out in return is loud music of an oriental kind (I am guessing Turkish) with its distinctive dance across the half and quarter notes. It is shockingly different from the careful, precise music I have just heard. It is boisterous, jubilant, joyful - blaring into the quiet night with no respect for the House's decorous neighbours, and bouncing back as an echo against the sober Orthodox church building opposite. The House itself is almost shaking from many feet dancing on its wooden floorboards. People are hanging out the windows to catch a breath of fresh air before pressing back into the suffocating heat of the dancing crowd, shrieking with laughter. Children who should have been in bed long ago are playing outside without a care in the world.

I walk past twice - no, three times. Joy is swirling through the night and I am incapable of leaving.