Why Do These Things Happen to Me?

Sometimes the cosmos rewards a music lover like me with a perfect moment so random and cool that I just have to think, how lucky am I?

Walking down Walnut Alley to 17th Street, I see through the window that the retail space at the corner is being renovated. Rounding the corner, one of the workers standing at the door smiles at me, so I ask him what's up with the space. He tells me it's going to be a wine shop/art gallery and invites us to come in and meet the owner. She's perched atop a ladder, one guy is sprawled on the floor paining a sign that says "C'est le vin" and a couple others are moving things around.

I ask her about the bustle and she says that the neighborhood needed a wine shop for the locals; she invites us to look around just as my friend Nicholas appears on the sidewalk and comes in to say hello. As I walk around admiring the wine racks, ogling the tin ceiling and talking to the sign painter, the space is suddenly filled with the sound of a bass clarinet.

Nicholas, who plays bass clarinet for the Richmond Symphony, has spontaneously decided to test the acoustics of the room by playing. It is so amazing-sounding that everything else becomes secondary. One second it's an interesting new space and the next it's musical paradise; everyone is paused in their work by the moment.

When he finishes, he walks over to the owner and says, "Don't ever let anyone amplify their sound in here. It's perfect just as it is."

Actually, what was perfect was that a good friend randomly walked into the place where I just happened to be and began playing his instrument so beautifully that time may as well have stopped. And I told him just that when I saw him later at Alley Katz.

How in the hell am I so fortunate?