On Sunday, The Husband and I rushed the kids down the streets of Neutral Bay and onto the ferry because I had thought it would be a good idea to book tickets for a classical music concert at the Opera House. “So…is this a regular, non-kid show?” TH asked me, revealing his lack of confidence in my intellect. “Do you THINK I would book tickets for them to see an adult show?” I responded, as we both turned to the boys on either side of us who were at that moment seated at Opera Bar, alternately playing on our phones and complaining about being hungry. TH shrugged and I shook my head, explaining that this was a family show of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons meant to introduce kids to classical music in a laid-back environment. It had seemed an opportunity at the time, when Facebook told me I might be interested in the event and I, like the chump I am, dutifully submitted by credit card information. Now–as usual with booked events involving the kids–I had doubts.

We went anyway, and the boys entered the Concert Hall rather than the Kids’ Playhouse for the first time, and we climbed to our nosebleed seats (I wasn’t dumb enough to pay for top-tier tickets, at least). Over the next hour, Little Brother and TH fell asleep and I tried to block The Kid’s foot from kicking the seat in front of him. I sweated and prayed. I rode my anxiety like the wave it is: retreating, returning.

But something else happened. There, in our post-holiday, post-time change, post-Saturday-rosé-tasting haze, we felt the familiar notes swell around us, and despite the anxiety and the rigidity of the seats and the lack of devices (and, for some, consciousness), we listened. It helped that the emcee was a presenter from a local TV show the boys have seen (well, it helped them; TH and I just rolled our eyes to each other at his lead-balloon jokes). And the boys were especially fascinated with the arrival, during “Summer,” of an eleven-year-old violin prodigy who, it was announced, practised four to five hours a day (I could see the fear in TK’s eyes when he imagined doing homework for that long).

But it was the music that filled the space, notes drifting around us and, I’d like to think, lowering my blood pressure and entering the kids’ brains for both educative and reflective purposes, showing them true and timeless beauty. I’d like to think this is what kept them still, though let’s be honest–it was probably the promise of ice cream afterward.

We didn’t make it through the whole show–despite it being advertised as lasting an hour, “Winter” had barely begun when it was time for us to go if we wanted to squeeze in a trip to Baskin-Robbin’s before we had to make the ferry back. So we climbed over the rest of the people in our row, straining the bonds of social propriety as usual, and headed outside into the sun.

The next morning, in my pre-dawn drive to the beach, I found “Winter” and listened to it from the car. I recognised the notes I’ve heard before, their familiarity filling my now-solitary space, showing me what I’d missed the day before but also reminding me that often, what I see myself “missing” is often just delayed, or replaced by something better. Like ice cream. And ferry rides in the sun.

The whole outing on Sunday–from rushing to the ferry to hurrying through lunch to nail-biting through the music to also kind of enjoying it–had been what these things always are: a high-effort shitshow filled with beautiful moments. Which is…a lot of life, really?

Little Brother is showing some musical prowess himself recently, having memorised basically the entirety of the Hamilton lyrics after a few weeks of listening to them Non-Stop (see what I did there?). He belts them out from the backseat of the car, filling the non-solitary space with familiar notes and words and grinning at me when I glance back at him and sing along. We have a way of doing this, our family, and maybe most of us? Replaying the same music, the same lyrics, the same notes. I have a way of doing it here, every week when I sit down to write: no matter what space I’m in–different time of day, different mood, different circumstances–playing the same notes and letting the same music tell the same story. A story of cynicism, of (I hope) humour, of failure, of forgiveness, of redemption. Of grace. The song I can’t stop listening to, or singing along with.