In effort to escape my apartment, the craft projects clamoring for my attention, and to stave off a repeat of the last two summers, I've made it my mission to be more social this year (see prior entries). As for visiting Caramoor, I also figured that after more than two full revolutions of the calendar, it was okay to spend an extended period of time at a place where I had spent so many hours of my life for 12 years. While you can't ever really go "home again," it's okay to visit every once in a while.
In addition to seeing good friends, catching up on news, reacquainting myself with verdant nature, and helping out in the office, I really visited to attend a series of concerts.
The first scheduled was to be an acoustic classical guitar concert by David Leisner in the Sunken Garden. Unfortunately, the weather didn't hold up, and the concert had to be moved under cover. If it hadn't, I might have been listening to music with views like these.
I could have wandered the forest at intermission, being enchanted by the foliage. 
I could have watched the sunlight cast dancing shadows on the floors of the Italian Pavilion, or looked for butterflies floating through the Butterfly Garden.
Before the concert, I could have wandered down to look at frescoes of the Greenhouse and the planting beds, 
or gone and looked at the real thing. I could have inhaled the fragrance of wild roses on the hedgerow.
But really, I wouldn't have changed a thing. I still had time to explore the grounds the next day. The concert was perfectly lovely. It's so wonderful to attend concerts where the audiences know what to do and not do. Acoustic guitar under a tent can be tricky, especially when the humidity level is rising to 100%. But it was quiet enough to hear the nightingales, frogs, crickets, and blue jays add in their accompaniment to Villa-Lobos, Paganini, and Mr. Leisner's original works. Mother Nature got into the act even more as the evening progressed. As a gentle summer storm began to gather and roll through the Hudson Valley, you could see lightening begin to flicker like fireflies outside the tent. Thunder began to be a backdrop to the music, and, in one case, was perfectly timed to the end of a work -- what the musician called "thunderous applause." The immediacy of the weather brought a sense of urgency to the concert. You didn't know which would break first, the end of the Allegro of the Paganini piece or the storm, with a crack of thunder and a tumultous burst of rain. The air got so lush and thick you could almost taste the night jasmine, like a light summer mouse or cotton candy.
In order to get ahead of the impending rain, some of the audience left before the encore--the most beautiful arrangement of My Funny Valentine I've ever heard. The appreciative hush at its conclusion was only broken by the breeze through the trees and a slow ripple of thunder that turned into wild applause.
A solitary walk back through the grounds in the dark allowed me to savour the experience. I slipped my shoes off and walked through the dewy grass. The smell of clean air and the peacefulness of the setting helped sooth my soul. I also stopped to take some deep cleansing breathes and to imprint the moment in my memory.
The downburst of rain that started just as we began to drive away washed away the remainder of my lingering stress, as well as the dust and dirt of the day. All in all, it was a wonderful way to start the weekend.
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