Just a Second

These two scenes from yesterday have something in common.  Two women crying almost uncontrollably.  Ah, well. Such is life.

But no.  They have something else in common.  They have just both won silver medals.  Gemma in Judo, Victoria in Gymnastics.  You can see how upset they are to have not won gold.

But no again.  Gemma Gibbons (top) is crying with joy.  Victoria Komova is crying with dismay.

Same Olympics, same medal, same intensity of emotion, opposites.

Cometh the day when we all see humanity's Messiah.  His the Golden Glory, ours the silver lining as the consequence of being human but second best dawns on every other one of us.  For all humanity tears.

Tears of joy or the opposite.

Schumann

Robert Schumann is 200 today.



Of course he isn't.  His birthday is.

His short life petered out in an asylum, neither the first nor the last gifted person to live too short a life and despair in part of the short life he had.

Yet as I played Traumerei today (no, the video is not me - he's a proper pianist) I felt that it is better to have lived a short time with passion than to live a long, cold life.

Jesus only lived 33 years and he wept and he shuddered and he sweated as it were drops of blood and he stormed and he cared and he ached and he loved and he cried out.