Ballet

The Music Hall was about a block and a half from The Library. The Library isn’t really a library...

The books are just for decoration. It’s a restaurant.

The Music Hall was my destination, but the show didn’t start till 4:00pm, and I’d arrived early in order to make the most of a sunny day in charming Portsmouth. Since I hadn’t had lunch, I walked hungrily past the stone lions guarding the entrance to The Library...

I was shown to the lounge where I took a small table with a comfy old-fashioned looking leather chair backed by a wall of books. The lounge was quaint and quiet- unlike most restaurant lounges where for some reason it seems to be a rule that there be at least 2 TVs blaring out sports action, here there was only one TV. It was tuned to The Weather Channel and mute. Thank God.

Though it was late Sunday afternoon the menu offering was still brunch-ish, and I ordered eggs benedict with salmon. Yum. While waiting for my order I glanced at the books... Most of them seemed un-remarkable, and all of them un-known to me...except... when my eyes wandered to the third shelf up I spotted a familiar title, a book called “The Grass Grows Greener Over the Septic Tank” by Irma Bombeck. Irma was a humorist and columnist, and when I was a teenager in the 1970s I though she was genius. She had an early and lasting influence on my own writing style. I pulled the book down and had a taste of her sparkling humor for dessert.

Ballet brought me to The Music Hall. The Russian National Ballet. I had seen in the local newspaper the day before that they would be stopping in Portsmouth to treat those of us with a taste for international culture to a performance of Swan Lake.

“Do you want to see a ballet tomorrow?” I shouted to my husband from the computer where I had located the virtual ticket window.

“No.” he answered.

“I didn’t think so.” I said, as I snagged the last lonely seat in a prime spot.

So I went solo. The show was stunning. I’d never seen live professional ballet before. The closest thing I’d come to it is my daughter’s long ago dance recitals- watching kids with no sense of rhythm tripping over their tutus. But this was more than just dance, it was... art. Beautiful, radiant, art. The female lead was particularly remarkable. Her dancing was unbelievably effortless and natural. Talk about talent.

An enjoyable afternoon. I think I’ll do it again some time soon... *flips to The Music Hall home page to see what’s coming up*
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