Reflections of childhood

I woke up this morning in a nostalgic mood.
Reflections of my childhood & younger years rushed trough me and made me go back to those times were everything seemed colorfull and shinny...

As time goes by we tend to become more & more reserved and we loose our faith to people. I guess this is the price of maturity..! But it would be nice, once in a while, to be able to see things the way we did when we were children. Back to those days when we felt that the whole world was waiting for our presence, when everything was a game and our sences were sharper.

I heard this song today, from Manos Hadjidakis (Greek: Μάνος Χατζιδάκις), an Academy Award-winning famous Greek composer and a picture came to my mind: I 'm around 8 years old in a late summer afternoon, at the beach by my cottage in Greece. The sun is descending and the colours of the sky are ochre, orange gold & deep blue. I remember feeling the summer breeze caressing my face as I was playing with the sand . I had no worries in my head , nor anxiety for anything, simply enjoying the sunset , gazing at the sea, full of hope for tomorrow. I do wish we could feel like that nowdays more often!



This tune made me travel back in time. It 's called : "The Concert" (to Konserto) and it is from the album: "Gioconda's Smile" (Greek: Το Χαμόγελο της Τζοκόντας). The cover and, most notably, the title of the album are explained by Manos Hadjidakis in the introductory note he wrote for the album:

" In the course of a New York City parade, amidst bursts of music and colours and 5th Avenue flooded with people, I found myself one Sunday afternoon in the autumn of 1963. Then and there, I met a little woman walking all alone with a desperate indifference to what was happening around her; nobody noticed her, she noticed nobody; she was desolately alone in the unknown crowd shoving her, passing her by, heedless and hostile, leaving her to drown in the deep flood of the Avenue, inside that sea she was following, inside the wind beginning to blow.

I was riveted there, the only human being who noticed her. I tried to trail after her and follow her till I could get close enough to talk to her, without my knowing what I would say to her; but by the time I 'd made up my mind, I'd lost sight of her. I ran a little way ahead, stood on tiptoe in hopes of catching sight of her again, but the big black sea of people had swallowed her up. Inside me something started throbbing painfully. Without realising it, I'd come to a stop outside Rizzoli's Bookshop and in the display window, exactly facing me, was a book about da Vinci with the Gioconda on the cover. Incredibly enigmatic, she smiled to me, automatically enlarged to the size of the woman who'd just disappeared down the street.
I don't know why all these elements became strangely tangled inside myself, together with an exquisite motif by Vivaldi, which I had heard several days before this and which had continued ever since plaguing my memory tyranically.


No matter what it brings to your mind, I hope you'll enjoy this song as much as I did.

<(For more information about the album click here )