The snow was forecast to begin at 7 AM on Tuesday, and as I turned on the work laptop around 7:30, it was already falling. Not the kind of big fluffy flakes that mark a passing squall or some brief fit of the sky, but the fine, almost-imperceptible sort of snow that usually indicates the start of something major. I’d already stocked the kitchen with the provisions for soup and stew should we be snowed in, and Andy had made a big batch of pasta fagioli the night before.
We had tickets to see Lea Salonga at the Troy Music Hall that evening, and I’d asked Mom to come with us as an olive-branch of sorts that I’d extended following a difficult talk we’d had earlier in the fall. Knowing that those concerts rarely get canceled, even in inclement weather, I’d asked her to stay over the night before so she’d be here by the time the snow started. Andy would be able to get us to Troy in the snow, but there would be no way for her to safely get from Amsterdam to Albany if she waited until that day to leave.
Alas, she chose not to stay over, and as the snow continued to pile up throughout the day, it became clear there was no way she could safely make it to us to see the show. I offered the ticket to other friends, but no one else was able to make it either, so Andy and I would be on our own, and I’d have a paid-for seat just for my coat. (No one can claim that I don’t embrace extravagance when given a chance.)
Downtown Troy was hushed and slow beneath the first substantial snowfall of the season, and it made for a sweetly romantic backdrop at this festive time of the year. We walked about near the Music Hall before finding a cozy, slightly-below-ground-level wood-fired pizza and pasta place that we’d been to before other events here – Bacchus – and it was the ideal space to warm up, fill our stomachs with salty food, and stave off the still-falling snow before the show. It turned into one of those unexpectedly magical moments of coziness twenty-five years into our relationship, one that felt familiarly destined as us against the world, and I leaned into Andy as we took our seats in the gorgeously-appointed Troy Music Hall.
Lea put on an amazing show, careening through decades of iconic musical theater and movie moments, with a nod to the Philippines and two Judy Garland classics to close the show. As she sang a song in Tagalog (‘Kailangan Kita’) I wished my Dad had taught me his native language so that I might understand better. I also wished that he could hear this now, and somehow it felt like he was listening.
