Time out

Coming back to the apartment for lunch today, I don't know what made me walk the extra block up Duval, to Eaton, before I turned right -- but I did, and was beguiled into St. Paul's lunchtime organ concert.

Even now, at the nadir of the tourist season, the music flows every weekday between 12:10 and 1. I heard Bach from the street, and it was an offer I couldn't refuse.

One structure or another, St. Paul's has been here since 1832. Hurricanes kill it, and it resurrects.

And today, on a hideously humid day, the side windows still pull in breezes, and somehow it's cooler as sheep safely graze.

Look up when you're inside, and see the bottom of a ship: timbers collar-tied and stoutly braced. Reeded wood, bronze burnished with age. Look around, and see jewel windows. Listen, and hear the sweet genius of St. Thomas Church, Leipzig, where I stood over Herr Bach's cool floors and marveled some years ago.

A woman in a tank top and tattoos goes to the Mary altar, kneels in devotion, crosses herself and leaves.

There's an organ tube out of tune, almost a high squeal, but when the fugue resolves it's a Bach moment: The harmonies and melodies shake hands. Plumb. Level. Square. Straight. Uniform.

Finished.

A nourishing lunch.