The first time I heard it, I was 5 years old. I didn't know the name of the song, but this image, and its music, stuck with me, followed me like Peter Pan's Shadow, with a life of its own that I couldn't catch.
For nearly 40 years, this song lived in the inside of my ears. I could hear it, see the drop of rain falling down the flower, over the leaf, but there wasn't the internet for most of my life. I had no way of finding out what it was.
Did I even remember it correctly?
Was I making the song up?
One day in Portland - and it was probably a rainy day, go figure - I was in the Borders bookstore downtown when I heard it. Just some plinky-plunky notes at first, but then I recognized it. I shouted: "Hey, what is that song?!"The clerk was surprised. I mean, it's been a minute since anyone demanded to know a Vivaldi track.
Y'all, that song followed me from 1973 to 2003, when I finally learned its name: Vivaldi's Concerto in D major, RV 93: Largo.
It was like meeting a long lost love or some relative who had gone missing.