I Remember The First Time; or, Epiphanous Moments

UPDATE: How could I have forgotten to list The First Time I Had a Cocktail? When I was only 19 (too young to drink in California) I went with my boyfriend to the dark bar at the Beverly Hilton Hotel to drink Pink Ladies! (And it fits nicely into the "Food" category, doesn't it? Well the cherry and lime do!)

Hotel Jules Cesar

• I ate rucula (Hotel Jules César, Arles, France).

• I read Wuthering Heights.

• I heard tango--the pianist played tangos for grand battements in ballet class.

• I went to Havana.

In Club Español the night of our first date, March 2005

• I saw Ruben dance--Lo de Celia in 2004.

• I saw my first live professional ballet:  Sadler's Wells Sleeping Beauty with Margot Fonteyn at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. I was 10.

• I saw Argentine tango danced:  Tango Argentino at the Pantages in Hollywood.

• I ate watercress (Los Feliz Inn, Los Angeles).

• I danced tango in Buenos Aires--Glorias Argentinas in 1997.

• I heard live jazz--at a bowling alley in Santa Monica:  Bud Shank.

• I tasted Tomme de Chevre cheese in Evian-les-Bains, France.

• I saw Notre Dame in Paris--from a 6th floor balcony at the Hotel Claude Bernard when I was 29.

• I visited the UCLA campus knowing I would soon be a dance student there.

• I auditioned for Gene Kelly when I was 16 at a studio on Melrose.

• I danced for Jerome Robbins at Paramount when I was 14.

• I went to Tango Heaven.

• I saw each of my sons for the first time.

• I performed on stage with the American Ballet Theater as a supernumerary in Romeo and Juliet, and cried my eyes out every performance at the death of Tybalt.
  

• I saw Hair on stage -- at the Aquarius Theater on Sunset Blvd. near Vine in the 60s. We had to decide whether to see Hair or You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. (We made the right choice.)

• I saw the full glory of the falls of Iguazu.

• I saw Jesus Christ Superstar in the open air of the Universal Amphitheater. It seems like yesterday that Ted Neeley was raised on the cross made of human hands while pot smoke wafted around us and the music of the orchestra carried across the Cahuenga Pass to the Hollywood Bowl.

Moments of life-changing epiphany, each and every one. Interesting that they fall into three categories:  art, food, love. (Is there a book in there? Oh wait, someone else wrote that one.)
Thank God I've had these and many, many others in my life. And with luck and paying attention, perhaps there will be more!