Folge 18: The Green Light of the Harbor
In this episode, we reflect on how pairing Der Fliegende Holländer with deliberate afternoon walks through New York quietly reshaped the author’s inner life. Leaving work to step onto the Staten Island Ferry, wander the South Street Seaport, and walk the harbor’s edge became a form of lived wellness, anchored not in optimization, but in anticipation. Wagner’s music didn’t simply accompany the city. It altered its emotional weather, restoring a sense of romance, depth, and myth to spaces I thought I already knew.
What emerges is a meditation on ghost ships, immigration, devotion, and the strange power of art to travel across centuries and oceans. From listening to Senta’s Ballad as seagulls followed the ferry’s wake, to standing at 12 Old Slip sensing a transatlantic call finally being heard, this conversation explores how music can turn a city into a stage, walking into ritual, and the workday itself into a threshold between history, memory, and meaning.
