Article June 30, 2003 Issue

Strings of the heart on I-84

By Mia Randall Krishnaswami

These days it seems one is always hearing about budget cuts in the arts—certainly where I live. Our family relies in part on income from my husband's work as a professional musician, and this tendency to sacrifice the arts first during tight fiscal times can have direct impact on our finances. But of deeper concern to me is the message such cuts send about the place and value of artistic expression.

An incident that occurred recently neatly illustrates the impact of art on our lives. One Sunday our family, including my mother-in-law, Carol, and our children, Emma, Sophia, and Nathan, was accompanying my husband, Don, from a weekend concert engagement in New York City to his next engagement in Boston. We still had about two hours to go in order to get to Boston in time for his concert.

As we drove along Interstate 84 in Connecticut, we suddenly came upon a major traffic jam, caused by what appeared to be a very bad accident. Although we could not see the accident, we knew it was serious from the fact that all eastbound traffic was completely stopped for at least an hour, and a helicopter had to be brought in to airlift a victim.