As I’m sure you got from my last letter, life on this side of the water has been very dark and full of doubt for me lately. To tell you the truth, it got so bad that I realized I had to try to get out of this black hole, or else. One way of doing it was by jumping back into the outside world, rather than hiding away on my hill like a Kafka character.

Now, don’t short-circuit and call to see if I’ve hanged myself on one of the grapevines yet. All’s well. In fact, it’s so well that it makes me frigging nervous. Okay, um, how do I begin?

Well, it began with the opera. Vienna has a giant festival every May where they pull out all the cultural stops, and just about every big name in music appears here at the Opera, the Konzerthaus, Musikverein, or one of a dozen other places in this music-mad city.

I’ve never liked opera. Yeah, I know, it’s where the human voice becomes the most beautiful instrument of all, the music is transcendent… I’ve heard the arguments, but it still don’t grab me. Maybe because the singers don’t act; they stomp around, if they move at all, flinging their arms out like Big Bird trying to take off. Nope, I pass.

But I am trying to turn over a new leaf here, so I bought a ticket to a premiere and put on a nice dress. And everything that led up to the damned thing was delightful: the grandness of the building itself, the snobby audience whose faces were all frozen with money and disdain. You got the feeling you were in a place that was best friends with history.

But twenty minutes after the lights went down and the howl went up, I got totally claustrophobic, and I was out of that seat in seconds, shoving to get outside. I didn’t give a damn who I was disturbing—I had to get out of there before the top of my head blew off. Ever had a panic attack? I never did, and, boy, it scared me right down into my soul. You have absolutely no control over yourself. None! Everything’s pushed aside by fear like hot lava bubbling up and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. I charged out of the theater and right into a woman in front of the building who luckily was happy for my ticket when I offered it to her.

You remember where the Opera is—right at the end of the Kartnerstrasse, that snazzy walking street downtown? In nice weather, street musicians and other performers play for passersby. I was so glad to be out of that airless, stifling place that I felt like dropping money in every hat or violin case that I passed.

Ambling down the street, I stopped and watched two or three groups play. With no plan in mind, I kept walking and ended up at the Danube Canal. It was a beautiful summery evening. People were wearing shorts, eating ice cream cones, and walking slowly. Whole families were out on their bicycles, and groups of teenagers sat around on the benches by the water, smoking and laughing ten times too loudly.

At Schwedenplatz there’s a permanently docked old Danube steamship named the Johann Strauss that’s been turned into a restaurant. I’d never been on it, but it looked great that night: warm lighting, people all dolled up and excited to be there, women holding their husbands’ hands. The men acting like big shots, squiring their ladies on board. Ahoy, mateys! It was so nice. I stood around and watched. I wasn’t jealous or sad. I felt like a kid watching her parents get ready for a big night on the town.

I don’t know how long I stood there before this friendly woman’s voice came up behind and over me like a sonic boom. “Are you with the A.I.S. prom party?” she asked in pure New York City English.

I turned, and there was the face to match the voice—a big smiling woman in an ochre party dress.

“This is the boat, isn’t it? I’m confused. My husband shooed me out of the car and said, ‘Just go down the stairs and there’s a big boat. Get on it and you’ll find them.’ Easy for him to say; he’s parking the car. But look—there’s another big boat down there. I know one is the sightseeing boat and the other’s the restaurant. We want the restaurant, right? Which do you think it is?”

Now I wanted to know how she knew I understood English. Then it hit me: I was standing in a formal dress next to a big boat, so of course she assumed I was with her group, whatever it was. I played along and asked for the name of our boat.

She squinted at the boat, then started waving at someone up there and said, “The Johann Strauss. Oh, look up on deck! There’s C. J. Dippolito. This’s got to be it. If that’s C.J., then my son’s gotta be nearby. Come on. I didn’t catch your name. I’m Stephanie Singer.” We shook hands and I mumbled something, but Stephanie was already moving and I was part of it. She swept us both onto the boat and right into the middle of the senior class prom of the American International School of Vienna.

I didn’t go to our school prom and was always secretly sorry, although I never admitted it to you. Every girl should be granted one magic night in spring with a date wearing a new haircut, English Leather cologne, and a white dinner jacket. You get to wear something silk or floor length, a corsage, and you have your hair done. The way I see it, after that life’s all downhill. I never had that midsummer night’s dream, and it terminally deprived me. But now by some marvelous fluke, my opera dress and Stephanie Singer were giving it to me. A prom in Vienna on a boat on the Danube!

The Johann Strauss was a vision of goofy-looking boys in white dinner jackets and girls looking like angels with cleavage. You could tell under their dresses many still had baby fat around the edges, but they looked happy and proud to be with their guys. Stephanie found us a table, but before settling in with her, I excused myself and wandered around looking at the kids. Some of the couples were in love, some were showing off, others were terrified to even look at their partners. But this was their big night and they were all trying to do it right. It turned out that the reason Stephanie and her husband, Al, were there was that the school needed some parents to help chaperone the dance and the Singers had been volunteered by their son. A girl about sixteen told me this later. While she spoke, I realized she thought I was a parent too. That shook me up until I realized, hey, I am old enough to be mother to some of these kids. And that was okay because it was a special night and everyone there was looking as good as they ever will.

So Mama Arlen walked around with a glass of cheap champagne, having a great time. One of the things that impressed me was the international mix of the students. Although it’s called the American International School, these kids weren’t only American. Arabs and Africans in djellabahs and dashikis, girls wound in saris… A California blond boy had his arm tight around an exquisite Indian girl named Sarosh Sattar. Isn’t that a beautiful name? There’s a branch of the United Nations in Vienna and it would have done all those bureaucrats a lot of good to be there and see how diverse people really can get along.

I’d been on the boat about fifteen minutes and was sitting with the Singers when a girl came up and asked very hesitantly if I was Arlen Ford. When I said yes, things changed a little but not much. Some of the students wanted autographs, and a couple of the boys asked me to dance, but generally I was just another chaperone having a good time watching the dancers having fun and acting like adults for a night before they went back to their last days as kids.

Everyone had a camera and was taking pictures. Flashbulbs popped and kids shuffled their friends together for shots of them laughing and holding their fingers up behind one another’s head. Guys stuck flowers down the front of the girls’ dresses or made silly faces. Photos you find curled in the back of a drawer twenty years later when you’re doing a thorough spring cleaning. You pick ‘em up, blow the hair out of your eyes, and the nostalgia from the pictures hits you so strongly you have to sit down. You remember the smell of that night in the car, driving over to the party, and the way your date kissed you when it was almost over.