Janet wasn’t sure why life felt so complicated these days. Maybe it had something to do with the way the wind never seemed to stop blowing, tugging at her short gray hair, and stirring memories of happier times—before Chet died.

Chet, her husband of 35 years, who’d woken up one morning saying he didn’t feel well and was gone by nightfall. Chet, with his too-big ears, skinny legs, and the warmest arms on the planet—especially when she was low and in need of some quiet reassurance.

But there was no bolstering now. Just her own stern self-reliance—and music. It was music that coaxed her out of bed each morning, music that gave shape to the emptiness: Handel’s Water Music, Copland’s Appalachian Spring. Still, even that didn’t explain the growing sense of unease.

Mary Ann, her best friend of forty years, put it in a single word: frustration.

It was true. Janet felt thwarted—adrift, really—especially when she tried to imagine what came next. She was a widow, no longer young, and had to carve out a new path without the one person who always kept her pointed toward something hopeful.

She had two sons, of course, both married, both busy. The last thing they needed was their mother hovering, needing more than they had to give. So that left her with… what, exactly?

The complications piled up around that question: What? Where? When?

The when she could answer easily—immediately, if not sooner. She couldn’t live in limbo. That kind of uncertainty wasn’t good for her, or anyone else. But what did she want? What could she do?

She put on Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos to help her think. The music soothed her, wrapped her in calm, and sometime during the second movement, she drifted into sleep.

Thirty minutes later, she woke with a start. Of course. The idea was so clear now, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it sooner.

Two weeks later, Janet packed her 2010 Prius. Into the back went a suitcase of warm clothes, her favorite classical CDs, and her beloved oboe—an instrument she played only for herself. She looked once more at the house Chet had designed, elegant and timeless, and knew it was her goodbye. The realtor had everything in hand.

Mary Ann came by to see her off, and they hugged long and tight. Then Janet climbed behind the wheel, gave one final wave, and pulled out of the driveway as Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 filled the car.

She felt light. Clear-headed. Calm.

Her first stop was Newark, to leave the car with her son. The next morning, she would fly to Amsterdam.

Why Amsterdam? To visit the home of one of the finest symphonies in Europe: the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. From there, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Budapest, London. Then back to the States—Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland. She would chase the music that stirred her soul, spend her money on what brought her the deepest joy.

Maybe, along the way, she’d meet someone—someone who loved this music the way she did. But that wasn’t the point.

She had a plan. She had hope. And for the first time in a long while, her life felt simple.