Time Change

I’ve run out of adjectives. The last show of my Festival Season, 15 of our Salzburg-group kids performing alongside folks from Bali, Greece, Brazil, Turkey and more in the last show of Keith Terry’s International Body Music Festival. (If you missed the show, maybe you can see a little at www.crosspulse.com) Before that word was reduced to pulp, I might have used the word “awesome” and anyone witnessing what the body, voice, imagination and intellect is capable of was indeed properly awed.

“What do you do?” asks your airplane seatmate and their next question when you answer “I’m a musician” is always, “What do you play?” But music is so much more than wiggling your fingers on metal or ivory keys. A musician will find music in everything and anything and it turns out the body is a remarkably expressive instrument capable of things far beyond just clapping your hands and stamping your feet. Besides the nuances of sounds you’ll discover if you take the time to investigate (that more than double when you add the voice), there’s all the ways to change the time and time the changes.

And speaking of time changes, the clocks turned back yesterday. I came home to cook a favorite black bean soup and that inward-turning that began in the Fall settled another level deeper with the day darkening at 6 pm. (Can we get an extra hour every day, please? Loved it!) Even in the midst of 21^st century urban life, some deeply buried part of ourselves still aligns itself with the natural world. The days turns inward toward the darkness, the colder air has the body gathering around its own inner hearth and cooking soup with Chopin nocturnes playing brings a pleasing glow to the scene. It is moments like these when my love for humanity burns brighter, that feeling that we will need each other to fortify ourselves against the cold and keep each other company during the long winter nights.

Roasting a poblano pepper to add a bit of spice to the soup, I suddenly and achingly missed my children, far-flung out into the world in Washington DC and Buenos Aires. They’re living exactly the lives they’re meant to live, doing wonderful things that both feed them and help heal the world, in company with the people they’re meant to be with. But yet so far away. How I wanted them by my side to help chop vegetables, set the table, put together a salad. Then after dinner, sit down for yet another failed attempt to beat them in Boggle, something I haven’t been able to do since each of them turned 12.

Ah well. It’s a new day, the air is crisp and chilled. Yet another reason to learn Body Music—you get artistic endeavor and warmth at the same time! Onward.