See You in September

I’ve had one day to turn around from the family Michigan vacation to the San Francisco unpacking and re-packing before leaving for China tomorrow morning. Once again, I would have been perfectly fine just returning to my home and letting the teaching go for a while. 

But my host in China is very convincing in his invitations and I did have a marvelous time last year, so I agreed yet again. Especially as I’ll give courses in two new cities—Hangzhou and Guiyang— and actually be a tourist in two other places. I know I’ll love working with the 100 plus teachers signed up, will enjoy connecting with many people I already know there and will yet again feel uplifted by the daily acts of playing, singing and dancing. Just as I loved walking on the beach and swimming in the lakes and biking on the roads in Michigan, so will I love playing clapping games and leading group singing and making great music on Orff instruments. 

 

But re-reading my journal last year, I was reminded that all my electronic connections—this Blog, e-mail, phone talk and text, WhatsApp, Facebook and more will be blocked. Except for e-mails on my phone, I’ll be pretty much off the grid. Which could be refreshing, but sometimes is frustrating. Especially this Blog. I’ll write every day as I do, but it will be over two weeks before I can share anything with you, my reader. (Though maybe check in in a few days in case I can figure out the VPN workaround.)

 

Will you miss me? Probably not! But if you do, may I suggest that you tune in to my Podcast on Spotify, The ABC’s of Education? I already have 17 episodes, which is almost the same number of days I’ll be gone! You can listen to one a day to keep the connection. Just a suggestion. Here’s the link:

 

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/doug-goodkin

 

Meanwhile, whoever you are, whatever you do, I wish you all the best as we turn the corner from Summer to Fall. See you in September!

  

The Future in Four Words

                                                    Two futures. Your choice.

           

Footprints in the Sand

And so the time has come to bid a reluctant farewell to this little piece of paradise on the shores of Lake Michigan. Two glorious weeks immersed in the true heart of Summer. Fun and frolicking with family and friends in company with sand, stones, stars and sky. Walking on the beach, hiking in the woods, swimming in the front and back lakes, canoeing and kayaking, twilight volleyball, kickball, paddleball, cornhole on the beach, watching the sun set night after night from the deck, drinks in hand. Delicious dinners and too many desserts, evening board games and card games and one night at the Drive-in Movie Theater. Time to read, time to talk, time to tell stories and time to just sit still and let the beauty of this world wash over me. 

 

50 years of memories in this place—the young man with his girlfriend soon to become wife, the young parent watching his children grow taller against the horizon, the older parent enjoying his young adult children, the grandparent sharing it all again with his grandchildren, one almost now as tall as me. My wife’s parents and mine still here as an ancestral presence and photos on the mantelpiece. The waves of time come and go, washing away my footprints in the sand. Still I walk onward while I can, with a heart filled with great gratitude. 

Sensual Delights

The feeling of fine sand on the foot’s bottom, the smooth and silky waters of the back lake, the rough and tumble waves of the front lake, the visual delight of criss-crossing bug-bird-bear tracks, the familiar musty smell of the cottage basement, the explosion of sweet corn in the mouth. All these and more were gifted to me this morning. Such sensual delights that give texture, taste and color to life and freely available to all. 

 

ChatGBT could probably write a poem about it, but it would be a lie, because the machine never experienced a single one of these pleasures. As we give ourselves over to artificial intelligence and neglect our natural intelligence, we sell our soul to the Devil of our own making. I (reluctantly) will be writing more about this conspiracy (follow the money!) to sell us this snake oil and our naïve vulnerability to be hoodwinked yet again. But fresh from a morning walk on the Lake Michigan beach, I don’t want to sully my own mind and dirty my heart by engaging with this beast. 

 

So imagine with me here all the gladness of sand, sea, sky and stones, shut down your screen after reading and get out the door to hug the nearest tree. I guarantee that your day will brighten noticeably while those poor sensually-deprived machines will turn and grind away, never once tasting a fresh tomato off of the vine. 

  

Turtle Crossing

Every time the news leaks in, it just gets worse and worse. Now the formal erasure of true history in the Smithsonian alongside all the other daily atrocities. The lemmings keep marching to the cliff’s edge and it defies belief how few are leaving the march. America, read the story of Jim Jones and ask yourself why you’re agreeing to mass suicide.

 

After 40 years of coming each summer to the shores of Lake Michigan, learning to love the land and the water and the stones and the stars, I came one summer and saw a few signs that appeared as hideous warts on the face of my beloved. Again, in 2020 and 2024. They appeared with the force of bloodcurdling screams in the midst of singing a tender lullaby to a loved one. It hurt me to the heart to see the once beautiful face of a place I shared with my children and grandchildren made so unnecessarily ugly. And for what? 

Yet this year, the only sign I've seen on the dirt road to the cottage is this one:

It is such a relief to return to the simplicity and innocence of these kinds of signs. Of course, out there in the world beyond this corner of paradise, so much we all love and have worked hard to keep alive is crumbling and being torn down right in front of our eyes.Last year's signs voting for evil are having their day. But this time, their presence is only on the screen and not on this road to the beach. The signs simply are gone, except for a few uplifting ones in downtown Frankfort like “Fight Truth Decay.” Here, as elsewhere, resistance is mounting and some people content to sleep are reluctantly waking up.

But for a brief two weeks, I am apart from it. Painfully aware that so many innocent people don't have that choice and I'm still committed to speak out and stand up on their behalf. But for the moment, I'm allowing myself to re-imagine the warm feeling of a time when each state had an identity based on lakes and rivers and mountains and farms and animal life, on local foods (like Michigan corn, tomatoes and blueberries), on culture and character before the red, white and blue flag was torn into red and blue states, each defined by their decision to either continue to promote white supremacy or choose to resist it. 

It makes me long for the days when my image of Oklahoma came from the musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein. While still being painfully aware that underneath that warm-hearted portrait lay the Tulsa Riots and a more recent population that chose to vote for the demise of democracy. So no naïve return to the MAGA fantasy. But what if we just shut off FOX news and dropped the hate-mongering and truth-decay and returned to the land, the food, the weather, the culture of good-hearted people smart enough to not get tricked into hating their neighbor. 

 

In my Anne Frank kind of way, I still believe that most people would much rather be kind and helpful than spiteful and cruel. For example, the receptionist at the Paul Oliver Hospital who couldn’t help me with my hearing aid problem because they don’t have a clinic there. She kindly gave me a phone number of a hospital service who might be able to point me in the right direction. I called the number and only had to wait through THREE short voice-mail options before another helpful person was able to track down a place in Benzonia that might be able to help me. It was called the Miracle Ear Hearing Center and the first miracle was that it was so close by (a 10-minute drive) in the small rural town of Benzonia.

 

The second miracle was that I found it, dropped in and the woman working there took my hearing aid, went away with it for two minutes and returned with it fully restored. And then refused to take any money for it. 

 

And so the place rightfully earned its title of Miracle! I’m all set to teach in China and go out to dinner with my hosts and actually hear what everyone says! A miracle!

 

But it shouldn’t be a miracle that people are nice, kind and helpful to each other. It really shouldn’t. Can we please just wake up to this simple truth and refuse all the rest? Spend more time reminding folks to be careful of turtles crossing and less time drinking the Kool Aid of manufactured hate and suspicion? Pretty please? 

School Dreams

Every summer for decades, it was the same. Teaching the Orff levels around the first two weeks of August, then the family gathering at the Lake Michigan cottage for the last two. And then the school year began again. 

 

In those two weeks before school started, the dreams about teaching school began. From teaching naked in front of the class to forgetting one’s lesson plan and so on, all the disasters were played out in the dream world so that they wouldn’t have to happen in the real world. That most mysterious of entities, the subconscious mind, was preparing me for the excitement, vulnerability, doubts and great faith characteristic of authentic teaching. 

 

Fast forward to now. Schools (including my own) have decided that it’s just fine to begin as early as August 1^st (can someone please explain WHY?!) and my own school has the teachers gathering today, barely two weeks into what was once a sacred summer vacation time. I’m now five years officially “retired” from the place I still call “my school” in the present tense. And yet, last night, I had one of those archetypal school dreams. So it seems that that deeper part of myself agrees with the surface part that I am forever a teacher in that community, whether I show up to teach in the music room or not. 

 

My daughter Talia is showing up today to begin her 16^th year at the SF School, as are my colleagues James and Sofia to begin their 33^rd and 29^th year respectively. Terry, the ex-head, is joining my wife Karen (ex-art teacher) and me here in the retired bliss of this Michigan cottage, happily not gathering around the table for a staff meeting, but for relaxed meals and games of cards. Karen and I just received some 12 thank-you cards from alum students whose kids are at the school with help from an alumni scholarship fund in our name (but not with our money!). So it’s no surprise that I feel part of this forever community. 

 

Yet there are Talia, James, Sofia and many others I know, about to put their shoulders to the enormous wheel of the next 175 or so school days to educate young children. And here I am, in my shorts about to take a bike ride and then plunge into the lake to swim. Of course, I have much teaching ahead of me as well, starting with three courses in China in about 10 days. But as I always tell folks who ask about retirement, “I like my schedule and I like my boss.” I have the freedom to decide where and when and how much I’ll teach. And hey, I paid my dues to join this particular club!

 

Not that my many years at school ever felt like a chore I rather would not have done. Of course, occasionally, but mostly an ongoing delight and pleasure. Even the staff meetings were fun for the first 30 years or so. Until administration grew exponentially and took over the show that we had always done ourselves, joyfully and collectively. My decision to retirement had nothing to do with being tired of teaching kids, as my post-retirement schedule makes clear. But it hurt my heart to lose that sense of community that we nurtured with great imagination, delight and friendship. The corporate model began creeping in without our consent and though there was, and still is, resistance from those who remember who we have been, the tension between the two was palpable. It was time to move on.

 

But my school dreams haven’t gotten the memo yet. Wonder if they'll keep visiting me in the week to come. Meanwhile, sending loving thoughts to all my beloved colleagues, the teachers I taught with and those who are new, to the kids at the SF School still there who I taught and kids who I’ve gotten to teach a bit when I subbed. Happy New Year!

  

Piano Man

I was not the best version of myself yesterday. I got up from sitting at breakfast and suddenly, my foot hurt as if I had just severely sprained my ankle. But I hadn’t. I was just sitting! And it continued to bother me throughout the day. 

 

Then I went to try to clean my hearing aids, a process I’ve done successfully four or five times. But my little brush had mysteriously disappeared from the case and I have no hope of finding it. Then the thing that takes out the old miniscule part and replaces it with the new one just wouldn’t do what it was supposed to. I’m okay without the hearing aids all day every day, but they feel increasingly important for teaching, especially when people make comments or ask questions. So the fact that I return home late Saturday and leave for China to teach early Monday is a problem as Kaiser’s Hearing Center will be closed on Sunday. Add to this the maddening re-appearance of daily dizziness and it’s no wonder I screamed out loud in frustration, scaring my wife and starting an argument between us. 

 

So here I am advocating for kindness and acceptance and appreciation and about to publish a book about The Humanitarian Musician and finding myself a miserable, frustrated, angry excuse for a human being. But in some ways, I guess that’s what actually makes me a human being. I’d like to imagine that even the Dalai Lama might get pissed off when he can’t find his glasses. 

 

The other day, one of my Level III students sent me the re-worked lyrics to Billy Joel’s Piano Man. There was a beautiful moment in Level III when I entered class and they were at the instruments and sat me down to sing this song to me. Truth be told, I didn’t know the original, but still was overcome to the point of tears by their beautiful gesture and lovely singing and playing. 

 

So to comfort myself today, I looked up the song on Youtube and followed along with these new words. It was a poignant reminder of a better moment and a better self and that helped restore me. Though the dizziness is still there and the foot still hurts and the hearing aide remains unusable, it helps. If you were in that Level III reading this, you might accuse me of Imposter Syndrome or you might realize that try as I might to improve, I’m still as flawed a human being as anyone. And perhaps that brings you some comfort!

 

Here's the song:

 

“Piano Man” by Billy Joel
altered lyrics by 2025 Level 3 Class at Hidden Valley

 

It's 10:20 on a Thursday
The LEVEL 3 crowd shuffles in 

There's an old man sittin' in front of us, 

Playin’ his piano again. 

We say, "Doug, can you teach us functional harmony? 

We’re not really sure how it goes
But it's sad and it's sweet, and in volumes 5 and 3 

And it keeps all of us on our toes 

La la la ti do ti la.....la la la ti do ti....la so...... 

Sing us a song you're the piano man 

Sing us a song day and night
Level 3 loves you Doug Goodkin
And thanks you for sharing your light. 

 

 

Grand Hotel

"Grand Hotel. Always the same. People come. People go. Nothing ever happens." 

-       Ending line of the classic film Grand Hotel

 

When my wife’s parents built this place back in 1974, they called it “the cottage.” Though larger than our image of that descriptive word, we still call it the cottage. Throughout the summer (and rarely, but sometimes in Fall, Winter, Spring), my wife and her two brothers and our extended families and friends pass through, much like guests at a grand hotel. They come. They go. And nothing ever happens. 

 

The waters of Lake Michigan lap against the beach as they have for millennium, the ladybugs and fruitflies and biting flies come and go, the fishing boats dot the seascape each morning and evening and as noted yesterday, the town’s library and post-office and restaurants and 5 & 10 stores and ice cream parlors and more open the doors each day as they have for the half-a-century I’ve been visiting. 

 

And yet, everything changes.We who gather each August (sometimes July) re-visit the traditions listed in yesterday’s post and on the surface, it’s the same moments lived yet again. But if the land and the town barely change, one thing is certain— we do. 

 

This morning I climbed the Sugar Bowl sand dune as I do each year and yes, I got to the top. But my 74 years showed up in the three times I paused while ascending and feeling out-of-breath when I reached the top. Meanwhile, 10-year old Malik scampered up and then jumped into the lake to swim on the way back. Almost 14-year old Zadie chose not to come down to say goodbye to the beach where at 4-years-old, she used to walk at the water’s edge chattering to herself, so happy. My own kids who used to do the same now in their 40’s and experiencing the same places and activities from their own place in life’s grand cycle. So it goes on.

 

This morning, my daughter Kerala and Zadie and Malik drove away, on their way to Chicago to catch their flight back home. All the rooms except one in our little Grand Hotel are empty for two nights until the next guests come. It is again a hot day—up to 80— with higher winds (35mph) than usual and waves in the lake. Two days of relative solitude, divided between taking care of all the business I’ve been putting off and sinking deeper into Summer’s grace, with nowhere to go and nothing to do and happily so. It feels a little harder these days to re-kindle that childlike mind, to be at peace and wholly immersed in the life where “nothing ever happens” amidst the hustle and bustle in the hotel lobby. But I need it and value it. That return to the unconditional state of “Isn’t Life grand?!”

 

Wish me luck.   

Grand Slam

We are all creatures of habit and I’m no exception. But I like to take the next step into Ritual, a conscious habit that refreshes and rejuvenates. In 50 years of coming to the same summer place in upper Michigan, our family has a long list of “must do’s.” In four short days, we already walked up the Sugar Bowl sand dune, hiked to the larger Baldy dune and walked back on the beach looking for Petoskey stones, canoed and walked to the Outlet, played basketball in town, went to Mystery Hill (a place that seems to defy gravity), ate at the Cabbage Shed (where I first played cornhole!), got ice cream at The Cool Spot.

 

Yesterday was unique because we did four of them in one day! Grand slam! Breakfast at Watervale Inn, miniature golf, walk to the Frankfort lighthouse, movie at The Cherry Bowl Drive-In Theater (Freakier Friday). There are still a few more that we’ve often done—bike riding on Rails to Trails to Crystal Lake, walk the beach to Elberta, lunch at Arcadia Bluffs, visit to the Frankfort Library and sometimes, a trip to the Sleeping Bear Dunes. (Of course, this all means nothing to most readers, but if you’re ever up this way, you now have a great list of things to do!)

 

I generally enjoy each and every one of these traditional activities but enjoy yet more sharing them with others. The things I did with my own children that I now do with my grandchildren I also love to share with others coming to Michigan for the first time. In the past few years, that includes Zadie’s friend Zulia and my sister Ginny, this year Talia’s boyfriend Matt and the ex-head of the SF School Terry and his wife Kathy. And of course, all of this includes shopping at the Farmer’s Market, cooking great meals, ball games on the beach, board games/ card games/ jigsaw puzzles at night, watching the sun set over the lake. Oh, did I mention swimming? Reading? Hanging out and talking? 

 

Yesterday Talia and Matt flew home to begin their next year of teaching, my two brother-in-laws Barclay and John also left and tomorrow daughter Kerala and grandkids Zadie and Malik head home to Portland. Then on Monday, Terry and Kathy arrive and I’ll trot out the must-do list again to share with them. 

Gratitude to Frankfort for the best of conservatism, keeping things that bring happiness alive and ongoing. In this fast-shifting world, it's somewhat of a miracle that the Cherry Bowl Drive In Movie Theater and the Garden Theater are still open, as are the Frankfort library, lighthouse, laundromat, bookstore, ice cream places, various restaurants. That the beach areas (thanks to the Nature Conservancy) are wholly preserved and protected. That it's possible to keep traditions of a half-a-century alive and be able to count on them each year. May it continue!

Better Late Than Never

Another one of those clichés that actually rings true. Certainly for me today. Consider:

 

I’ve come to this spot on Lake Michigan for 50 years now. 50 years!! Sometime in the last 35, my brother-in-law brought two thin-tired bikes here and that’s what my wife and I have used for decades riding through the lovely back-country of this lake-speckled district. We’re less-than-thrilled with either of the bikes but have put up with them all these years. In this last ten years or so, we’ve rented bikes in town for one day of riding on the rails-to-trails path, the last five with the grandkids. We’ve had guests come stay who would have enjoyed riding with us, but with just two bikes, we usually just let it go. 

 

So after taking one bike ride around Upper Herring Lake as we often do, finally the thought struck— “We should buy another bike.” After all, we can afford it and with an unexpected tax return of almost $300, it seemed like a great use of the money. Plus my daughter Talia’s boyfriend Matt knows a lot about bikes, so he could help me pick one out. 

 

And so today, we went to the bike rental place in hopes that they had some for sale. Inside the store, there were two, both around $1600. Outside the store were two more— one for $100 and one for $75! Both bikes with hybrid tires, easily adjustable seats (unlike the ones we had been riding), gears on the handlebars rather than on the crosspiece down low, one with high handlebars and a big seat. Matt and I rode them around the block and they seemed great. 

For just a brief minute, I was trying to decide which to buy when the thought struck— at this price, I can buy both! And still come $125 under the $300 I was willing to spend for one. What a deal! And close to what we spent when we rented bikes once a year for everyone!

 

And so I bought them, Matt and Talia rode them the five miles back to the cottage and we now have four bicycles to choose from. Only took me 50 years to figure it out. But as the saying goes, “Better late than never!”

 

Now can we please do the same for finally, finally, putting the Orange Criminal behind bars where he belongs? I’d even donate a bike for the exercise yard. 

 

Don't Let Him In

… is the title of an intriguing book by Lisa Jewell that I’m listening to on Audible. Alongside Symphony of Secrets, the book by Brendan Slocumb that I just finished reading, it paints a pretty depressing portrait of toxic men supported by the three evil isms—sexism, capitalism and (in the latter), racism. 

 

But it also is a reminder that Clint Eastwood gave when he was asked how he could be so active at 90 years old: “I just don’t let the old man in.” Freshly 74, I hear that man knocking at my door and need to be careful about how wide I open it. There were times in the recent Orff course when a dance movement went to the floor and back where I deferred and even a few times during vigorous dancing when I just sat on the side. But here in Michigan, I'm renewing my campaign to not let the old man into my body’s house. Consider. In just two days, I’ve done the following: 

 

·      10 mile bike ride

·      6 mile beach walk

·      1 mile canoe

·      1 mile kayak

·      1mile swim

·      15 games of cornhole

·      Frisbee

·      Rock skipping contest

·      Paddleball

·      Kickball game

• Volleyball game

 

That’s the active side of the “keep the old man out” routine. Then there’s the playful, game-playing self— Taboo, Rummy 500, King’s Corner, PIT, Spoons, Salad bowl charades, most of which we play after dinner. That "we" is four over-70’s folks—my wife, me and two brother-in-laws, three people in their 40’s —my two daughters and a boyfriend— and two teens, my grandkids. Miraculously, we all enjoy each other so much and these active games and exercises side-by-side certainly helps keep things fun between us. If someone were to write a novel about it, it would not be a best-seller. It appears that human failings are much more interesting to read about than people getting along and having fun. 

 

Maybe that’s as things should be. Keep the horrors confined to novels and plays and operas and keep our best selves alive in our actual day-to-day lives. In company with the cool unsalted lake waters, bald eagles soaring overhead, evening sunsets savored out on the deck. To quote another edgy novel/film, this little corner of paradise is “No Country for Old Men.”

 

 

Baptism and Preaching

In a letter lamenting the loss of understanding the value of the arts back in the early 1900's, the poet W.B. Yeats suggested, “We must baptize as well as preach.”

 

This came to mind an interview I had with someone asking what advice I would give a teacher about developing “intercultural teaching competency.” My initial response was simple: “Keep an open heart and mind and a lifelong curiosity.” There simply is no curriculum, stepped-program, sure-fire method to be gathered, packaged, marketed, sold, bought and implemented. If there was, it would be sure to fail, for without direct experience of the supreme pleasure of investigating the other until you finally realize it has been part of you all along, you’re just skimming the surface. And if I presumed to give “advice” or a series of steps, it would feel like a “should-do/ must-do/ pedagogically-politically-socially-correct way” that you will be evaluated on and judged by. 

 

Instead, I suggested that a music teacher reflect on a different style of music or dance that somehow attracts them and follow that thread. Listen to it, go to concerts, read about it and then see if there’s someone in your area who teaches it (you’d be amazed how often there is someone, especially in the urban areas). Or perhaps you’ve noticed an intriguing instrument far different from your area of expertise. It might be a didjeridoo or shakuhachi flute or steel drum or Irish bagpipe or Bolivian panpipe— hundreds of choices out there! Get studying! And then see where all of that leads you in your own teaching. 

For me, every such study— all of them far short of mastery and virtuosity— influenced the pieces I adapted for the Orff Ensemble. My various studies in Philippine Kulintang, Indian maddalam drum, Balinese gamelan, Trinidad steel drum, Irish tinwhistle, Bulgarian bagpipe, Brazilian percussion, Ghanaian xylophone, American banjo and yet more not only brought fabulous music (and sometimes dance) to the kids that expanded their ears far beyond the Western norm but brought me such great pleasure keeping my own musicality challenged and enlarged. Not to mention getting to know many marvelous teachers from diverse traditions who also connected me to the wonderful cultures that birthed the music. 

 

All of this also found its way directly into my Level III Orff program and I believe that all the students felt the rewards of such a diverse immersion in familiar Orff scales and textures and instruments and ways of learning. Thinking of the Yeats quote, it indeed felt like a baptism in the refreshing waters of “the other” that was wholly necessary before any “preaching” made sense. And little preaching is needed—at least not the kind meant to convert, cajole, connive to accept the missionary dogma—when one has experienced first-hand the blessing of immersion in the sacred waters. 

 

Here on Lake Michigan, a different kind of baptism is at work. As I have every summer for some 50 years, I jumped into the lake’s cool and refreshing waters and felt the Spirit re-awakened. I listened to the preaching of the sea gulls and the breeze through the grasses and that is the only sermon I need. No testimony of the faithful proclaiming salvation, just the patient presence of Petoskey stones speaking silently of the holy Spirit that lives and breathes inside of all things. It’s enough. It’s more than enough. 

4 am Bicyclist

And so the story continues. The 3-hour drive from sunny Carmel Valley to foggy San Francisco, arrive at 7:30 pm and a few hours to unpack from one life and re-pack for the next. Then up at 4:00 am and off to the airport. On the way, thinking about all the cars— not many, but still enough— driving around so early in the morning. Why? Where are they going? What is their story?

 

Then I noticed a lone bicyclist and really wondered about his story. Was he sneaking out after a rendezvous in a torrid love affair? Was he a baker coming home from work? Was he on his way to early-morning meditation at the Zen Center? That would be a great assignment for a school English class— imagine what’s going on and tell the story. 

 

Meanwhile, my story was much more boring. Got dropped off at the airport, got to my gate, got on to the plane to Chicago and then another to Traverse City. Got picked up by my daughter Talia and my granddaughter Zadie, both of whom I love to the ends of the earth. Zadie is almost 14 and after a few explosive years when she hit puberty way too early (4^th grade!), she is the most delightful young person. I just feel happy in her presence without a word being spoken. And when the words are spoken, they often are intriguing or hilarious. For example, I asked her about a visit to my nephew on my wife’s side where she dog-sat for him and his wife up near Seattle and then took a train home all by herself to Portland. I asked whether the train trip all by herself felt exciting and she said, “Well, I sat on the train and it moved.”

 

The power of understatement. Maybe I should have her write the bicyclist’s story. 

 

“It was 4am in San Francisco. I got on my bike and rode home.” —The end.

 

We've Changed

The closing of the two-weeks in Paradise was as magnificent as I imagined it would be. Someday I may share the closing ritual I do with Level III, complete with three boxes of tissues ready to pass around as needed. But for now I’ll  just say that the whole course closing ceremony, including the Level III graduation, delivered its promise. The final canon sung in a spiral was the soul-stirring closure it always us, the ringing of the gongs that signaled the beginning of the course returned again at the end, but we all heard them with our new selves. I returned to the cocoon metaphor and acknowledged how we indeed reorganized our insides to emerge as butterflies flying back into the known world. As described in James Harding’s brilliant little canon in his From Wibbleton to Wobbleton book (substituting “we” for “you” as the pronoun): 

 

We’ve changed, we’ve changed. We’re somehow not the same.

We’re somewhat wiser, somewhat bolder, 

Somewhat kinder, somewhat older,

Somehow re-arranged, we’ve changed!

 

After the hugs and tears and heart-felt goodbyes with the 90 plus students, the staff gathered for the ritual final lunch at the Corkscrew Café and I read my cards of appreciations for each one while passing out the checks. What a fine crew of people we have assembled, each unique and authentic in our particular genius while sharing the same overall practice and values and appreciation for each other. More goodbyes and off we went to our separate homes— Barcelona, Munich, New York, Seattle (via Brazil), Chicago, San Francisco (with a detour to a folk-dance camp in France), Michigan for a family gathering. The goodbyes continued on through WhatsApp (“I’m at the airport!” “Just arrived home!” etc.) before they’ll fade out like a tide going out and we’ll return to our other lives. 

 

For staff and students alike, the echoes will continue to ripple out and cross each other. We are all forever in each other’s hearts. And what a rare and precious gift that is.