Decency

I’ve long been so impressed by the way Germany and Austria handles facing the horrors of their history. Amongst other things, every school child takes a mandatory trip to a concentration camp, is prepared for it ahead of time and discusses it afterwards. No one has shut down that practice because it “makes the children uncomfortable” and teachers don’t impose shame and blame on innocent young children. They simply understand that the children have to know what happened and recognize the toxic narratives that made it happen so that it will never happen again. We have so much we can learn from Germany and Austria in this regard. 

 

How many mandatory fields trip do American school children take to plantations? And if they did, how many of the tours would accent the beautiful architecture and the genteel sipping of mint juleps on porches? As far as I know, there is only one place that tells the real story of these forced labor camps that made America rich through unimaginable systemic brutality—the Whitney Plantation outside of New Orleans. I’d like to think that some school groups do go there, but how many in the face of all the schools in the United States?

And of course, there are many sites school groups could go to to learn the stories of the places where witches were burnt, Native Americans were exterminated, striking laborers were beaten or murdered. The surest ways for such atrocities to continue (see this week’s news) is to make sure the population is ignorant, forbid the teaching that reveals the narratives behind the curtain, pump the people full of lies, misinformation, distraction. And we're doing that very well. 

Here is my Facebook post on the subject. 

 

This sign on one of the Salzburg bridges. This is what it looks like when a country owns the horrors in its history, educates its children to take “never again” seriously and refuses the toxic narrative of white (Aryan) supremacy that makes otherwise decent people behave indecently. A timely reminder to your cousins and such still in the grip of the Fox News brainwash and the depraved “decency is weakness” storyline to get off the hatred train and join the 5 million plus Americans who rallied on No Kings Day. 

 

And please note: The Toddler King and his goons called the violent insurrection and riot of January 6^th a “rally” and the peaceful rally in L.A. a “riot”. Watch the language closely—it’s a huge part of the strategy to again make otherwise kind people do cruel things. Part of the conspiracy against decency and kindness is also mainstream media reporting their bias as fact, most casually saying “thousands of people protesting” far below the millions obvious inn all the postings from the 2000 different towns and cities. 

 

What made Saturdays gatherings so hopeful was that people were not proclaiming a new political dogma to replace an old, which invariably, as history shows, creates the next round of havoc and horror. They were simply saying, in their own words artfully shown on creative signs, that they choose decency over brutality, kindness over cruelty. And are waking up like slumbering lions, learning to recognize the language, hidden narratives and the torrent of lies that make monsters of us all. And as more and more awaken, the empire begins to crumble, the few lose their grip on the many. If the poet Shelley would have been on the march, this would have been his sign:

 

"Rise like Lions after slumber. 

  In unvanquishable number, 

  Shake your chains to earth like dew. 

 Which in sleep had fallen on you 

 Ye are many – they are few." 

Three Homecomings

“Home is where the heart is” is one of those clichés that rings true. You might also say “Home is where the heart has fully opened” and when you find yourself in the physical place where that has happened, the cellular memory of it all kicks in. 

 

So here I am in Salzburg again and this indeed is where my heart has opened time and time again these last 35 years. The whole city, to be sure, but also in the hallowed halls of the Orff Institut, alive with the echoes of Orff’s vision come alive these past 62 years in the place where he laid the cornerstone. The vibrations of the Orff ancestors present and palpable. Likewise the felt presence of all the marvelous people I’ve met here who became such a notable part of my life. First and foremost, my colleague Sofia Lopez-Ibor but then expanding out to so many others from this world over who I first met here and later was invited to teach in their country. Spain, Finland, Iceland, Germany, Italy, Greece, Portugal, England, Estonia, Turkey, Russia, Taiwan, China, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil and some 30 more countries! More importantly, such sweet memories of all the stirring music and dance we shared together in rooms 5 and 4 and 27 and 9, the joy and laughter and comradery, the walks and bike rides and lunches in the park and dinners at the biergarten and on and on. So to teach yet another workshop yesterday to yet another Special Course and some 20 others folks in the Orff Institut was indeed a homecoming.

 

The second homecoming was simply yet another opportunity to teach a workshop and create yet again that miniature universe I’ve crafted for over a half-a-century. It was three hours of laughter and tears and my ideal world given body. 

 

The third homecoming is described in this Facebook piece I posted: 

 

At the end of my workshop yesterday at the Orff Institut, I said: 

 

“Never have I been more ashamed to be American and never have I been more proud.” The pride swelled when that night I spent over an hour looking at Youtube videos of the No King Rallies in some 2,000 cities and towns across the country with the millions and millions of American citizens standing together peacefully in strength and humor to say “Enough.” Alongside the contrasting footage of the pathetic tanks rolling down empty streets revealing the empty strength of this soulless pitiful excuse for a human being and his equally dismal enablers. 

 

What happens in America reverberates around the world, where evil is afoot unleashing chaos in the Ukraine, Iran, Colombia and beyond. There were students in the workshop from all those places and we ended singing This Little Light of Mine sending love and light to these countries (including the U.S.) and more. 

 

Not one of us can predict how this will ultimately play out, but I believe the tide is turning and the tsunami of love and compassion and justice and just plain human decency is rising to wash away the cruel and greedy and hateful and deceitful from the halls of power.  Stay together, friends and keep singing!

It’s a beautiful sunny day outside and I’m ready to get out, with three homes alive and singing in my heart.

Next Stop

True to my ritual greetings (and farewells) while traveling, I feel compelled to say something about Vienna. As a musician, this is a no-brainer. Like New York was to jazz, Paris to artists, London to novelists, playwrights, poets, Vienna has unquestionably been a powerful constellation in the galaxy of European composers. Though not all of those mentioned below were born here, many lived and worked here and you’d be hard pressed to find more exalted company in the world of classical music than Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Strauss, Mahler, Schonberg. Even Vivaldi came to Vienna from Venice at the end of his life, though it was a sad event as his patron died soon after,  leaving him impoverished. He died at 63 years old (like Bach, on my birthday!) and is buried in Vienna. 

 

No one is going to add my name to the list of Viennese music history, but I believe I gave a memorable workshop yesterday at the University of Music and Performing Arts—on Anton-von-Webern Platz right near the Arnold Schonberg Center! These folks know how to honor their artistic legacy!. 

So very few people actually listen to the music of Webern and Schonberg, so far removed from earthy rhythms and recognizable tonal centers and I understand why. The calm serenity that settled over the room as the participants played my arrangement of Rain Rain Go Away on the elemental wood and metal Orff instruments was an affirmation that simplicity that reveals the beauty of the harmonic series, based mostly on the first five overtones, is powerful and delicious. Not a virtuosic complex meal, but the grand pleasure of picking a ripe tomato from the garden or crisp apple from the tree. And then the dynamic rhythms of Boom Chick a Boom brought a different kind of life-giving energy into the room. I wish Schonberg and Webern could have been there and let me know how they liked it. 

 

If you’re reading this and wondering, “Who the heck are Schonberg and Webern?!!” my point holds true. Even if you listened to their music, you wouldn’t leave the concert whistling it. Still, I’m not dismissing them here. They came on to the scene after a long evolution stepping up the harmonic series into the distant realms of that stratosphere and made their mark, even if it proved to be a comma rather than an exclamation point. Schonberg wrote a supremely engaging and intelligent book called The Theory of Harmony  and though he was credited with dismantling functional harmony in favor of an “all notes are created equal” 12-tone system, he knew harmony down to its bones. No casual tearing apart of the past there. 

 

So that's my little lesson in "modern" (over 120 years old!) classical music. It's hard for me to talk about anything these days without a reference to what's going down in today's Disunited States of America. When I introduced Boom Chick a Boom and the legacy of black musical roots from whence it sprang, it was the moment to acknowledge the horror of what’s going down back home. I told the people that I have never felt more ashamed of my fellow American citizens who brought this on and who still mindlessly and heartlessly support it and have never felt more proud of my fellow American citizens who are speaking out when they used to be silent and showing up on the streets when they used to stay home. 

 

Of course, Vienna has its own history as some of the high points of human culture (the aforementioned culture of composers) and the lowest (Hitler was born in Austria and spoke in Vienna). The light and the deep dark shadow—it is everywhere in all times.

But it is one thing to read about it in history and another to live it in the daily news. I’ve been far away from it these last five weeks, but these days, one is only as far as a click away. It helps to be surrounded by beauty, meeting only lovely, intelligent and sympathetic-to-our-plight people and now, doing my work again that aims for healing. But it still hurts like hell. 

 

And so my brief stay in Vienna and on to the next stop of the train. Where this all ends is anyone’s guess, so nothing to do but live as fully as we can each day of the journey. 

  

The Three C's

Years back, I wrote an essay that nobody read titled The Three C’s: Conquerors, Caretakers and Consumers. It was one of those “the world is divided into 3 kinds of people” * reflections, as follows:

 

Conquerors: These people are endowed with an extra-strength dose of energy, charisma, determination and power. They use it in service of their own personal gain, stuck in the lower chakras of food (resources), sex and power. Their primary aim is to harness their excess energy to dominate others. Money is to be amassed and hoarded far, far beyond their fair share. Sex is conquest, satisfying their needs and proving their dominance with no love or care for their partner. Power is to make all subservient to their wishes and commands to inflate their fantasy of superiority. 

 

Caretakers: These people are endowed with that same extra-dose of energy, but move it up the chakras into the higher realms of love, eloquent speech, wise insight. They use their power in service of others, to caretake our precious land and waters, to bless the poor and the meek, to stand for social justice. The only conquest that interests them is self-conquest, using their energy to nourish their gods and damp down their devils. 

 

Nobody has done a statistical survey, but I imagine perhaps 5 to 10% of the population at both ends. Genghis Khan, King Leopold, Queen Victoria, Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Trump, Putin and their ilk at one end of the spectrum, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, Roberta Menchu, Martin Luther King, Fannie Lou Hamer and more at the other end. Same energies beyond the norm, different uses of those energies that either destroy or preserve life. 

 

Consumers: These are the people who make up “the norm,” who just go about their daily business and are content to consume the products of the go-getters, adore the pop music stars, athletes and movie celebrities (also members of the above two categories). They’re perfectly content to give over their potential personal power to others, some part of them knowing how difficult it is to fully own one’s authentic genius. 

 

History suggests that the conquerors and caretakers will always take the starring roles in the movie of life and there is little we can do to change that archetypal dynamic. If we are to tip the scales towards one or the other, it is the middle group that is most important. These are the people that need to move towards their obligation to caretake, break the consumption habit, stop giving all their power to the “stars.” Whether it's Taylor Swift, Jesus, Allah or the Toddler King, their dependence on someone else taking care of it all so they can be free to indulge in their endless distractions is not what we’ve ever needed and certainly not now. As the Hopi Prophecy suggest, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

 

And I feel it. The pandemic opened some doors to some people and the only up side of the every-day-more-outrageous-outrage of the Orangeman is that some people are finally saying, “Enough.” Might he have been sent by the gods not to punish us, but to wake us up through a Via Negativa? Whatever the case, I do see people who would have been content to coast through life as pleasant consumers stepping up to their own power and place in the Universe. If we can reach a critical mass of consumers turned caretakers, I believe the tide can turn. 

 

But please soon. 

* My favorite short joke: "There are three types of people in this world. Those who are good at math and those who aren't. "

History Rhymes

        “ History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”  - Mark Twain

 

The highlight of the day/ evening was going to the play Retrograde at The Apollo Theater, a perfect extension of my questions yesterday. It’s about the choice given to a young Sidney Poitier to enter his film career on the white man’s terms—signing a loyalty oath and denouncing Paul Robeson during the McCarthy Era. We watch him struggle with all the justifications to sell out for his own personal advancement in his career. I’ll resist spoiling the end but suffice it to say the London audience rose to its feet at the end in sincere appreciation of the play, the actors and Poitier’s courageous decision. It was a good reminder that we already have lived through an era that demanded to either “give in or speak out.” Many people were hurt, but we eventually came out of it. 

 

The nightmare of the McCarthy Hearings, begun in 1947 with many Hollywood directors, actors and screenwriters accused of being Communists and subsequently blacklisted, ended in June of 1954. By then, McCarthy had begun targeting people in the Army. On June 9, 1954, McCarthy began his vicious attack on an accused person.  The man’s lawyer Joseph Welch answered the attack with these memorable words:

 

“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness ..."

 

When McCarthy resumed his attack, Welch interrupted him: 

"Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, Sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" 

 

Those days were like these days—small people with great power attacking fellow American citizens and manipulating the public to support them through the tactics of sowing fear into the minds of people. Once the public could be brainwashed, they would  t justify, excuse and support such outrages because of the “Red Menace.” McCarthy’s main assistant was someone named Roy Cohn whose Machiavellian strategy became the playbook for all dirty politics to follow. Indeed, it led directly to the rise of the Orangeman via Nixon and Reagan. (For more about Roy Cohn, see the play/film Angels in America  and the film Where’s My Roy Cohn?)

 

The difference between those times and ours was that there was enough of a sliver of moral decency and conscience back then so that the question “Have you no sense of decency?” could hit that moral fiber. The hearings ended soon after and McCarthy was formally denounced by Congress. 

 

Trying to imagine the same effect today, 71 years and 2 days later. Picturing someone standing up before the Toddler King and asking the same question. The response would probably be, “Of course I have no sense of decency and that’s what makes me great. Decency is only for weak people.”

 

That’s one of the hidden agendas that needs flipping. There are far too many people that associate kindness with weakness and that’s a dangerous place to be. In a gem of a book I picked up the other day, Question 7, author Richard Flanagan describes his father’s attitude towards life:

 

“ My father believed that you went under alone but together you could survive. When someone was down you helped, not out of altruism, but an enlightened selfishness: this way we all have a chance. The measure of the strongest was also the guarantee of ongoing strength: their capacity to help the weakest. Mateship wasn’t a code of friendship. I t was a code of survivors. It demanded you help those who are not your friends but are your mates. It demanded you sacrifice for the group. It is a deeply old, serious idea of humanity.…

 

…without kindness, we are nothing. Kindness and courage are synonymous.”

 

There are so many narratives to attend to out there that our heads are spinning. But one is the conviction of so many, led by the scared little boy who’s trying to act tough, that kindness is weakness. In response, I feel so many of us calling up our caring resources and gentle strength in the face of the outer weakness armed with clubs and guns. If we could only teach our children that kindness and courage are synonyms, that it’s more cool to be nice than mean, more courageous to be compassionate than cruel, we can restore some hope in this broken, broken world.  

Farewell to England

 

In keeping with my rituals, it’s time to thank the U.K. for its hospitality and note what made it feel different. I’m at Heathrow Airport, preparing for the next chapter of my 8-week Odyssey, with 9 days of teaching in Austria. Yesterday was a visit to the Tate Modern that never revealed why this was worth an hour of my life, a short visit to 221 Baker St. and the Sherlock Holmes Museum and then a refreshing stroll in the Rose Garden, where no signs were necessary to explain the artist’s vision of a post-modern de-constructive reality. Just the dependable work of an un-nameable and un-knowable creator who gave us both the color, scent, shape and beauty of roses and the equal reality of thorns. Dinner at a Thai Restaurant and then off to the theater to see a play! With many choices and affordable prices, still a great activity to add to any London visit. 

 

And so my list of little things that make London feel different from San Francisco, New York, Vienna (where I’m going next):

 

• The Underground: An extensive well-used subway system, with the convenience of getting through the turnstile with your credit card. (Which also works for the buses. No cash or coins or specially purchased transit cards.)

 

• Dogs in pubs and restaurants. Notice the waitress petting the dog who jumped up on the table!!

• Expensive Hotels: Prices for dinners and such are similar to San Francisco but the theater is cheap! Saw last night’s play for 35 pounds (about 42 dollars) with excellent seats and would have been fine with the 20 pound price. But hotels have always been over the top and no exception today. Hard to find something for under $200 anywhere in London—and I’m talking about the most basic and simple place in an out-of-the-way nieghborhood.

 

• Sports: We have baseball, basketball, football. They have cricket, rugby, football (ie, soccer). And rowing.  

 

• Food: The classic fish and chips, eggs/sausage/tomato/beans breakfast, tea, scones and crumpets are still present but overshadowed by “ethnic” restaurants from scores of countries. Some unique English things like clotted cream, Yorkshire pudding, flapjacks (not pancakes, but a kind of oatbar—excellent!). Lager and lime and Guinness. Never found a good IPA beer.

 

• Coffee: Years ago, it was hard to find a coffee place amidst the Tea Shops. Now coffee places outnumber the Tea Shops by a 20 to 1 ratio!

 

• Miscellaneous: CCTV, Left-hand side driving (not so unique for me since I continue to experience it in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, India, Australia,  Japan and yet more countries), double-decker buses, thatched roofs in the countryside towns, cleaner streets and much less homeless people than San Francisco, friendly, personable people (in my experience), great bookshops and just about every book the same price (10 Pounds). 

 

It has been a marvelous and most memorable 16 days in London, Oxford and the Cotswolds. Thanks to all (especially my wonderful Turkish hosts in London!). On to Vienna!

Both/ And

A lifetime ago, in 1969, in a time of turmoil and change, this fresh 18-year-old went to his Antioch College orientation. There was a long-haired gentle man who did yoga who spoke about how the only way to change the world was to work on yourself. Another short-haired Young Socialist stood up and strongly disagreed, exhorting us to change the system that oppresses us all. Both had actually been pre-planned plants to speak out loud the two sides of a dialogue that would shape my time at college, And in fact, the next 55 years of my life.

 

That dynamic has risen up larger than ever in this time of turmoil. Last night I watched the aforementioned video on healing trauma and had me wondering whether all the confrontational us-and-them talk I’ve joined in on between Republicans and Democrats, the ignorant and the educated, the purposefully cruel and the kind-hearted, was feeding into the game of division. That the only true healing could come from stepping somewhat to the side of the shouting match. Starting with continuing to face my own trauma and shadow and acknowledging our shared wounds on the way to healing. 

 

But then there’s the stark reality of what’s going on in Los Angeles and beyond, the renewed efforts of the cruel and shameless people in power to hurt, harm and destroy the very fabric of a working democracy. How to stand out against those who are the abusers that cause the trauma, that marshal the forces of violence, that wake up each morning thinking “Who can I hurt today?” and empowered by a traumatized population refusing to look at their trauma and enabling it all, go on their merry way wreaking havoc and chaos? 

In these posts this last month, I’ve been definitely far from the front lines of such confrontation and hope that re-affirming life in all its glory, bounty and beauty might bring some measure of hope, help and comfort. Certainly to me. And in the workshop the other day, it’s clear once again that the best way I can contribute is to help people feel known, valued, celebrated and connected through the powerful forces of music and dance.

 

But of course, this soul-stirring travel I’ve enjoyed is a grand privilege which needs no apology but is hardly a model for the millions who have no access to such experiences. Nor do they necessarily need it if they can find the same kind of joyful participation in life wherever they are with whomever they’re with doing whatever they do. 

 

But as I wrote years back, the deep conflicting dialogue is that it’s all well and good to tell people to breathe deeply through it all, but how did that help George Floyd who couldn’t breathe? Fine to say find paradise in your own family, but what happens when ICE bangs on the door and takes parents away from their children? There’s the maddening dynamic. 

 

I would love to both witness and participate in a dialogue with poets and activists, healers and social justice advocates, to continue this conversation from a more mature point of view than my college-self could answer. Of course, I know the answer is “both/and” and each of us has to find that balance in our own life, but I sure would love to know how others walk that tightrope. Is anyone else struggling with the same confusion? What are the proper steps to take? How to walk them with dignity and grace? What lies around the bend? Just wondering.

A Movable Feast

Let’s start with the food. I had the most marvelous Turkish breakfast put together by Betul, my gracious host, and then met another Orff colleague for lunch at an Indian restaurant that lifted me to another stratosphere of culinary delight. (Dishoom is the name in case you’re ever in London. Get the Dishoom Chaat!)

 

Dinner was at a Syrian restaurant (Imad’s) that again brought falafel, pita and baba ganoush to new levels. Can someone remind me why people are so hostile to immigrants? To paraphrase Shakespeare, “If food be the music of love, play on!”

 

Then an afternoon on a dual pilgrimage. First to Schott publishers who published my Play, Sing and Dance book in 2002, a book that I believe still holds up. I wanted to introduce myself and meet someone there to discuss translations and other issues. I walked in and immediately recognized the person talking to the clerk. She was a music teacher in Belgium who was in my Saturday workshop and taking my advice to buy my book right here in London at the publisher’s bookstore. Problem was, they don’t stock it!!! They have a music book of the songs from Monster Inc. and a bunch of Disney books, but God forbid they carry something about music education. Aargh. 

 

Well, the consolation prize was that the teacher told me she meant to share with me that being in my workshop connected her to a long-forgotten childhood delight in music and reminded her why she loved music. That was worth the trip.

 

I went on to see if Foyle’s bookstore carried it and they didn’t and the kind man at the computer looked it up and noticed that it was labelled “out of print” in the U.K.. News to me. But they did have a way to easily order my Jazz, Joy and Justice book and also my other 8 books came up on the screen. While I was there, I bought the book The Body Keeps the Score  feeling that I needed to know more details about the flip side of my Humanitarian Musician thesis. It's a book about trauma and the way it lodges itself in our body and blocks the flow of energy out into life. The opposite of the music teacher above whose body also kept the score about her joyful musical experiences and felt that released from the joyful playing, singing and dancing we did. 

 

On I walked down Oxford Street, a leaf floating down the roaring stream of humanity out shopping and found my way to my second destination, The Golden Eagle Pub. There’s a longer story, but at the end of my college choir trip in 1973, I spent a week in London (and then another hitchhiking to Cornwall and back) and ended up stumbling into a little job playing piano at this Pub. I probably knew some 12 jazz songs back then and not that well, but it was enough for the manager to hire and pay me. 

So here I was again, 55 years later, the pub still there with a piano tucked against the wall.  The bartender told me that they have a piano player, but he only plays on Tuesday and Friday. When asked if he might let me play one tune to complete a little life cycle, he thought it might be possible but couldn’t guarantee it. We’ll see if I decide to go back. 

 

From there I met Betul, we went to that Syrian restaurant and then a stroll through Piccadilly Circus with its brightly-lit musical theaters and then back to the house. She shares my interest in trauma and I told her about someone named Thomas Huebl and she told me about someone named Peter Levine and we found a Youtube conversation between them! It was 56 minutes long, so I assumed we’d watch just a little bit. But we both were so drawn into it that we went the whole 56 minutes. More food for thought in this day of movable feasts, but I need to let it settle before trying to comment. 

 

Meanwhile, a little photo gallery. 

Accepting Kindness

My grandson Malik will turn 10 in less than a month. Back in 2015, I had hoped to be present for his birth, but he was stubbornly some 10 days late and I had a teaching engagement called Circle Camp in Turkey, so I ended up leaving before he emerged while my wife stayed on. The camp was in the countryside near Ephesus and was a gathering of some 40 teachers from Turkey and another 40 from Iran. I was rooming with my good friend and younger fellow teacher Estevao Marquez and every day we walked a dusty path into a nearby village to get Wi-fi at a café. One day we sat down, computers opened before us and I shouted out, “He’s born! Malik James Taylor has finally arrived in the world!” A few minutes later, Estevao shouted out, “I’m going to be a father!” We will both forever remember that moment and I’ll always remember that Estevao’s son Martin will join Malik’s age 8 months later. 

 

Amongst the many wonderful people I worked with at Circle Camp, one was a Turkish woman named Betul who impressed me with the quality of her participation. She told me that she had taken an Orff level once and was not impressed, but in my workshop, she felt wholly valued and like she belonged. Before we left, I gave her a little note: “See you in San Francisco!” And indeed, she did finally come to the Levels trainings there and we were both happy she did. 

 

Fast forward to now and we've had the grand pleasure of meeting again. Once my London workshop was organized, I received a note from her telling me that she was now living in London and would be delighted if I’d like to stay at her place. I did have a hotel room for two nights arranged by the course organizers, but actually needed a place to stay for three more nights before flying to my next workshop in Vienna. So I thanked her for her kindness and said I would happily accept her generous offer. 

 

She came to the workshop yesterday and the dinner afterwards and we discussed the Tube stops to get to her neighborhood after I left the hotel today. Then just before checking out, I got a message that she had arranged for an Uber to pick me up. I was happy to take the train, but she insisted and so I met my car and was surprised to discover that he drove for some 25 minutes before arriving at her place. Her husband met me outside and I entered the apartment with a beautiful lunch spread that Betul had cooked. They showed me to my room, a lovely spacious room with a window out to a beautiful garden. I realized that there didn’t seem to be another bedroom and Betul just casually told me that they’d sleep in the living room on the fold-out couch! They kicked themselves out of their own bedroom for three nights!

 

How does one properly respond to such extraordinary generosity? It’s like the Moth story I told a couple of months back about such kindness received back in our 1978 travels. But instead of the kindness of strangers, this was the generosity of a student/ colleague. Nothing in my upbringing taught me how to graciously accept such over-the-top hospitality. In my America, everything is a deal that demands some payback, something to even the score, some sense that it would be rude to accept such unconditional open-handedness. Yet in many cultures, it would be considered much more rude to refuse it. 

 

Of course, I hope to be a good guest and wash the dishes and enjoy the conversations and I definitely will insist on taking them out to dinner one night. But I truly am both astonished by her gesture and wanting to learn to more graciously accept it all. I’d like to think that I’ve offered some semblance of this kind of welcome to my guests, but truth be told, I’ve never given up my bedroom and slept on the couch! But if the occasion presents itself, I’d like to think that I would. Ideally, to Malik and Martin if they ever get together to meet each other at my house!

 

 

Home

Alone in my hotel room and here’s a different feeling—I’m alone in my hotel room! My wife and I travel reasonably well together, but like any two people, we have different rhythms and different needs and different ideas about what to do and when to do it. So though we’ve done a good job negotiating all that, still there is always some detail to negotiate, some other energy to respond to. 

 

But now it’s just me. And may I confess that not having to talk to anyone, opening the window the amount that’s comfortable for me and choosing the lighting I like and just sitting wholly savoring the silence is a nice contrast to the social whirlwind of these last four weeks. 

 

Of course, teaching a 5-hour workshop today to 30 beautiful souls in London today and then going out to dinner with four of them in a noisy pub is its own kind of social whirlwind and one I thoroughly enjoyed. I love doing these workshops that are the first-time Orff experiences for some of the participants, the great satisfaction of opening the door and inviting them into this beautiful house that just may (or may not) be the home they live in years to come. If that be so, sweet to imagine them remembering me as the person who might have changed their life. Or at least given them a happy day. 

 

Equally pleasurable is how most every workshop I do these days is a reunion of sorts with people who have worked with me at other times (some as long ago as 30 or 40 years!) and other places. There were many in today’s workshops, people I had taught in Turkey, Hong Kong, Salzburg, Canada, India, England, Ukraine (online) and other places. Such a delight to re-connect and enjoy again together the joy of music-making and dancing. As I’ve said many times in the last 4 weeks of posts, I’ve loved remembering that life is sweet just biking, hiking and wandering around beautiful towns and cities. But equally sweet to return to the work I was born to do and feel the pleasure it gives both me and the participants. 

 

Meanwhile, my wife Karen is winging home to San Francisco, where she’ll have the grand pleasure of re-connecting live with our daughter Talia, on Facetime with Kerala and the grandkids. She’ll get to be back in our home, make her own meals with no restaurant bill at the end, walk around the city with no Google map to follow, return to the routines she’s developed that sustain her. She loved the traveling but was ready to return to all of that and more. To come home.

 

And here am I again, savoring this first taste of Solitude that will be with me in the travels to come. And has been with me my whole life. It is through my comfort in being wholly at ease in my own body, heart and mind that (ironically) I feel most deeply connected with others. That I feel at home wherever I may be. 

 

So it is. 

Music and Madness

It is on the train from Moreton-in-Marsh to London that I have the luxury of writing. Got one of the seats I like best, the kind with two seats facing one way, a table and two facing another. Not only calls up some of the romance of European train travel, but is roomy and convenient for both writing on a computer and playing cards. 

 

This the last day of the four weeks of travel with my wife and then her departure tomorrow and then four more weeks for Part 2 of my time away mostly teaching. Had beautiful dreams last night of leading some music classes, the psyche preparing for the change. I’m ready. 

 

Yesterday at Shakespeare’s birthplace, I browsed through a book that had a Shakespeare quote a day. Naturally, I was curious about the choice on my birthday and here’s what I found:

 

“’Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind.”

 

How could Shakespeare have known what we’re going through in my country at the moment? A good reminder that our time and place has been before and (though I hope not!) may be again. The entry further quotes Claudius from Hamlet:

 

“Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.”

 

I would certainly change that one clause to “Madness in people in high office…” as none of these people can come close to the qualifier “great.” But the point is well-taken and not only reminds us citizens to be outspoken witnesses of each new outrage, but a stern reminder to public media—yes, I’m talking to you, New York Times and Washington Post— to do their job. (Fox News is, of course, hopeless, as they’re pulling the levers behind the curtain of the whole show.)

 

And to quote this entry precisely, it goes on: 

 

And next, a line for those who cannot be trusted. The Merchant of Venice  suggests that anyone without music in themselves, whether a metaphysical internal rhythm, the creative arts in general or an actual love of music) falls into the “unreliable” category.

 

The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,

Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.

The motions of his spirit are dull as night,

And his affections dark as Erebus.

Let no such man be trusted.

 

The entry goes on to clarify the language: 

 

Music, the concord (‘harmony’) of sweet (‘pleasing’) sounds. Those without music in them are only fit for committing treason, strategems  (‘ violent deeds’) and spoils (‘the stolen goods of others’). 

 

Their spirit is full of motions  (‘evil, inward promptings) and are as dark 

(‘ gloomy’) as Erebus (the son of Chaos in Greek mythology). 

 

Bam! Nailed it all. The violence, the plundering, the evil intentions, the purposefully unleashed Chaos, all endorsed and sustained by those incapable of welcoming music’s healing balms. Exactly my thesis in my book to come, The Humanitarian Musician.

 

These words alone were worth all the minor bus fiascos of yesterday’s trip to Stratford-upon-Avon. And a good prelude as I prepare to re-enter my “traveling music teacher” role that initially inspired this long-running blog. 

 

Shakespeare also said, “If music be the food of love, play on!” 

 

And so I will. 

An Okay Day

Today will not go on record as the pinnacle of our travels. It was an okay day, but filled with minor setbacks. Here’s the list:

 

1.   The rain: All morning and on to 3:00. Of course, I’m in England! Those green fields didn’t come from nowhere. Why even complain?

 

2.   The bus: Decided to go to Stratford-Upon-Avon while we were in the area and another long walk in the rain didn’t sound so appealing. Waited at the correct bus stop at the correct time, the bus appeared and drove right by us! Waited another 25 minutes thinking maybe it was circling around and decided there was no choice but to get the next one two hours later. And here I confessed— I was annoyed!

 

3.   The Railway Station: After a restoring lunch, decided to catch the bus at a more trustworthy stop at the railroad station, thinking we could shelter in the station while waiting. But the station was closed. So huddled at the bus stop with the intermittent rain continuing.

 

4.   The bus. Came and left on time. But apparently it was a special one that stopped at a school to pick up kids. I didn’t mind riding the bus with the kids, but it made the trip almost an hour longer than it should have been.

 

5.   The stores closing: It now was close to 5:00 when we finally arrived in Stratford and some of the appealing stores—like the Shakespeare bookshop— were just closing. Still inspiring to see his birthplace and old school and a small exhibit in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s theater and the swans in the river Avon. But not much time for it all as the last bus back to our town was at 6:45. 

 

6.   The bus: Came on time and took a slightly faster route. The rains had finally stopped, but now we were in a bus instead of out walking. 

 

And so ended our last official day of touring. Today it’s a train back to London, me preparing my workshop for tomorrow and my wife preparing her return journey to San Francisco. She’s ready to go home, I’m ready to be teaching again. All is well.