The Joys of Competition

Last night, I had the grand pleasure of hearing jazz pianist Hiromi perform a solo piano concert. I had seen her play solo last year and was mightily impressed, but this was another universe altogether. The blend of extraordinary virtuosic technique with exquisite dynamic control, her physical engagement that could be seen as showmanship but instead was wholly authentic and engaging, her playfulness with the music and the audience, setting up our expectation for certain notes and then fooling us, the remarkable range of style that was impossible to classify in any one genre, the use of every single note on the keyboard from the lowest to the highest, including reaching into the piano for other sonic effects damping or plucking string. I could go on. Of course, none of this conveys the experience of being there and the good news is it’s likely she’ll play in your part of the world someday. I think I was in Spain some years back when I passed a small jazz club and she was scheduled to play!

 

In her run at SF Jazz, she played duet the night before with a tap dancer (!) and tonight she plays in a trio. I would love to see her and Yuja Wang play a duet concert, though you’d have to have the fire department standing by as the sparks would be flying! Worth noticing that it’s a Chinese woman wholly mastering a European classical repertoire and a Japanese woman wholly mastering an American jazz repertoire and both playing a little bit (at least) of the other genre.Yet further proof that we all are part of a shared collective unconscious that defies geography, ethnicity, gender and more. 

 

I’m about to play with my band today for my party and it’s tempting to react the way jazz pianists did when they heard Art Tatum play. “Why bother?” they sighed and changed their careers to go into accounting. Or knowing that she has climbed Mt. Everest and the best I can do is walk up a few San Francisco hills, take the “comparisons are odious” route and just play as well as I can, connecting to whatever I’m playing, be it simple or complex, as deeply as I can and connecting to any listeners as well as I can. As I did yesterday at the Jewish Home for the Aged, lifting us up with my Tea for Two shtick and embracing us all in the comfort of Schubert’s Ave Maria. 

 

I saw a movie about Isaac Stern in China and he was watching an extraordinary gymnast do his routine and then quipped, “Yeah, but can he play Mozart?” So I could say to Hiromi, “Yeah, but can she teach three-year-olds?” Actually, she’d probably be great, as she wholly embodied the playful 3-year-old spirit. 

 

But it's not a competition. Or rather, it is a competition in the root sense of that word.  “Com” meaning “with, “petition” meaning to offer supplication to a particular person, office or more profoundly, a deity. When two jazz players are trading 8’s or two experts playing tennis, they are both together petitioning the gods of jazz and tennis. They are doing so with each other, not against each other. Each spurring the other on to greater heights of accomplishment and expression. At the end, you can see that as the best musicians and athletes hug each other in thanks for raising them higher in their craft. 

 

So thanks to Hiromi for kickin’ my butt to kingdom come and back to work—and play—I go.

Balls in the Air

I have never once been, nor aspired to be, a farmer. And yet I’m not only indebted to them for the food on my table, but I admire the great variety of daily chores any farm demands. Feed the chickens, stack the hay, milk the cow, plow the field, plant the garden, mend the fence, harvest the corn, pick the berries, gather the eggs, fix the tractor and so much more. A lot of balls in the air to keep track of and expertly juggle so they don’t crash on your head.

 

In my life, growing food for the soul through writing, playing music, teaching and such, my days are also filled with a sometimes dizzying array of things to keep track of. Like now. Preparing for my “belated birthday bash” this Saturday that I decided to organize, I’m feeling that “too many balls in the air for my juggling skills” feeling. I’m practicing the music I want to share, gathering the poems I’ve written over the years that I want to read, shopping for the food we need amidst keeping up with my Podcast, writing, teaching, travels soon to come. In the past few days alone, I’ve connected with people on the Nunya Academy (in Ghana) board, the SF Orff Course board, the SF School Alumni Council, the AOSA Conference Chair, a new editor for my books, my Pentatonics Jazz Band, my kids and grandkids, etc. etc. Today I have a Men’s Group meeting and a standing piano playing at the Jewish Home. 

 

Blah blah blah. No one cares about another’s busyness/ business nor should they. I’m just saying it out loud thinking that it might help me juggle it all. But you deserve something more interesting. So having looked back at over a 100 poems I’ve written over the years that I never share—except once read out loud at my 60^th birthday party— I’ll choose one to include here and then get on with my day. As should you, knowing all the things that you have to juggle.

The one I’m choosing makes no sense to share now—better to wait until Spring—and will be more meaningful for Orff music teachers than the general reader. But I had forgotten I had written it and got a kick out of it, so here it is:

 

Spring Concert (Dedicated to music teachers everywhere and with apologies to William Shakespeare):

 

That time of year thou mayest in me behold

When all that hath been silver, 

Must now change into gold.

When that which hath been mere sound, 

Must change to pleasing tone,

And played with two swift mallets

Upon the xylophone.

When children casually tinkering,

Must now show what they feel.

Express their deep emotion,

Upon the glockenspiel.

 

Now merrily the bells doth ring,

With well-shaped mouths, the children sing.

The teachers tense, some close to rage,

Moving hordes of children upon the concert stage.

How shall they enter, go off, which way?

And who knows why Johnny,

Isn’t here today?

Why are all these recorders,

So dreadfully out of tune?

Maybe we can just skip May, 

And go straight to June. 

 

Yes, that time of year indeed has come,

To join together bell and drum.

To take off bars, then put them on.

(And just where has that F# gone?)

Make sure each movement’s choreographed.

Precise and joyful, with room for laughs,

 

Spring Concert’s here, oh, fun! Fun! Fun!

In a mere three days, they’ll be done! Done! Done!

 

 

  

Watch Your Step

October 1^st has arrived and I greeted it with all my little quirky rituals. Which included turning the paper calendars in the house and reading the one with a message: 

 

Lovely photo and sage advice that I can attest to. Can’t we all? We jump from one stone to another and hope we don’t fall in the water. If we do, to paraphrase the song that Fred Astaire sang in Swingtime and  “pick ourselves up, dry ourselves off and start all over again.”

 

My daughter Talia is a fearless stone-jumper, not only in her daily work as a bold and adventurous 5^thgrade teacher, but in her weekend-life running marathons, snow camping, jumping into mountain lakes. And so the irony of her simply running with her cross-country team and mis-stepping on concrete and fracturing her foot. It’s not a happy prognosis— 2 months on crutches and 4 months before she can run again the first-draft first opinion and for someone as active as her, that will be like a prison sentence. Not to mention negotiating the stairs to her classroom and her house with a crutch. Aargh!

 

This news hit me in my heart’s core. And that’s the problem with empathy. The capacity to feel other’s pain can be a heavy burden to carry and if opened ourselves fully to it, the weight would be unbearable. Walking past the homeless, listening to the news, hearing stories from friends, on top of bearing up under your own challenges of physical, mental, emotional health. So we let in what we can and necessarily deflect the rest. Whatever choice do we have? Certainly not the one far too many take of refusing all empathy and creating the narrative that others deserve it so they can sleep at night. 

 

My wife and I called Talia while shopping (at Costco, of all places!) for food for my “belated birthday bash” this Saturday, my hope to get so many of the people I care about in one room with me still in it, alive and breathing. I will play music with my band, lead a little Orff workshop with old friends and neighbors who have never been in one with me as well as those who have and most exciting of all, read some of my poems written over the last 50 years, but rarely shared. Alongside the informal party socializing.  I’ve set aside three hours for it all and it already feels too short. 

 

But back to Talia. Talking to her, she felt resigned to it all and aware that she has cheated accidents like this for years. And we all concurred that this is going to heal and given the long list of potential health disasters, we should be grateful it’s not worse. And we are. 

 

But I guess she won’t be dancing at my party with the others. So it goes. 

 

Happy October! And watch where you step!

  

Advice to My Children

46 years ago, in the midst of a San Francisco heat wave, my first daughter Kerala was born at our home on 1519 Masonic. The midwife who helped birth her turned to us and said simply, “She’s perfect. “ A year later, my wife and I ran into the midwife out in the world and she asked, “Is she still perfect?” Without hesitation, we both answered, “Yes!”

 

On the occasion of her birthday, I believe that answer holds! “Perfect” meaning perfectly herself. At the beginning, it was an effortless achievement, but this version of “perfect” came from difficult struggle, many wrong turns on a path filled with both thorns and roses and a hard-won determination to wholly claim herself. 

 

Four years after Kerala’s birth, Talia graced us with her presence and her own particular form of perfection. I count myself lucky to have fathered two such loving and inspiring children and yet luckier to be continuing our time together watching each other evolve into the people we were meant to be.

 

On the occasion of Kerala’s college graduation and Talia’s high school graduation happening at almost the same time, I wrote a poem to them both. I’m happy to report that 24 years later, they both have pretty much taken my advice! 

 

ADVICE TO MY CHILDREN 

 

Don't hide your intelligence under a flag,

Don't cover your heart with religion.

Don't damage your spirit by shopping too much.

Hold fast to harmonious vision.

 

Do a kindness each day, lest the chance slip away,

To help someone who is in need.

Like a bird song in May, the piper may pay,

With a tune that has sprung from that seed.

 

The world I bequeath, both above and beneath,

And hope that you'll try where I've failed.

To set your sights high and don't fear to try,

To sail where no others have sailed.

 

Steer towards your dreams, but keep one eye on earth,

Have your vision serve you and the village.

Too many do scheme (most privileged by birth),

To gain profit by plunder and pillage.

 

So I bid you go forth, south, east, west and north,

And capture the world with your beauty.

Beauty of thought, beauty of deed,

Born from your joy and your duty.

 

Set your compass by love, and follow the dove,

Unfurl your sails billowed with art.

Wherever you go, this must you know.

That I carry you both in my heart.

Frontal Lobes

I’ve had two most delightful days with my 11-year-old grandson Malik, but the honeymoon hit a snafu, as it usually does, when he remembers that he’s only 11 and hasn’t fully developed his frontal lobes. This time was a variation on other recent times when he claims he’s “embarrassed” if I come to do something in his class as I did when he was younger— like sing with the kids, who are completely happy to have that kind of time with me. But in his aging pre-teen self, he worries that since no other kids’ grandpas do anything like that, that his peers will make fun of him. Last time I offered him $10 if any kid made a snide comment afterwards and he honestly admitted I didn’t owe him any money. 

 

So this time around, I had no intention of replaying that drama and didn’t offer to come and sing. But I did want to either drop him off at school or pick him up and meet his teacher. He vehemently negated the drop off, but agreed to the pick-up on the yard where his teacher would be outside and not in the classroom. However, though I got to the yard with the other parents five minutes early, I apparently was watching for him to come out the wrong door. When he never appeared, another teacher confirmed that the 5^th grade used the other door. Still Malik should have seen me standing there and made sure that I got to meet his teacher as agreed. 

 

While trying to figure out where he is, he called me from his home, confused that he was locked out and where was I, anyway?? When I walked back to his house (only a short 10-minute walk), I tried to sort out what happened and finally he confessed (but not sheepishly or apologetically) that he forgot about it. When I told him I’d just walk with him tomorrow morning and meet his teacher then before going to the airport, he freaked out in his 11-year-old -low-frontal-lobe-capacity way. 

 

I wisely just suggested we discuss it later and walked off to the supermarket to shop for tonight’s dinner. While dreaming up strategies to have a fruitful discussion. In-between reverting to old-time parenting— “Because I said so! Deal with it! —and New-Age parenting— “Tell me more about your feelings. I can see why this might feel upsetting, my poor dear”— I was looking for a middle-ground that made clear that as the adult in the matter, I’m very clear about why it’s not okay for him to treat me like I’m a leper he has to hide from his classmates. But I want him to understand why it’s not okay. 

 

My thought was to have him step literally inside my shoes and explain the metaphor of trying to see someone else’s point of view. But my shoes are way too big for him. Just like my frontal lobes are far more developed than his and that’s normal. But my job is to help his to grow. I can see that at his age, peer approval means everything and he might be worried that a classmate might tease him for having his grandpa visit when no other kids do that. But here’s why, I told him, that’s not okay:

 

1)   I asked him to remember the bet we made last time. I suspected the anxiety of what might happen was more in his head and not something that was worthy of worry.

2)   If a kid did make a comment like that, it is 100% that kid’s problem that he/she has no understanding of what it means to welcome family members and respect elders. And therefore, not worth paying attention to. If it was someone who was a friend, perhaps they’re not worthy of his friendship.

3)   I’m not coming in to sing songs or say hi to all the kids. I simply want one-minute to meet the teacher, introduce myself and thank him (privately) for teaching my grandson. And all the kids. 

 

So that was my plan to neither blindly override nor give in to my grandson’s demands. What actually happened? 

 

When I came back from the store, Malik was practicing wheelies on this bike in front of his house and shouted, 

“Hey, Pop-pop, watch this!!” 

I asked, “Why do you want me to watch this?” 

“Because it’s cool!” 

“But why should I care about what you can do?” 

“Because you’re my Pop-pop and you’re supposed to care about me.” 

“Exactly!!” I pounced. “I do care about you and what you’re doing and who you’re doing it with and that’s why I want to meet your teacher. Just a simple way to find out more about your life, to hear that he likes you and you like him. So I’m reaching out as an act of caring and you’re turning into something ugly by how you’ve reacted to it. That feels hurtful to me.

 

"So are we cool now? The plan is on? I go to school, check into the office, find the classroom before all the kids get there and have a moment with the teacher?”

“Okay.” And we shook hands.

 

I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow. 

Moving with the Changes

The theme of moving from one stage of relationship to the next continues to sing out strong for me these days. Today I went to Malik’s soccer game and sat next to Zadie, the new boyfriend Gio and his Dad. Out of the corner of my eye, just noticing Zadie and Bio holding hands and engaging in small talk was about as sweet as it could be. And for the record, Malik played well and his team did also, though they were paired against a team in a higher division and so lost 5-2. 

 

Of course, Malik wanted a treat and traditionally that has meant ice cream. There was a home-made Mister Softee kind of ice-cream guy selling out of his van in the parking lot, so we went with that. But Zadie has graduated to Starbucks Vente Machiatto with light ice, so we stopped off there and they laughed while I tried to figure out how to order via the drive-in window. Another sign of a change. 

 

When we got home, they both had their own little projects involving room-cleaning, desk-painting and such, so I was free to walk up to Mt. Tabor with its majestic trees and stunning views and sit out looking out at Mt. Hood in sunny 70’s weather and write in my journal. Came back a couple of hours later, cooked them a fine dinner and they listened to Part II of my Jim and Karen Bold in England story (see many previous posts), having told Part I yesterday. They listened attentively and genuinely seemed interested in the story. Imagine that!

 

I tried to entice them to watch a movie all together or play Rummy 500, but they had other plans. And that was just fine with me. Being who I am, I felt obliged their whole lives to share the things that I love—books, movies, songs, the summer cottage in Michigan, bike rides and hikes, favorite foods and dinners, and of course, ice cream— and mostly they’ve happily gone along with it. Some might be accusing me of imposing my favorite things without letting them discover and share theirs, but that’s nonsense. There’s room for both and the one time I tried to swap favorite music with Zadie while driving on a long trip ended with me pulling of the highway threatening to leave her on the side of the road while she yelled at me to shut-up. I believe she was 9 years old and outraged that I couldn’t accept Eminem’s misogynistic message delivered with a constant stream of F bombs. It was a rather stark contrast to Allen Sherman’s Hello Muddah, Hello Fadda.

 

But that aside, Zadie in particular has watched some 25 to 35 of my favorite films, both she and Malik know part of my repertoire of songs, they seem to have enjoyed the various books their mother, grandmother and I have read to them over the years. My last backpacking trip was Zadie’s first backpacking trip, both of us with her Aunt Tita and my daughter Talia (same person). We’ve taken them to plays in San Francisco that they have loved, a magic show, a circus show, a few museums (less successfully) and a couple of jazz concerts. It’s simply part of my shtick as a teacher committed to pass on some semblance of culture, alongside cultivating a love of nature, a taste for quality food, a sense of adventure when traveling. 

 

But on this trip I’m feeling relaxed about the role and willing to let it go. I’ve done what I could and am not finished but am transposing to another level. The first trial run was the 9 days with Zadie in Tokyo and this summer I’m determined to bring them both to Ghana and either Portugal or Spain.  So while I’m not done yet, I’m perfectly content to drive them to their games, cook their dinners, shoot some hoops together, play some board and card games together at their convenience and then let them go on their merry way. Leaving me free to go on my merry way and take the job of educating and entertaining them off my to-do list. Or at least lower down.

 

Tomorrow they’re off to school and I’m free to roam around Portland at will. May the good weather hold!

 

Double Boyfriends

 

Buddhists, philosophers and scientists alike all concur— the only constant is change. The other day, a Facebook memory came up of my 4-year-old granddaughter Zadie singing Skinnamarink a Dinky-Dink to her 4-month-old brother Malik and I defy you to find a more precious clip. (Of course you can, but maybe not— her in-tune singing and exquisite expressive motions singing a lullaby of love is pretty hard to top!). Don’t we want to just wrap kids up in that time-bubble and keep them there forever? That is, until we remember 4-year-olds also throwing tantrums and insisting they have to wear the pink dress or nothing! and spilling milk again all over the table. Then we can’t wait for them to grow up!

 

But here she is now, a 15-year-old in just 2 short months, getting up at 5:30 am so she has two hours to put on make-up and do her hair before bussing to high school and once her birthday hits, signing up for Driver’s Ed. And most remarkable of all, I flew in last night while she was at a homecoming dance and when she got back home and greeted me with a warm hug, she took me by the hand and said, “I want you to meet my boyfriend.”

 

Heavens to Betsy! First off, I was so touched she wanted to introduce us rather than hide me away but was also astonished when she told me they’ve been “together” (whatever that means) since June! He looked me in the eye, gave me a firm handshake and endured my two-minutes of small talk with unfeigned politeness and then had to go, as his ride awaited. Nothing could have prepared me for the moment when that innocent lullaby-singer would cross the line into womanhood, first physically and now emotionally. A moment that would be ritually and communally celebrated in much of the world but we poor “first-worlders” have to figure out on our own how to meet the occasion. What is my role here and what should I say? Remind her about safe-sex? Tell her she’s in for a lot of future heartbreak? Make sure he knows how to cook and wash dishes?

 

The next day, I wisely said nothing except, “Tell me whatever you’re comfortable telling me about him. What does he like to do? When did you meet? When do you get to see each other and what do you do? (in public, of course!)." And she happily offered some of that above information and then off we went to shop together and then go to her double-basketball game. (Her team won both games, she got to play about half the time, scored four baskets, made some good assists and rebounds and generally played well, though she gets exasperated when she misses a shot.)

 

Malik at 11 is still his marvelous self and I DO want to wrap him up and preserve him at this age before his voice changes, his eyes begin to roll, he reaches my height and finally beats me at basketball. He has a 5^th grade teacher he genuinely likes who genuinely likes him, cooks himself a mean eggs/bacon/toast breakfast and cleans up most of it, has a bank account of a few hundred dollars from proactively asking neighbors if they have any work—weeding, car wash, hauling and such. He’s living a fairly free-range childhood, taking off on his bike to his friends' houses in the neighborhood and just giving me an approximate time when he’ll probably come home. Tomorrow is his soccer game, so I’ll keep up my role as “soccer/basketball grandpa” because of course, every game has to be at least ten miles away and he needs a ride.

 

Technically, it’s a new world every day, if not every moment, but it’s these “first” moments that grab our attention and remind us that nothing stands still, all is in flux, each new stage to be celebrated is joined with a parallel loss to be somewhat mourned and that’s just the way things work down here on Planet Earth. With kids, we most lean toward celebrating the steps to more and more independence, with elders like myself, it’s a parade of loss as we have less and less independence, leaning on glasses, hearing aids, pills, canes or wheelchairs and eventually, caretakers. But again, the kids' independence leads to dropping them off at their college dorm and returning to our empty house, so loss is fully present. And with the elders, if we live our lives well, the physical limitations come hand-in-hand, with the enlargement of our souls and completion of our character, so celebration of a different nature is in order. 

 

These my thoughts at the end of my first day up here in Portland caring for the grandkids while my daughter is on a work trip in Savannah, Georgia. Where she will also rendezvous with her new boyfriend. Are she and Zadie sharing their stories with each other and comparing notes? Now that would certainly be a new twist in their ever-shifting mother-daughter relationship!