Again, Juneteenth

On this day, exactly one year ago, I posted this on Facebook.

 

“And so a farewell toast to Europe with my favorite Austrian beer. Six memorable weeks in the Dordognes, Paris, London, Oxford, the Cotswolds, Vienna, Salzburg, Linz and now the Munich Airport. A grand pleasure to meet old friends and make new ones, to bike, hike and wander and also to teach, to feel touched by the exquisite aesthetics of these European cities, the beautiful countryside, the uplift of art and architecture and cultivated cuisine, the kindness of strangers and shared concern with just about everyone I met about the unravelling of the world and the shared commitment to help stitch it back together. 

 

Tomorrow it’s off to Ghana and a different kind of uplift from extraordinary music, dance and song and the exuberant welcomes the Orff Afrique students always feel. On this Juneteenth day, the Civil War is raging again back home, but I’m here to report that healing forces are everywhere. A toast to what has been and to what will come.”

 

And here I am again on the exact same day one year later, bidding farewell to a marvelous four weeks in London, the Yorkshire Dales, the Dolomites, now on the way to my Jazz Course in New Orleans and “a different kind of uplift from extraordinary music, dance and song.” The Civil War still raging as before, if not more so, and the healing forces still at work trying to contain and ultimately oust the traitors to democracy, intelligence and just plain human decency. Amidst all the beauty that walked and rode with me through each day here in Europe, that lurking shadow is never far away. 

 

So on this Juneteenth day commemorating the day when Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas at the end of the American Civil War in 1865 (over 160 years ago!), let’s re-commit to actually ending the Civil War. To emancipate our enslavement to injustice, immorality, ignorance, greed and hatred. To walk together on this great, green earth in awe of its natural beauty and our own natural beauty, toasting to friends with an end-of-a-delicious-meal limoncello gifted by a smiling waiter.

Limoncello Toast

And so we come to the end. Our last day of biking, 45 miles in relentless hot sun with 30 seconds of relief in a cool, cool tunnel. Alongside the river, next to the freeway, up into the hills, gravel paths through the woods, beauty before us, beauty behind us, beauty all around us. Back to the same hotel in Toblauch where we started the ride and a final group meal at the same restaurant we had eaten at with a salad bar and of course, 25 different kinds of pizza. A ritual appreciation of each person’s unique contribution to the group venture, recalling some fun and memorable moments—law-abiding Heide ignoring a pedestrian red light, watching the Spurs-Knicks highlights with Gerri and Dennis, Pam dancing with a waiter while I played jazz piano, Terry, Karen and I discovering those three little villages with astounding murals. Then came the phones-out photo-sharing options and a final limoncello toast to what has mostly been a lovely 10 days together.

 

Early this morning, Terry got up to take a train to meet two friends for four more days in this area, Heide took a train to return to her home in Germany, the rest of us have a final day of hanging out, strolling about until the 4 o’clock bus takes us to the airport hotel and we go to the airport the next morning. Karen to San Francisco, Pam to Michigan, Gerri and Dennis to their daughter’s house in Brooklyn, me to New Orleans to begin teaching my Jazz Course. 

At dinner, we also talked about possible places for a next-year’s bike trip, from Albania to New Zealand to Portugal-Spain, so even with two of us about to turn 80 this year and the youngest at 72, we’re still hoping for more of the same. But always looking at “how can we make this even better?,” the group agreed on two things and I have one more of my own.

 

1)   This was the most rigorous ride with three days of 40, 45 and 50 mile rides. Good for the marathon body, but most agreed that distances should be shorter. Especially so we can relax about getting to the hotel by dinner and take some more leisurely time along the way to visit little sites or stop to take photos and identify—and smell—the flowers.

 

2)   Related to that, we agreed without much thought or discussion to not feel rushed in the morning. Our bags always had to be down to the desk by 9:00 am, but we often didn’t leave until 9:30 or 10:00. On the last day, we left at 9:00 and the quality of the early morning air and the sun not yet blazing hot made me think, “Why not leave earlier each day? 7:30 or 8:00, so we can enjoy that morning freshness and relax about the time. Save our “leisure time” for an afternoon at the hotel after we arrive." Most agreed that would have been a good idea.

 

3)   My suggestion, which I would need agreement with beforehand, is to consciously put the damn phones away more. One of our group is seriously addicted and hardly ever had a moment (except riding) when his head was not down looking at the phone and it infected the whole group, I believe. So at least some phoneless meals and again, more thought to asking people for directions rather than depend on Google maps. 

 

Thanks to my wife for beginning this way of being in the world. She gave herself a retirement gift in the Spring of 2017 with her first trip down the Danube to Vienna, then again in 2018 with a Bavarian excursion. I joined her in 2019 in Sweden, the pandemic closed it all down for two years and in 2022, I joined again for a most memorable trip to Puglia, Italy. 2023 I was busy and she went to the Netherlands, 2024 was Slovenia, 2025 was the Dordognes in France and this, my 5^th, was, of course, the Dolomites. Karen is the only one of the group has done all eight, but Terry, Gerri, Dennis and I, alongside other friends who have done three or four, make up the groups that have ranged from four to eight people. I’ve loved traveling throughout Europe (indeed the world) following the opportunities for teaching Orff workshops, but these rides bring me into territory I never would have explored. And gratefully so. 

 

So the day before us, a walk planned to the hut where Gustav Mahler composed and one last day surrounded by these marvelous mountains. I raise my limoncello drink to toast to it all. 

Money Matters

Those on the side of the evolution of human consciousness and social justice have named the obstacles to our development with words that mostly people understand—racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc.. Since the first step in dismantling any toxic practices is giving them names that identify them, allow people to recognize them when they see them at work, this is vital to any movement forward. Yet more and more, I feel that behind them all is another colossal flaw in the human psyche fed by our politics, social structures and values and driving the whole show. Because we haven’t yet agreed on a name that gathers up everything about how it does its damaging work, it remains a somewhat invisible force. 

 

“Greed” is one possibility, but that is too personal and doesn’t account for the systemic qualities. “Capitalism” comes closer as defined an “economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and its use for the purpose of obtaining profit” (Wikipedia) but is too specific and wasn’t in place when Columbus began wreaking havoc in the West Indies enslaving indigenous people to bring him gold or the entire slave trade started. (Remember, racism was largely created by economics married to priests and scientists inventing the notion of White Supremacy so slaveholders could sleep easily at night.) We are in dire need of something that fits easily with Patriarchy, White Supremacy and … ?

 

Three examples of how it works in the United States. Once we name it and recognize it, we have the possibility of dismantling/ transforming it. The first is from my daughter Kerala’s recent piece on Substack about how our country makes parenting so difficult. She opens with a quote from another Substack writer:

 

Having raised kids for 18 years in the United States and the past 5 years in The Netherlands, I feel qualified to assert that discussing a problematic “culture of parenting” in the USA is a frivolous, misleading, and irrelevant focus that does nothing but deflect from the real problem, which is that America hates people.

 

KERALA’S COMMENT: Her essay primarily focuses on the structural and institutional differences between The Netherlands and the United States that contribute to different outcomes in our parents and children. Scandinavian parents “are not better people,” she says. “They live in societies with better policies.”

 

Among these are free healthcare for children, schools not funded by local property taxes, universal pensions, labor rights, government stipends for each child, childcare subsidies, unlimited paid sick days, paid leave to recover from burnout, and “daddy day,” which “allows fathers to take a weekly half or full day off work, paid in full or at 70%, to spend with their kids.”

The United States isn’t different because we lack some of these things. We lack ALL of these things. Every. Single. Last. One.

 

Then there are these excerpts from a Facebook post by Oliver Kornetzge in which he claims (rightly, I believe) that what’s going down now in Washington is not to the side of a once functioning democracy, but at the center of who we’ve always been: 

 

Forty million people on food stamps, thirty million without health insurance, the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world, the highest incarceration rate on earth, an opioid crisis that has killed over half a million people and counting, a housing market so broken that working people cannot afford to live in the cities they work in, an education system that buries young people in debt before they earn their first dollar, infrastructure that is literally collapsing, a life expectancy that is going backwards, a political system so thoroughly purchased by concentrated wealth that the laws it produces bear almost no relationship to what the public actually wants or needs, a working class that has not seen meaningful real wage growth in thirty years, a mental health crisis so severe we normalized it, a gun violence epidemic so routine we don’t even act when preschoolers are slaughtered, and a climate hurtling toward catastrophe while the people paid to address it collect checks from the industry causing it.

 

Not a hospital, or a school, or a housing development. Not a single fucking thing that addresses a single goddamn item on the list above. A wrestling arena. With cranes and pyrotechnics and a steel arch that probably cost more than the annual budget of three rural counties combined, erected in front of the building where Lincoln and Roosevelt and every president who ever tried to make any of this mean something once lived and worked and in some cases died trying.

 

Truthfully, this is not a departure from American values. This is the fullest possible expression of them. Because this is what we chose. Every single time the choice was presented.

 

A bitter pill to swallow indeed. And parallel to that is a glorious history of resistance and a long list of those who refused those choices. That’s important to remember as well. 

 

But the biggest affirmation of the above, the surprising revelation of how these forces have always been working at the core of our being like a tapeworm unseen inside of us eating away at our sense of decency, justice and ability to care for each other, comes from a visiting Englishmen visiting as long ago as 1844. His name was Charles Dickens and here is his extraordinary passage from his novel Martin Chuzzlewit:

 

“It was rather barren of interest, to say the truth; and the greater part of it may be summed up in one word. Dollars. All their cares, hopes, joys, affections, virtues, and associations, seemed to be melted down into dollars. Whatever the chance contributions that fell into the slow cauldron of their talk, they made the gruel thick and slab with dollars. Men were weighed by their dollars, measures gauged by their dollars; life was auctioneered, appraised, put up, and knocked down for its dollars. The next respectable thing to dollars was any venture having their attainment for its end. The more of that worthless ballast, honour and fair-dealing, which any man cast overboard from the ship of his Good Name and Good Intent, the more ample stowage-room he had for dollars. Make commerce one huge lie and mighty theft. Deface the banner of the nation for an idle rag; pollute it star by star; and cut out stripe by stripe as from the arm of a degraded soldier. Do anything for dollars!”    Martin Chuzzlewit: 1844

 

And indeed, that is what we have done and continue to do. It’s no secret that Musk, Bezos and their cronies are pulling the strings of the politicians and have been for a long time. So let’s find a name for this unchecked greed, this profit over people, this “do anything for dollars” sickness that is eating away at both our souls and our social systems. 

 

And as a teacher, I always suggest beginning with the children. Teach them that it should be a crime to be a billionaire, hoarding an unfair share of resources and if someone is, at least they should pay an enormous amount of taxes (50%? 75%) to give back to the common good. To recognize when “follow the money” is at play in every dubious decision. (It almost always is.)

 

My tiny little whisper in the roar of unchecked capitalism and greed? Changing the words to the song I’ve always sung to the children Que Será. Instead of the child asking, “Will I be pretty? Will I be rich?”, already chasing after the wrong dreams, my new version is simply: 

 

“Will I be caring? Will I be kind?”

 

 I hope they will. I hope we all will. 

 

PS As for the title, I used “Matters” as a noun. But as a verb it also has its place. Ask anyone suffering from the lack of sufficient funds to buy food, pay rent, afford health care and it’s obvious it matters indeed. But as the Irish say, “After a full belly, it’s all poetry.” 

It Could Have Been Worse

Day six of biking began with a trip to the Archeological Museum in Bolzano, mostly about “Otzi the Iceman,” a 5,000-year-old mummy found in a glacier in the Tyrolean Alps in 1991. Hundreds of scientists weighed in on his age and clothing and tools, including discovering that he was probably murdered by an arrow in his back. (Louise Penny, Anthony Horowitz, Laura Lippman and others have a book awaiting them!). 

 

Then a late-morning departure, ritually begun as always gathered in a circle with hands in the center like a basketball team and then shouting, “Day 6!” A promising beginning to the day that had a less promising end.

Out to the third day of a path that mostly followed the river, so no need to stop so often to consult maps. It struck me that it often felt like traveling through tunnels of sound—the drone of the river on one side and the drone of the highway on the other. Or in more musical moments, the non-stop birds on either side and above. I’ve often thought of birds as singing in the mornings and evenings, but the birds here are at it all day long and delightfully so. And then there’s always the song of the wind. 

 

It was a shorter day (hence, the luxury of late morning departure) and as we entered the Medieval town of Klausen/ Chiusa, we treated ourselves to an ice cream stop. We walked our bikes slowly through the town as we headed out, enjoying its considerable charm. Terry parked his bike for a moment and it fell down and the fender was scraping the tire. Dennis (an engineer by profession) had his little tools and was able to fix it. Earlier at a stop, Karen had fallen down and later, Dennis had. The day before, Pam did as well. All minor, but these proved to be bad omens. For a mere 4 kilometers out of town, Gerri didn’t notice a curb and was thrown from her bike. A similar thing had happened three years ago in Slovenia and she emerged with bad bruises, but was able to carry on. This time she was holding her shoulder like something was more seriously wrong. 

 

I managed to find some people who were able to call a taxi and the taxi was a van of sorts that could actually fit Gerri and husband Dennis’s bikes. The driver took the bikes to the hotel and Gerri and Dennis to the hospital, where an X-ray revealed a broken clavicle. Gerri emerged with her right arm in a sling (and fortunately, she’s left-handed) and a three-week prognosis for healing. Both she and Dennis were able to join us for dinner in our new stop in the charming town of Brixen and they seemed in okay spirits.She clearly can’t ride the last leg tomorrow, but the company van will take her and her bike to our last town, so all in all, it could have been worse. And she enjoyed it when I told them the old Yiddish folk tale with the punchline, “Remember. No matter how bad things might seem, it could have been worse.”

 

Gerri then told us the details of being at the hospital and the most astounding revelation was that though she had Kaiser and could get reimbursed for all charges, there were none! The hospital wasn’t the slightest bit interested in getting money from Kaiser. Health care was simply free (obviously paid for by the tax structure) for all, foreigners included. 

 

Which brings us to the next reflection. What the hell is wrong with the United States?!!!!!!!

The Waiter on the Bike

A bit behind on my biking chronicle, but with good reason. Yesterday we biked 100 kilometers. That’s 60 miles! Not bad for seven people in their 70’s!

 

With stops for lunch and water and such, the ride took some 9 hours and we didn’t get to our hotel in Trento until 8:00 or so. Since it was about 85 degrees for most of the day, all opted to shower before dinner and it was like eating in Spain— we finished dinner at 10:30 at night. Along the way of the seemingly endless ride, we passed through so many different little eco-systems, many that felt wholly reminiscent of other places I had biked. The winding switchbacks just like the Slovenian trip when we crossed the border into Italy, the ride along the lake could have been Crystal Lake on the Rails to Trails path up in our summer northern Michigan place, the sweeping views at the top of hillsides similar to moments in our France bike ride, a moment along a river that could have been in Salzburg.

 

No photos to document it all because I finally volunteered to lead the ride, which meant following the orange dot on my phone, cross-checking with its map, listening to the Siri-like voice giving me directions, most of which were either wrong and or just too confusing to follow. The map was a better bet. 

It was the most complex route of all we had taken and often needed “re-calculating” the route, including in busy, trafficked towns.

 

But I liked being out in the lead and rising to the responsibility of getting us where we needed to go. Truth be told, we all underestimated just how long 60 miles was and I thought of the song from Spamelot, “This is the song that never ends,” substituting “trail” for “song.” Near the end (but not near enough!), the tension grew as my phone battery was down to 4%, my electric bike was down to one bar, and my hearing aids (useful to hear the non-useful voice guide) were on the edge of running out. I do believe we could do this trip on regular bikes, clear maps and some better signage and no hearing aids necessary. But when the electronic versions worked, it did make things just a little bit easier.

 

Often at this point in a ride, we would stay two nights at one place, but the next morning, off we went again for another 65 kilometers—about 40 miles— to the next town of Bolzano. Again, temperature in the 80’s and direct sun required many stops in the shade for the needed drink of water. This path was much more straightforward than yesterday’s, parallel to the river the whole way and not crossing and re-crossing over and over again as it did the day before. We arrived at the hotel in Bolzano at the much more reasonable time of 5:00 pm, an hour to shower and then out into this bustling European town with its pedestrian cobblestoned streets, innumerable outdoor cafes and tempting gelaterias (we succumbed). What a pleasure to sit in eat outside in the cooling evening, bodies thoroughly exercised—100 miles in two days!—and feeling permission to eat to our heart’s content. The town abuzz with congenial human conversation and stopping for a moment to just take it all in, it's hard to imagine that there’s so much evil afoot. And why? How simple it would be— how simple it is— to just break bread together and clink glasses and stroll the town with our double-scoop gelato. 

 

And yes, still conflict. I left out the part near the end of the 60-mile ride when I felt unheard and abandoned amidst the tension of my declining electronic charges. I had ridden to the top of the hill and the agreement was to follow me. But when I waited at the top, no one had and the waiting stretched on to 10 or 15 minutes and no attempt to contact me to let me know what was going on. Finally, with my dying phone, I was able to call my wife and she said the group decided to go a different route. Without letting me know in a timely manner. When I rode down the hill to meet them, I didn’t direct my anger at any one person, but made it clear that I was pissed off and sulked for the remaining ride into town. When we finally checked in, all retreated to their rooms with a heavy vibe in the air.

 

But I WhatsApped them all and suggested we meet for dinner, both because we were starving and I wanted to clear the air. So after we all showered and then gathered for dinner, I calmly expressed what happened from my point of view, without blame or shame. Just as I was finishing saying my peace, the vivacious waiter came to set our table and sprinkled flower petals around. It was a perfect gesture to put it all behind us and get on with a lovely outdoor dinner with the best music any restaurant has offered yet—some quiet, recorded guitar music without a thumping beat in earshot.

We left the restaurant in good spirits and then they lifted up higher when the waiter came riding by on his bicycle waving a scarf one of us had left at the table. Such kindness and generosity. So I suggested the photo below. 

 

Tomorrow is a shorter bike ride and then we have two days at the next place. Time to re-group and do a little laundry in the sink. 

 

Unplugged

My daughter Talia asked me in a short text how the bike group was getting along and I said, “Mostly fine. But for my taste, too many phones!!” Every single meal they’re out, sometimes needed, sometimes not. But this morning was the worst—every single person except me either talking about their phones or trying to make something work on their phones. I just had to leave—too damn depressing.

 

When we’re riding, it’s not too much of an issue, but still, the route is on the phone and every time we stop, even when in front of a sign that says, “Bike route to your destination—this way,” it’s five to ten minutes heads down trying to interpret the little purple dot. It’s really maddening. Same thing when we arrive in town trying to find the hotel. But I just walk up to the nearest person and they happily give me directions—which today actually got us to the hotel better than any purple dot.

 

These are good people. But it’s a sign that the machines designed for addiction, for sidelining human relations, for insidiously wearing away at our confidence to trust our intuition, are doing their work masterfully. Amongst other things, they teach us that we always have to know precisely where we are and where we’re going, which is diametrically opposed to the way the growing Soul actually works. If we’re a bit lost for a while, so be it. That’s where the fun and the stories come from.

 

I think my training in both Jazz and Orff has made me different from most folks. I don’t say that in an arrogant way, but I do wholly trust my intuition knowing that it sometimes “doesn’t work” but then leads me to something interesting—maybe even more interesting. Like a good Orff teacher or Jazz musician, you need to know the general territory, but the point is to feel your way through the chord changes or children’s responses and see where it leads you. 

 

After some 30 miles biking today in our first day of full sun and hot weather (almost up to 80) in shorts and Tivas (well, I wore my Tivas), we arrived at the town of Belluno and wandered through the town in search of gelato ice cream. Nice to feel like a tourist in a town and we also found a restaurant the way I like to. Not going online to Google “Best restaurants in Belluno” but just follow your nose—and ear. The moment we hear that disco beat, we turn the other way. In this way, found a lovely restaurant with an all-Italian menu which we mostly deciphered without phones and a blessed silence beyond the murmur of human conversation, not a single recorded note assaulting us. 

 

Determined to short-circuit people whipping out their phones when we sat down, I invoked the way my daughter Talia often offers an interesting prompt to a conversation and suggested one to the group: “Tell us about your first trip to Europe.” (One of the group members, Heide, is from Germany, so she talked about going to England.)

And wasn’t that delightful! Four of us took that trip between the beginning and end of college, that impressionable time when you’re so ripe for adventure and new tastes and new ideas. Stories tended to be short and not so much about the impact it made on young minds and hearts (though I suggested that could be Theme Number Two for a different dinner), but still fun to hear and evocative for the people telling them. Unplug from your phone and plug into your living memory. That's the lesson.

 

Tomorrow is a 60-mile (100 kilometer) stretch, literally twice as much as today. But there is an option for a train at the 40-mile mark if needed. We shall see. 

My First Art Lesson

As promised, here is the first art lesson I’ve ever taught. Seven elements of yesterday’s living art gallery that made it distinct and memorable:

 

1)   The painting themselves, created by international artists invited to contribute and mostly low-key in putting their names to their work, were a stunning variety of styles, evoking artists as diverse as Picasso, Chagall, Matisse, Braque, Diego Rivera, Richard Diebenkorn and more. 

                                        Evocative of Diego Rivera.

2)   Zooming in with my camera to isolate a section of the image created a feeling of several distinct works within one painting.

The whole painting.

A close up, evocative of Diebenkorn.

3)   The integration of the paintings with the exterior walls of the house where they were displayed.    

A painting incorporating a real window.

Real flowers in the window and painted below.

4)   The exquisite aesthetics of the houses themselves part of the total effect. 

 

Also note a touch of Chagall here.

5)   The larger frame of the Dolomite Mountains behind the whole scene. 

 

Didn’t get a photo of a painting with mountains behind, but here’s one from the village.

6)   The integration with the village as a whole, as if it were a normal part of the daily life rather than a precious, separate piece of “art.” All so low key, with no other tourists there, no admission price and as mentioned, the artists’ names downplayed. 

7)   All of the above.

 

Apologies that I don’t have my art teacher wife writing this lesson, but she’s off in town looking for gelato and perhaps it’s interesting to get the non-artist perspective.