Passing the Baton

An Orff teacher from Barcelona I helped train recently included me on a letter of gratitude to all her teachers. The occasion was her 50^th birthday, the kind of milestone event that invites reflection. She wrote: 

 

Now I am 50, and almost half my life has been connected to Orff-Schulwerk in one way or another, always with the same intensity and passion. As I tell my friends and family, right now I feel that my inner self, the person I am, is going one way and my body another. My body seems to have understood that I’m turning 50, but my inner self hasn’t quite got the message yet! I’ll keep doing what that young woman inside me asks of me, and my body will just have to keep up. This is who I am, and I don’t intend to lose that spark anytime soon! 

 

Thanks to all of you, I have become a lifelong learner, and that is what I dedicate myself to: learning and accompanying the learning of others. If, when I grow up, I can resemble or inspire someone even a little in the way you have inspired me, I will feel that I have passed on some of what you have given me. 

 

Lovely. Here’s what I wrote back:

 

Congratulations on your milestone birthday! I just turned 75 so I feel connected with you at different parts of the 4-Act play that can be our life. First act: 0-25/ Second: 25-50/ Third: 50-75/ Fourth: 75 -? Each act with different plots and surrounding characters, each act with us a main character who is evolving and changing throughout the story, but also recognizable as the same unchanging soul throughout each twist of the plot. 

 

So here you are beginning the third act as I've just ended mine and beginning the fourth. Let me welcome you to what for me was "The Golden Years!" Good health and plenty of energy and mostly just small hints from the body that things are changing. But as the body diminishes, the Soul grows larger. 

 

You're off to a good start because I can testify that one essential quality of the second half of life is deep gratitude for all who have shared the stage with you. So your instinct to appreciate those who helped you move forward in your soul's unfolding is an excellent one. And happy to know that I was one of them.

 

And the second great instinct you have is to renew your determination to pass the baton on to others and bless them and encourage them and help them as you have been blessed and helped and encouraged. I admire both those qualities in you and encourage you to keep following those instincts!

 

As for me, I'm blessed at the moment with the health, energy and determination to both keep on teaching myself and encourage the next generation to move it forward. (I'm writing from Istanbul where I'll teach two courses in two different places and then another in Athens after teaching in London and Izmir.)

Thanks again and on we go!!!

When?

I open my laptop and see the 79 e-mails in my box newly arrived—after one day.  75 about political news and pleas for contributions, three from people I know and one my new Inspiring Quotes mail. The latter was about October. Ten people praising crisp weather, fall foliage, cozy evenings and delightfully darkening days, the wind wild with the swirl of golden leaves. 

 

Sigh. When can we turn our attention back to the bounties of this beautiful world? Praise the things that are real and true and authentic and touchable and tastable and smellable with our own hands and tongue and nose. The sweet explosion in the mouth of a ripe apple, the brittle crunch of dry leaves swept in piles, the dizzying journey of falling leaves and us below trying to catch them. The warm soup on the stove and smell of fresh-baked bread and the anticipation of pecan pie, the candles out again on the dinner table, the carved pumpkins out on the front stoop, Ella and Louis singing Autumn in New York. The unspoken comfort that if things must decay and branches lose their leaves and days darken early, this is indeed a beautiful way. 

 

When can we feel the full blessing of another sunrise, bask in the welcome warmth of midday sun, descend with the day into a tantalizing twilight and feel the full embrace of an evening with loved ones? When can we spend more time writing poems of praise, singing sublime or silly songs, drawing or dancing our delight? When can we be spared having to refuse or resist the distraction of glaring screens because why would anyone choose something two-dimensional, artificial and addictive over the real world at our fingertips?When will the assault of the political pleas made necessary by our profound human failures trickle down to their proper proportion? 

 

When, oh when, will we finally awaken to our true promise and spend more time batting balloons with a 5-year-old we just met than opening the laptop?As I did last night with my friend’s daughter, who became my instant friend. 

 

When? I don’t know, but please, may it be soon. And forever. 

 

 

A Day Well Spent

 

I have not been sleeping well. Up for two hours in the middle of the night, some of it is jet lag and some perhaps a disturbing new old-guy pattern. Hate that feeling of lying in bed waiting for the mind to turn off and the other night, it finally did and I was visited by a nightmare— a plane taking off without me, getting picked up by some guys in a van to get me back to the airport and then them taking me to their house for dubious purposes. When I woke with a start, I was relieved it was only a dream, but then drifting back to sleep, those guys were still there. So after lying in bed hoping for sleep, I now was trying to stay awake! 

 

But last night, there were only sweet dreams and mostly uninterrupted blessed sleep. Until I checked the time and noticed it was 10:00 am! With my host Banu coming to drive me to the airport at 10:15. I had slept 11 hours!! Luckily, I was mostly packed from the night before, so made it to her car by 10:20 and got to the airport in time for my flight to Istanbul. 

 

Meanwhile, yesterday was quite a day. Banu took me to the University where she teaches, gave me a brief tour of some lovely gardens with peacocks and an extraordinary colorful large bird I regretted not photographing. While she went to teach a class, she had arranged for me to meet a colleague who plays jazz saxophone and off we went for an hour of non-stop jamming together. Fabulous! He was excellent and he seemed to like my playing and we listened to each other well and had some truly inspired moments together. Banu came back with two other teachers and we played Night and Day  for them and they were shaking their heads wondering: “How do you do that?!!!!”

 

How indeed. Music is most certainly not a universal language any more than Japanese and Spanish are, but if you do your homework to learn the grammar and vocabulary of a particular musical style—like jazz—and understand how to speak your own thoughts with the elementals of the musical language, you’re well prepared to meet a perfect stranger and achieve deep communication instantly. Which is exactly what happened. 

 

From there, we walked through the bustling tree-lined streets of Izmir in perfect weather, past all the outdoor-seating cafés, up a tower with an elevator initially built in 1907, into a modernized bazaar with all goods I don’t need but enjoying the hustle and bustle. On to meeting two more friends, enjoying a convivial meal and off to the evening workshop. The 16 lovely souls returned and 8 more joined the party. No need to wax rhapsodic, as I always do about what a joyful, uplifting gathering it was. Then an after-workshop beer with eight of the group to cap off a most delightful day. 

 

That’s the news, such as it was. Off to Istanbul!

Buddha Bowl

Arrived in Izmir on Monday night and spent Tuesday afternoon walking along the path by the sea. Dinner with Banu, my host, a lovely human who was part of our first Intern program at The SF School back in 2013. I ordered a grain salad called “Buddha Bowl” and too much for my appetite, got a take-away container. 

 

On to the workshop site for an unusual evening venue and the grand pleasure of greeting 16 more eager young women. We gathered in the ritual opening circle and off we went. The usual three or so activities with hardly a word from me and then time for some reflection. Always looking for new ways to talk about old tried-and-true ideas, I took out my take-away container and began: 

 

"Just before coming here, I had dinner with Banu. I ordered a dish called the Buddha Bowl. I suspect the name of that dish doesn’t tell you very much. Like telling a beginning music student that we’re going to learn about the minor scale. And you might wonder “Who or what is Buddha?”

 

If I tell you what’s in that dish, that helps you understand a little bit more. And so I describe a grain salad with quinoa, falafel, avocado, carrots, lettuce. You still might not know all the ingredients (quinoa?) but it helps give you a picture of it. Like telling about the interval structure of whole steps and half steps in the minor scale. 

 

If I show you a photo of it, you get one step closer to understanding. And better yet, to show you the dish itself. And here it is! (I open the take-away container). Back in music class, this would be equivalent of singing the minor scale. 

 

If I passed it around and you smelled it, that brings you closer yet. In the music class, we might sing the minor scale together.

 

But if I invited you to taste it or eat a whole bowl, now you have the most important information, eating it first-hand and digesting it. Like singing a minor scale melody. 

 

The Orff class begins with the meal itself, not waiting so long to taste it. Just eating together. After we might describe things, naming each ingredient and discussing how they all fit together. 

 

But we’re not done yet. If we like the taste, we have to learn how to make our own Buddha bowl salad. Now we have the independence to continue to enjoy it without depending on the restaurant and create our own variations. Like improvising or composing new melodies in the minor scale."

 

The students seemed intrigued. And then we went on to the second and third courses and ended with dessert. A most delicious meal indeed. 

 

Shout-out to Blogspot

 

While posting the last post about doing everything in one’s power to contribute to kindness, truth and justice and refusing meanness, falsity and cruelty, I noticed a message from the host Blogging site: 

 

Updates to the Blogger Content Policy
We are making some changes to our policies, effective December 16, 2026

 

Reading further, it said: 

 

Blogger is a service for self-expression and communication. We believe Blogger increases the availability of information, encourages healthy debate, and makes possible new connections between people. It is our belief that censoring this content is contrary to a service that bases itself on freedom of expression.

 

However, in order to uphold these values, we need to curb abuses that threaten our ability to provide this service and the freedom of expression it encourages. As a result, there are some boundaries on the type of content that can be hosted with Blogger. The boundaries we've defined are those that both comply with legal requirements and that serve to enhance the service as a whole.

 

It goes on to list specifically what is acceptable and what is not in the following categories, making explicit what should be implicit in any decent community:

·      Community Guidelines

·      Adult Content

·      Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation

·      Dangerous and Illegal Activities

·      Deceptive Practices, Fraud and Scams

·      Harassment, Bullying, and Threats

·      Hate Speech

·      Impersonation and Misrepresentation of Identity

·      Malware and Similar Malicious Content

·      Misleading Content 

·      Personal and Confidential Information

·      Phishing

·      Regulated Goods and Services

·      Spam

·      Violent Organizations and Movements

·      Unauthorized Images of Minors

·      Violence and Gore

·      Copyright

In short, they’re making clear that freedom of expression entails certain responsibilities to the community of readers and that abuse of these will not be tolerated. 

Thank you, Blogspot. This makes me proud to be associated with your services. Now if only the media and government would follow suit. 

The Broken World

Re-reading (for the 5^th time?) Dickens’ David Copperfield, I’m struck by the ongoing cruelty of so many people David meets. His stepfather Mr. Murdstone and that evil man’s sister, the schoolmaster Creakle, the donkey-cart-driver who steals David’s trunk, the pawnbrokers who cheat him, the unforgettable Uriah Heep and more. A world where everyone seems to be look out for No. 1 (themselves) without a single thought as to being kind to others. In short, a mentality that grew to be the ethic of an entire political party a couple of centuries later across the ocean. 

 

But such inhumanity is balanced by the integrity and honesty of people like Peggoty and Ham, the innocence of Mr. Dick, the eccentric but generous Micawbers and David’s no-nonsense but good-at-heart Aunt, Betsy Trotwood. When the world has cast little David out time and time again, she takes him in and in a brief farewell as he goes off to a school she found to further his education, gives him this advice: 

 

“Never be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel.”

 

The three things that our false, mean, cruel President and all his supporters and enablers have failed time and time again, without an ounce of shame, hesitation or remorse. Ms. Trotwood adds: 

 

“Avoid these three vices and I can always be hopeful of you.”

 

So with some seven million people who took to the streets the other day to renew their determination to help heal our broken democracy through the power of the upcoming vote, hope is again on the horizon. Dear reader, please make sure that you and your family and cousins and neighbors and fellow churchgoers, workmates, what have you, will vote to end the nightmare of purposeful cruelty, greed and hate and restore civility and justice to a world that can’t survive without it. 

 

Vote. 

The Unbroken World

I, like most everyone on all sides of the political/ cultural spectrum, spend a lot of time thinking about, writing about, talking about, what’s wrong with this world. But it’s a good exercise for us all to pause and spend a little time thinking about what’s right. What works and is mostly dependable. 

 

For example, yesterday I woke up in a hotel room where the water in the sink ran, the water in the shower was hot, the lights came on and off as needed and the wi-fi allowed me to write an e-mail or check the weather. I got dressed in clothes that were neither ragged nor torn and the perfect warmth for the outside temperature. 

 

I walked to a breakfast place that offered the food I needed and a cup of coffee to help with jet lag. They wouldn’t take my cash money, but my credit card worked just fine. I walked to the school where I was to teach with help from my phone’s GPS and when there was a moment or two of confusion (my fault), I asked actual people on the street for help with directions and they happily gave it to me. 

 

The people I expected to greet me at the school showed up and greeted me at the school. The 20 people who has signed up for the workshop all arrived. The instruments I needed were all in place and the Bluetooth connection to the sound system worked when I needed it. Everyone joyfully participated in the class as I expected they would and when I spoke strongly and clearly about difficult subjects like racism, misogyny and unchecked capitalism, no one shouted me down or beat me up or called the police to come cart me away. There was a sink in the bathroom with a stuck faucet that kept water running, but with a little manipulation with a fork, two of us managed to kind of fix it for the moment. 

 

My friend who was sick yesterday and couldn’t join me for that workshop was better today and was able to come to the afternoon workshop. People bought almost all the books I had brought from home and when they didn’t have the cash for them, were able to pay me through Paypal. 

 

Going out to dinner with my friend and her husband, the Oyster card got me both on the bus going and into the London Underground returning home. We were first in line at the pick-up-a-tray-and-choose-your- dinner at Govinda Indian restaurant and felt lucky when we sat down to ate and the line suddenly was up to twenty-people-long. Thinking about dessert after dinner and me mentioning ice cream, my friends’ phone found the perfect gelato place a mere three blocks away and the hazelnut/chocolate scoop on the sugar cone was even better than I hoped for.

 

After a fond farewell and subway ride to Ealing-Broadway Station, I passed a place where I thought I might be able to buy the train ticket to Stansted Airport the next day. Indeed, I could and the helpful man gave me the train timetable (which this morning proved to be 100% reliable) and the ticket (which worked this morning). 

Walking back from the tube stop to the hotel, it started to rain and the umbrella I brought opened up without a problem and kept me dry for the 10-minute walk. The key to my hotel room worked, the bed was still there awaiting me and with the help of my eyeglasses, I was able to read my David Copperfield before dropping off to a well-earned sleep. 

 

Noticing how many people in the Dickens book were so unnecessarily cruel to 10-year-old David, I gave thanks that walking the streets of London, nobody had scowled at me, yelled at me, bumped into me, threatened me, robbed me, beaten me up, pointed a gun at me. Nobody all day screamed at me when they found out I was American (thought they might have had every reason to do so!). On the contrary, the people I asked for help, the baristas, the wait staff, the hotel clerks, the folks in the elevator with me and certainly the beautiful souls in the workshop who so deeply appreciated the joyful world we created together, were without exception friendly, smiling and affable. 

 

In short, the world was wholly functioning, pleasant, delightful— and everything worked. Imagine that!

PS What worked in your world today?