Renewal

It is 10 pm at the end of a most remarkable day. Every cell in my body is radiating happiness and I feel like a prisoner long confined suddenly released into a bright and radiant resplendent world. After a mere few days of a jet-lagged body struck down by dizziness and vomiting and always aching hip and a pretty good Day 3, but still light-headed and not wholly myself, some part of me couldn’t remember what it’s like to feel normal, never mind feel embraced by a loving world. And part of me convinced myself that it didn’t matter. I could still teach from the depth of my soul and make others happy. The Spirit was shining brightly in spite of the shadow of ill-health in the body. 

 

But who was I kidding? Today I felt the moment when the astral body reconnected wholly with the physical body, that “poof!” when jet-lag finally disappears. My lightheadedness was mostly gone, the pressure in my ear eased, my hip pain mysteriously disappeared for a while and suddenly, I felt the bliss of an integrated happy body, felt it down to my bones and though from the outside, perhaps my teaching looked the same, from the inside I felt the full joy of each activity. I could feel my humor (and humors) flowing and the deeper connection with both the group and each person in it. It was a most marvelous day, starting with a fun preschool movement activity, into a partner clapping game that I extended to a social mixer, with all the buzzing energy that releases. Then four exquisite pieces of music connected by the five notes of the G pentatonic scale and played so expertly and enthusiastically by the group, with so many still trying new instruments and taking their first solos. 

 

The day included a Singing Time with yet more stirring protest songs sung beautifully and passionately, yet one more delightful piece bouncing between the two life-giving grooves of swing jazz and Latin style, complete with a unique duet between garklein recorder (quite high) and bass clarinet (quite low). Somewhere in there I read a letter one of my former students wrote that had me yet again publicly tearing up (that’s “tearing” as in tears, not ripping paper!) and ended the day’s class with videos from my SF Jazz Performance with my band and two students from the SF School. That’s a lot of territory to cover in one day!

 

But it got better. Teaching in a windowless theater during four days of constant rain and overcast skies and chilly temperatures, it was yet another feeling of a prison break-out when we walked out into sunny skies with a perfect 70’s temperature and walked two blocks down to a beautiful beach. That astounding sense that there’s a world out there and walking the beach with water to my ankles (didn’t have my bathing suit), I felt the infusion of ozone, the lull of the gentle waves, the blue sky and people drawn to nature for refreshment. Add to that a Greek dinner (Greek salad and chicken souvlaki) in company with the convivial jazz course students and minus all negative associations with the term, the words “born again” came to mind.

 

But yet more. I then gave a 90-minute solo piano concert to the students and some of their family members and by the end, I was feeling the whole vibrations of the beautiful Steinway piano and found myself entering unexpectedly eloquent excursions based on already-great tunes. Some moments of room silence where we all could feel something was afoot here. Back to my hosts’ house for a game of King’s Corner and Triangular Dominoes and the sweet sensation that “it doesn’t get much better than this.”

 

I confess that the past couple of days were an unwelcome reminder of the body’s mortality and slide into decay, but having gone down that dark road, the blessing of today was especially vibrant and has my fullest measure of gratitude. One day left tomorrow, then off to Taipei the next day and instead of the dread of not being up for the work ahead, renewed confidence that I cannot only do it, but actually be present to enjoy it all.

 

May it be so!