Still Traveling

This blog began as an ode to the unusual life of a traveling music teacher. Originally, the catch was seeing distant places through the lens of teaching music. In that first year alone, I taught in Korea, Japan, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Austria, Italy, Spain, England, Portugal and some 15 cities in the U.S. and Canada. Twelve years later, I’m blessed to continue those journeys. I leave in two days for Sydney, Australia, then Taipei, the Macau and the year’s calendar is filled with workshops and courses here, there and everywhere.

 

But it doesn’t matter if I cross the Pacific Ocean on a long 17-hour flight to work with eager music educators or walk 10 blocks to a local elementary school to sing with 1^st and 5^th graders. It’s all of one piece. And certainly the latter is healthier for the planet! And probably for me as well.

 

That’s exactly what I did today and as so often happens these days, each class was as fine a 45 minutes as one could hope for in any walk of life. With 1^st grade, I did my rhythmic lesson on the months to acknowledge the New Year, sang the song that brings it yet more vibrantly to life, told stories about how the months were named and had them up and dancing when their birthday month was sung. On to some songs for Martin Luther King day and at the end, suggested I might come back in February for Black History Month songs and Valentine’s Day songs.

 

One little girl’s eyes lit up and said, “I remember you came to Valentine’s Day last year and you let me sing a song!” “Do you remember what it was?” “Yes! You Are My Sunshine!” How remarkable that at her young age, she remembered that moment from a visit I made almost a year ago!

 

With 5^th grade, we also began with a short New Year’s round and went a bit deeper into the Martin Luther King Day repertoire. Free at Last, If I Had a Hammer, One Little Step Toward Freedom, Down by the Riverside, The Dream of Martin Luther King. Mostly new songs for them, but I know how to involve them singing parts of the lyrics and they did a great job, even learning a few little harmony parts. At the end, I ventured into new territory, singing We Shall Overcome with the guitar instead of piano (a first for me). I hadn’t gotten more than two phrases in when I felt my voice start to crack.

 

It seems to be common knowledge these days that our traumas are not one-time events that happen and then we can forget them. They lodge themselves into the very fabric of our being, sometimes as a cellular level and can be triggered into a full-blown re-appearance. Or at least a strong memory of their original appearance. 

 

In my experience, I think that not only our traumatic catastrophes are buried in the body, but our sublime moments as well. All those years singing We Shall Overcome with 200 kids and teachers standing hands crossed and joined filling the room with the power and beauty of this profound song. So simply singing it with some twenty kids was enough to release that cellular memory in me. At the end, I told them about those ceremonies at the school and how it was a little game to see exactly when I would start to cry in front of them. Even telling the kids this story I could feel my voice crack and my eyes get moist. They sat there astonished that this grown male stranger would be so unashamedly vulnerable in front of a group of kids, but hey, that’s what I do. 

 

The traveling I try to capture in this blog is not just from one place to another into new and often unexplored territory in the physical world. It’s also about the way music can help us travel to new and exotic and comfortingly familiar territories in ourselves. No passport needed.

 

Now to get packing. And I will need my passport!