Full Circles

I began writing about this trip with a heartfelt praise to the Orff Institut, for all the way it has impacted my life and countless others. Near the end, the praise comes full circle. 

 

Though this was mostly to be a biking vacation and a nice change from travel/ teach Orff workshops arrangements, still the echoes of that latter work are everywhere in these last three weeks. Wonderful reunions with three Orff colleagues and three former students—Rodrigo Fernandes, Barbara Haselbach, Andrea Ostertag, Mandana Farsani, Tadeja Mraz Novak and yesterday, Samantha Mazziero. Every single one I met at the Orff Institut.

 

When I arrived in Muggia, I remembered that Samantha, a student in the 2003 Special Course, was from Trieste. I had crossed paths with her a few times since that course 21 years ago. The first time in Trieste in 2004, where I gave a workshop and met her family. The second I believe was in Lisbon at an International School Conference. Samantha had just started working at the Munich International School (and during the conference, I also got the news that my granddaughter Zadie was born!). I believe the last time was in 2017 at her school in Munich. 

 

Luckily, I still had her e-mail, so I wrote and told her we were nearby and wondered how she was, what’s she’s doing and where she is. Lo and behold, she’s back in Trieste teaching and enthusiastically encouraged me and the group to meet up with her the next day. 

 

So with the help of a nice ferry from Muggia to Trieste, that’s exactly what we did. Spent the morning lounging around our hotel’s giant pool, amble to the boat dock and spent an hour or so wandering around Trieste before meeting Samantha as the Central Square. Off we went, with her as our tour guide, learning much about this fascinating city in-between me catching up with her and all of us having a nice sit-down at a café. I showed her the photos on my phone of five other people from that 2003 course I had met again in the last 5 years, with news of others. This circle of community still dancing together in one way or another. 

 

After visiting a mini-Colosseum, a Serbian Orthodox church, a Greek Orthodox Church and running into a statue of James Joyce ( he lived there as an English teacher between 1904 and 1915 and wrote some of his early work there), it was time to go. We took the ferry back, had dinner (me my first pesto with pasta and grilled vegetables) and called it a day.

 

Connecting this amiable group with these friends throughout the trip has added a wonderful quality to the tourism, getting to speak with folks from inside the culture and all of them such great people. For me, a chance to re-connect and feel the power of the bonds that fellow Orff teachers form and that forever teacher-student connection with people I loved teaching and seemed to have an impact on as they developed their own teaching style.

 

These people are spread out all over the world, literally on every continent (minus Antarctica). There are not too many places I can think of going to where I don’t know someone that would be happy to meet at a café. That’s an extraordinary blessing.