High School Reunion

Near the end of my mildly jet-lagged sleep cycle last night, I had a dream where I started naming all the kids in my high school class of 80. First name, last name, an image of who they were then 55 years ago. Without a yearbook in sight, I believe I remembered just about every one. What’s going on?

 

We all have these quirky gifts given to us for free. One can memorize numbers, another remember what people wore on a particular occasion, another sing all the lyrics to a few hundred songs and so on. They both shape our life and reflect some vital part of our character that requires that particular skill. Mine is to remember faces and names and since I’ve taught over a thousand kids at my school and another few thousand adults at my workshops, it somehow is a useful aptitude. I can see a photo of 4^th grade kids in the SF School from 1978 and name just about every one. And their parents. 

 

You would think that as I continue to meet new people, that I’d hit some wall beyond which there’s an overload and no room to remember even one more. But not so. That’s the mystery of the human mind, that no neuroscientist will ever clearly explain. 

 

Speaking of mysteries, what’s the point, o ye Freudians, in me going through a catalog of high school classmates a couple of hours before I meet 100 more people in Beijing, China, who I will teach for the next five days? Is there any connection there whatsoever? If you find it, let me know. 

 

Meanwhile, all I can say is that there is no part of my former high school self that ever could have imagined that I would end up halfway across the world (my fourth time here in the last 20 years) teaching Chinese music teachers new ways to consider making their music students happy. I do remember a person who seemed like a straight corporate businessman speaking at my high school graduation and quoting Robert Frost’s poem about “taking the road less traveled by.” I also remember thinking, “No you didn’t! You’re on the main highway of American culture and it definitely is not the road I will choose.”

 

And so it wasn’t. And that has made all the difference.  (8/19)