Keep Moving

I’m re-reading Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible and impressed yet again by her writing. It’s not a fun or easy book by any stretch of the imagination, but through her powerful and poetic words, you can palpably feel her strength and courage in meeting life’s most extreme sufferings head on. It’s the story of a family brought by their religiously fanatic missionary father to the Congo in the 1960’s. Finally gathering the gumption to leave her husband Nathan and save her children in the midst of war, the character of Orleanna writes:

 

“Nathan was something that had happened to us, as devastating in its way at the burning roof that fell on the family Mwanza; with our fate scarred by hell and brimstone we still had to track our course. And it happened finally by the grace of hell and brimstone that I had to keep moving. I moved and he stood still. 

 

But his kind will always lose in the end. I know this, and I know why. Whether it’s wife or nation they occupy, their mistake is the same; they stand still and their stake moves underneath them. Chains rattle, rivers roll, animals startle and bolt, forests inspire and expand, babies stretch open-mouthed from the womb, new seedlings arch their necks and creep forward into the light. Even a language won’t stand still. A territory is only possessed for a moment in time. They stake everything on that moment posing for photographs while planting the flag casting themselves in bronze. Washington crossing the Delaware. The capture of Okinawa. They’re desperate to hang on.

 

But they can’t. Even before the flagpole begins to peel and splinter, the ground underneath arches and slides forward into its own new destiny. It may bear the marks of boots on its back, but those marks become the possessions of the land. …Forbidden to make engines of war, Japan made automobiles instead and won the world. It all moves on. The great Delaware rolls on while Mr. Washington himself is no longer even what you’d call good compost. The Congo River, being of a different temperament, drowned most of its conquerors. In Congo a slashed jungle quickly becomes a field of flowers.…”

 

Potent words, compelling images, fierce hopes that the fanatics will lose in the end. Trying to roll the river back and make their nation “great again” by returning to the hellish brimstone that burned the lives of the innocent while they sipped mint juleps on the front porch, their “victories” are destined for failure. Hard to imagine that now, when they seem to have risen up again endorsed by those who choose stagnation over the future we deserve. But a crumb of comfort to imagine that in the larger picture, they will be out of the frame. As Gandhi once said:

 

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”

 

It would be easy to be frozen in fear and perpetual disbelief, but the advice is clear: Keep moving. 

 

And that I will. Starting with a post-Thanksgiving hike with my grandchildren.

The Joys of Portland

I believed I passed through Portland for the first time somewhere around 1977 and remember being impressed by it then. In 1982, the city hosted the second of 42 Orff Conferences to come and it was a most memorable time. A decade or so later, I started giving workshops through the Portland Orff Chapter, many at the Catlin Gabel School and again, I was mightily impressed by the charm and character of that school, the people, the city. By that time, several old college friends had moved there and that gave a special edge to each visit. More and more folks moved up that way— a cousin’s son, my nephew and then 10 years ago, my daughter, husband and granddaughter Zadie. The joy of seeing them all was always connected with the others pleasures of this unique American city. 

 

Here we are again for Thanksgiving festivities, about to have our second dinner in a row with my sister and husband nephew and his kids, my daughter, wife and two grandchildren. And once again, after a lovely walk on Mt. Tabor, I’m struck with the things that make Portland different from San Francisco and a delight to visit. Without even thinking about it, I’m setting myself the task of naming ten of them. Wish me luck!

 

1)   Fall leaves. Also snow and hot summers. 

2)   Beautiful parks. Larger, more rustic, bigger trees than S.F.

3)   Town feeling with front and back yards and unique houses.

4)  Powell’s bookstore! Top of the line.

5)  Mt. Hood in the distance. Well, when the clouds clear.

6)  Kennedy School. An elementary school converted to a hotel. Blackboards in the room, movies in the auditorium, etc. Delightful!

7)  Restaurants. Lots of them. San Francisco too, but apparently Portland’s are attracting attention in the culinary world. And cheaper.

8)  Neighborhood movie theaters. Off to see Wicked at one today.

9)   Black Lives Matter signs. Lots of them. And the longer versions of welcoming all people.

10)                 Cheap gas.  $2.95 compared to SF’s $4.95. And still attendants who will pump it for you!

 

Of course, there’s more differences and other less positive attributes— less diversity, perhaps more homelessness, further from the ocean, less jazz clubs and such, but all in all, it’s a delightful place to visit and a most livable place to live. Today off to a nearby gorge for a healthy post-feasting hike. 

The Miracle Worker

Out of the thousand things I learned teaching for 45 years at The San Francisco School, one was my bird’s eye view of human growth, promise, potential. I’ve witnessed it all. Working with the same kids for 11 years gave me a lot of insight.  Fabulous 3-year-olds who went on to become fabulous 8^th-graders and grew into fabulous adults. (My first students are now 60 years old and I’ve kept in touch with many, so that’s a real testimony.) I’ve also seen fabulous 3-year-olds end up struggling mightily in middle school, difficult 3-year olds blossom into fabulous 8^th graders, wonderful kids the full eleven years have melt-downs in high school, difficult kids the full eleven years blossoming into wonderful adults. In the midst of all these variation, there was the abiding  sense that a school that valued kids, welcomed them, gave them the love, attention, information and skills they deeply need, made a lifelong impact on their lives. It made a difference. 

 

But it was no guarantee. School was just one part of the kids’ lives. There were so many other influences—family at the top of the list, but also peers, genetics, inherited blessings and trauma, circumstances— that you never can quite predict how things will go. Why can one kid struggle with small and large traumas and come out the other side more compassionate, more aware, more loving and another be beaten down by it all?  Let’s face it—the complexity of human beings, the extraordinary number of possible connections in the human brain, the myriad ways the human brain and human heart can disconnect, the utter unpredictably of human beings —more pronounced now than ever before in the age of anxiety, disinformation, purposeful misinformation, makes the idea of nurturing communities as salvation more unreliable than ever before. 

 

As noted in my recent post, the happy fantasy of Scrooge’s utter transformation has felt more recently like the territory of fiction and fairy tales than real life. People get stuck in their issues and simply never change.

 

But yesterday’s Thanksgiving gathering made me pause yet again and consider. The details are important, fascinating and essential to the story, but it’s simply too much for a short blog post. But the shortest story is that I have a step-grandson who was a fun 8-year-old when I first met him and as a teenager, went down some dark rabbit holes into toxic places from which it seemed he would never escape. (To give just one example in this extraordinary story, he is a mixed-race kid who joined the Proud Boys!). I hadn’t seen him for the last five years, only hearing the stories from my daughter and her husband of him buying a gun, getting fired from job after job and now moving back from Portland to Rhode Island with his pregnant girlfriend who he has dated for one year with no job waiting for him there.

 

But recently my daughter had made some good re-connections with him and invited him and his girlfriend to our Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. In a few short hours, he blew my world open and restored my faith in human transformation. The high level of his conversation, the reading he had been doing, his shared vision of a more human-centered urban planning, his extraordinary deep insight into his Dad’s current re-surfacing of old traumas, his passion for ideas, his gentleness and honesty— I was simply astonished. Perhaps at 25 years old, he just needed his frontal lobes to develop. 

 

My step-grandson’s name is Alijah and so I looked up his namesake from the Bible, Elijah. Turns out he was a prophet and a miracle worker. His miracles were things like causing and then ending a drought, multiplying flour and oil for a widow and raising her son from the dead, killing 102 soldiers with fire and lightning. Ho hum. Same old same old and so much less interesting to me than the miraculous transformation of the present-day Alijah. 

 

Not to overstate the case. Like us all, but more than most, Alijah has his own issues to sort through and coming back into fatherhood in a place that hasn’t always supported his best self and back to a Mom who likewise has often fallen short will not be easy. But I rarely have been so impressed by someone ready to use his struggles to enlarge his soul. There’s so much more to say about it, but for here and for now, it’s enough to report that everything the poets and depth psychologists and spiritual traditions have told us is true— that our pain and suffering, used rightly, is the window to our joy and liberation. On that Thanksgiving Day, that gift of remembrance received the full measure of my gratitude.

Hole-Whole-Holy

One of the catchwords in progressive education is cultivating the “whole” child. It is a way to acknowledge that traditional education is too narrow if limited to the 3R’s plus football. When Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences came forth in the 1980’s, it affirmed the intuition that there are many ways to be intelligent and school would do well to cultivate them all. 

 

At the school I had the grand pleasure of working at for almost half-a-century, indeed, we did. Kids rarely went through a day without calling forth their musical, visual-spatial, kinesthetic, linguistic, mathematical intelligences, social-emotional, intrapersonal skills, not only in the classes that highlighted them—Music, Art, P.E., Language Arts, Math and Science, morning circle—but in the way each one was woven into the other. 

 

Music, for example, included the visual-spatial designs of folk dances and movement choreography, the kinesthetics of dance and instrumental technique, the use of speech pieces, chants, rhymes, poetry and song, the inherit mathematical structures of every aspect of music—4/4 time, quart and eighth notes, 60 beats per second of Adagio tempo and 120 of Allegro, perfect 5ths, major 3rds, whole and half steps, I, IV and V chords, 440 =A tuning and yet more. The social-emotional demands of playing in an ensemble, dancing in a circle, playing clapping games with partners where musical harmony depends upon social harmony, make the inspired music class one of the strongest trainings in interpersonal connection. The opportunity to stand out and express one’s unique thoughts and feelings through solos, to feel so many nuanced shades of feeling acknowledged and expressed by diverse musical styles, cultures and composers, is a fine training ground for intrapersonal awareness and intelligence. You get the idea.

 

Wholeness is a good thing. Not only cultivating the vast possibilities of the human mind, body, heart and spirit, but feeling how they all are woven together, holding hands in the dancing circle of our capacity for beauty and communion. 

 

These thoughts about wholeness were sparked from Michael Meade’s Thanksgiving post about gratitude: 

 

In a world of radical changes, extreme beliefs and lost hopes we have to find moments of wholeness that can keep our hears open and ease our minds. The need to be touched by grace and feel the underlying holiness of life is at the root of many healing traditions as “to heal” means to “make whole again.”

 

So when we take seriously the idea of nurturing the whole child, school becomes a place of healing, a holy place born from practice, not dogma. We have fallen into a hole or ostrich-like, have buried our head in one, a place where we feel stuck, in the dark, unable to move, with limited options.That’s the signal to move from hole to whole to holy.

 

Meade goes on to say that “Practices of giving thanks are intended to bring a sense of wholeness that often goes missing in the world.”  In another etymological playground, gratitude is connected to grace and gracious. 

 

So just this short reflection on Thanksgiving Day, a renewal of vows to restore wholeness in all places—our own lives, our country, our schools— and bring genuine gratitude and grace into our local and national conversations.

 

Please pass the potatoes. 

On the Occasion of My Daughter’s 40th Birthday

40 years ago to the day, in this same bed in which I now awake, in this same room, in this same house, you announced “Look out, World! Here I come!” Who could have imagined back then the young woman—well, middle-aged woman— you would become! I couldn’t be happier, prouder or more inspired by who you have been, who you are now and who you are yet to be. We have traveled together, played jazz, recorder duets and Orff instruments together, taught together at the same school, backpacked together, shared poetry together, sung together, danced together, played game after game together, cooked together, laughed together, cried together— one delight after another and all a father could have asked for. How to properly mark this occasion? 

 

The poet David Whyte wrote a book called The Three Marriages and named them: WORK/ SELF/ OTHER. I think this is a good way to summarize your 40 years of life on the planet. As follows:

 

WORK

“Happiness in our marriage with work is possible only through seeing it in a greater context that surviving the everyday. We must have a relationship with our work that is larger than any individual job description we are given. A real work, like a real person, grows and changes and surprises us, asking us constantly for recommitment and renewal of vows.”

 

You were born to teach and I’ve rarely met someone so dedicated, so willing to go light years beyond the norm to serve the children you teach. The outward commitments like the walk to school, the poetry night, the camping trip, the summer letters, the messages from Kermie, the summer GG Park camp and yet more and yet more and yet more, is so far beyond what 99.9 % of teachers do that it is simply breathtaking. And the inward commitment, to help your children see the best in themselves because you see the best in them, the way you hold them in your heart 24/7, is equally stunning. The harder you work, the more fulfilling this marriage is and I hope you never take for granted how rare this is, how many people hate their work or just put up with it or enjoy it somewhat but never go beyond the expected. And equally that you know that I know that it requires sacrifice and relentless hard, hard work and I admire you no end for your willingness to do it. 

 

SELF

“This marriage is the internal marriage to that tricky movable frontier called ourselves. As suggested by all of our great contemplative traditions, this requires some measure of silence amid the noise and haste to bring this all-seeing identity to live and find its voice inside of us.”

 

Here again you are hard at work to create that space and silence for yourself in the form of camping, hiking, running, all in company with that most dependable of spouses, the natural world. Yet again, you never do things casually. You run whole marathons— lots of them!— go camping almost every weekend and sometimes in the snow and amidst flooding rivers! All that work to pack and re-pack the backpack, shop for and prepare all the food, hoist it all on your shoulders and set off to meet your beloved— far beyond any norm. And yet again, relentless hard work that pays you back with the silence and solace of trees, lakes, chipmunks, a night sky filled with stars, all inroads to your own sense of belonging to something larger than your working self, strumming the strings of your inner beauty through immersion in outer beauty. And then writing about it— a poem, a prose piece— to further celebrate the self that becomes Self. To give the same quality of attention and commitment to your own self that you give to others, to find your way to a healthy conversation and balance between the two, be married to both without contradiction— again, that is rare and worthy of great celebration. 

 

OTHER

I, too, have been lucky to cultivate both love of work and sense of a larger Self, but have had to accept that in the third marriage, the one to a person, I have not been so fortunate as to find a true Soulmate. I love your mother and I believe she loves me and we’ve found a way to live a life together, but it’s no surprise for you to hear that is not a marriage made in heaven that is brimming over with Love at its highest and deepest. And it hurt my heart that it seemed that this third marriage, this conventional marriage to another, seemed destined never to be for you. As with myself, I consoled myself with “Well, 2 out of 3 ain’t bad” and in fact, in a world where so many have 1 for 3 or none for 3, that’s true! But still, I hoped for more. David Whyte writes: 

 

“ A single person may run a thousand miles from the possibilities of marriage, glorying in self-determination. Yet there is almost always a corner of the young imagination reserved for the man or woman who will bring all this wonderful self-determination to a new conclusion. There are those strong characters who will never marry because they never find the outer representation of their inner hopes and they refuse anything less.”

 

That might have been you. But then along came Matt. 

 

Of course, I know nothing about what’s really going on between you two or within each of you. But from the outside, it sure looks like you are each other’s soulmates. Relationship is never a check-list of things you share in common, but it does help and there are so many! Camping, teaching, loving kids, physical exercise, games of all sorts, reading, humor and more—it’s a long list!

 

From where I sit, it feels like you’re 3 for 3! Of course, this will take as much work as the other two, but you have never shied away from that passionate commitment and willingness to work, so I imagine you will bring those qualities to this marriage (whether or not an official marriage) as you do to the other two. And for the same reason— that it brings you all the happiness you deserve. Which is THIS MUCH!!!! (Imagine my stick figure with outstretched arms to the edge of the page.)

 

So on the occasion of your 40^th (!!!!) birthday, this my attempt to capture a little bit of everything I admire about you, everything that makes me proud to be your father, everything I wish for you, everything that gives me hope for the world to come, all of which adds up to: I love you!!! 

Ceasefire

Today the gentle winter rains have come and I’m buried in stacks of old Orff Echo magazines searching for articles and certain ads from the past 30 years or so. A little documentation project, dipping back into a world I’ve inhabited for decades. So interesting to see photos of some of the people I just re-connected with at the recent Conference looking oh, so young! In some ways, alluringly attractive, in others, not the fuller seasoning of our more aged faces. 

 

Pausing for lunch, I noticed that I feel released and relaxed in a way I haven’t for awhile. As if some toxic poisons have been flushed from my system and I’m back in the full presence of whatever this moment offers. The glistening leaves of the tree outside my window, the soothing sounds of Frank Sinatra singing the Jobim songbook, the little pleasure of a bit of cold brew coffee with oat milk. How did this happen?

 

The answer is simple. I’ve been a full two weeks away from even the tiniest snippet of news, a welcome respite from seeing that face or even hearing the name—well, many faces and many names. We have convinced ourselves that we must “keep up with the news” but are not wholly aware how much wear and tear it is on our tender psyches. A constant assault on our brain stem, releasing some of the chemicals that we need for real emergencies, but like a non-stop drip that never stops when the danger is passed because the danger is never passed on our 24/7 news. We were not built to withstand this kind of relentless attack, to live in perpetual fear. It feeds our anxiety, our cynicism, puts us in a survival mode and why? So some people can prey on us for their own power and greed while they’re drinking martinis on their super-yachts.

 

I heard a story of a politically liberal man who spent a few weeks in the hospital where the only thing on TV was Fox News. When he came out, having been given that steady intravenous drip of propaganda, his political views had changed overnight. It took a few weeks of a no-news de-tox program for him to come to his senses again. That’s a powerful story. 

 

But it’s not only the purposeful misinformation and disinformation on Fox News and social media. Even the groups and people I wholly support in their views of social justice keep lifting my hopes up with their false claims of “Dropped the hammer! This changes everything! Supreme Court miracle!!” and then dashing them down. It’s yet another toxicity to the system. 

 

And so to restore some sense of sanity and civility, I propose a one-month cease-fire for the entire month of December. No news reported except weather and cultural events. Even leave out sports so you’re not bummed out when your team loses. Neighborhood support systems to come up with fun alternatives and listening ears when you’re shaking from cold turkey withdrawal (don’t worry—it will pass soon.). First pass a law that no new laws can be passed during that month—otherwise, the power-mad will have a field day knowing no one knows what they’re doing. 

 

Then in January, re-convene from our new perspective and get to work, putting up guard rails against purposeful mis-and dis-information. Fining news agencies that break agreements, removing people from social media who transgress, returning to the 6 o-clock news and shut down the 24 hour madness. Most importantly, training people to make intelligent critical analysis of what’s reliable and what’s not and train all of us to break our addiction to the news out there and pay more attention to the news right here. What you see out your window, what you feel inside of yourself, what is going on at your school or workplace. 

 

Of course, no one will take this seriously, but why not? Nothing else is working and there’s ample evidence that we are in the throes of some serious destructive behaviors both caused and pumped up by the media. We have nothing to lose but our stress, anxiety, fear and hopelessness. I’m here to testify. My little two-week withdrawal is cleansing my system and it’s a wonderful feeling. 

 

Think about it. 

Acceptance and Change

 

I posted my Five Stages blogpost (see Nov. 14) on Facebook and a few people commented that they couldn’t imagine ever getting to “acceptance.” Here was my response.

 

I know exactly what you mean. But in this case, I think “acceptance” means something different. The St. Francis prayer suggests that "To accept that which I cannot change" is indeed the right response to our own mortality and the inevitable loss of everything and everyone we hold dear. I think it also applies to our wishes to change people— friends, spouses, children. We can help them, but if they’re not doing the work to change themselves, it can’t be done. I think it also applies to certain parts of ourselves that though we feel them as problematic, are so intimately tied to our fundamental character and necessary to our particular genius that it is better to finally accept them. 

 

But Angela Davis’ reversal of the above rings equally true: "To change that which I cannot accept." When it's human foibles and intentional manipulation and manufactured lies and ignorance, it could be at least somewhat in our power to help change that. So I think acceptance in this case is not throwing up our hands and saying "Oh well, you can't fight City hall" and more moving from our outrage and helplessness to considering what we CAN to do help affect that change. To accept that we can't do as much as we would wish for, but we can do SOMETHING. 

 

These blogposts are part of my “something.” I wish you all the best with yours.

Retired Again

The heavy winter rains have come and gone, my glorious week at school finished and I’m retired again. Until January, at least, when multiple courses in Brazil await me. Took a 5-mile walk yesterday and that was lovely to get back into roaming through this lovely city. One of retirement’s perks not available in the same way in the 9-5, five-day work week. My exercise at school consisted of trying to show 4-year-olds how to do the crabwalk— a bit more of a challenge at 73 years old than it used to be! (But hey, I kind of did it!)

 

What lies ahead? Visiting the grandkids in Portland, where we haven’t been for 6 months or so. Thanksgiving without my daughter Talia, who is off in the mountains with friends celebrating her 40^th(!!) birthday. Recording more episodes of my new Podcast. (Today I did Episode 4— C is for Character.) Playing piano at the Jewish Home, the Redwoods (also for Senior Living), the SIP Tea Room. Getting a wisdom tooth pulled and seeing a Physical Therapist for exercises related to my vestibular peripheral issue. 

 

When the rains start again, I’m prepared with a new jigsaw puzzle I bought yesterday. (Been a while since I’ve done that!). Continuing to listen to Audible books (just finished The Life Impossible and starting on The Senator’s Wife) and reading books (re-reading Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible and then back to Dostoevsky’s The Idiot) Continuing on my project to re-memorize some 300 jazz standards on the piano, with new-found attention to the fine songs of Lerner and Loewe. And alongside the perpetual Bach, exploring pianistic versions of opera arias. Also the nightly TV viewing, Grantchester at the moment. 

 

The horror receding a little bit further into the background, with four or more weird dreams with him-who-shall-not-be-named appearing and actually being friendly and affable and kind. Sad to say that one piece of incontrovertible wisdom I can claim in my advancing years is that it is extremely rare for people with either a lifetime of unchosen trauma or a habitual choice to be their worst selves to suddenly change. Dicken’s Scrooge gave me hope that this might be so, but in real life, who amongst us has witnessed it? Seen someone suddenly give up on being nasty and mean and hurtful and ask for forgiveness from others and from their own former self. Vow to live an entirely different kind of life and be washed clean by the epiphanic waters of love and redemption. If you know someone like that, I’d like to meet them.

 

Part of the wisdom is for us to stop waiting for it, to stop thinking that we can be the agent of change for another, to re-direct that energy to our own need to be yet kinder and more forgiving and more accepting to others and to ourselves. That is within our grasp and that level of growth is indeed something I’ve witnessed both in myself and others. 

 

If nothing else, it’s a good retirement project. Kind of like fitting together the jigsaw puzzle pieces of our sometimes scattered or broken apart life and piece by piece, revealing the beautiful image of who we were meant to be. 

 

Onward! 

Bodhisattva Bus Driver

But if somehow you could pack up your sorrows, and give them all to me,
You would lose them, I know how to use them, give them all to me.

–      Song by Richard and Mimi Fariña

 

 In Buddhism, the Bodhisattva is the self-realized seeker who is liberated from the karmic wheel of birth and death, but chooses to return to the earthly life to help liberate other human beings. They are not necessarily giant spiritual figures or saints or Buddhist teachers but might walk amongst us invisibly quietly doing their work. They might be an elementary schoolteacher or a gardener or— a bus driver. 

 

So still looking for the stories I need in this moment of time, the stories we all need, I thank Theresa Walker for posting this exquisite piece on Facebook by Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray and Love fame. It is another take on the starfish story offered a few posts back, but even yet more poignant because this (I think) really happened! Imagine the song above as the soundtrack to the story.

 

“Some years ago, I was stuck on a crosstown bus in New York City during rush hour. Traffic was barely moving. The bus was filled with cold, tired people who were deeply irritated with one another, with the world itself. Two men barked at each other about a shove that might or might not have been intentional. A pregnant woman got on, and nobody offered her a seat. Rage was in the air; no mercy would be found here.

But as the bus approached Seventh Avenue, the driver got on the intercom. "Folks," he said, "I know you have had a rough day and you are frustrated. I can't do anything about the weather or traffic, but here is what I can do. As each one of you gets off the bus, I will reach out my hand to you. As you walk by, drop your troubles into the palm of my hand, okay? Don't take your problems home to your families tonight, just leave them with me. My route goes right by the Hudson River, and when I drive by there later, I will open the window and throw your troubles in the water."

 

It was as if a spell had lifted. Everyone burst out laughing. Faces gleamed with surprised delight. People who had been pretending for the past hour not to notice each other's existence were suddenly grinning at each other like, is this guy serious?

 

Oh, he was serious.

 

At the next stop, just as promised, the driver reached out his hand, palm up, and waited. One by one, all the exiting commuters placed their hand just above his and mimed the gesture of dropping something into his palm. Some people laughed as they did this, some teared up but everyone did it. 

 

The driver repeated the same lovely ritual at the next stop, too. And the next. All the way to the river.

 

We live in a hard world, my friends. Sometimes it is extra difficult to be a human being. Sometimes you have a bad day. Sometimes you have a bad day that lasts for several years. You struggle and fail. You lose jobs, money, friends, faith, and love. You witness horrible events unfolding in the news, and you become fearful and withdrawn. There are times when everything seems cloaked in darkness. You long for the light but don't know where to find it.

 

But what if you are the light? What if you are the very agent of illumination that a dark situation begs for?. That's what this bus driver taught me, that anyone can be the light, at any moment. This guy wasn't some big power player. He wasn't a spiritual leader. He wasn't some media-savvy influencer. He was a bus driver, one of society's most invisible workers. But he possessed real power, and he used it beautifully for our benefit.

 

When life feels especially grim, or when I feel particularly powerless in the face of the world's troubles, I think of this man and ask myself, What can I do, right now, to be the light? Of course, I can't personally end all wars, or solve global warming, or transform vexing people into entirely different creatures. I definitely can't control traffic. But I do have some influence on everyone I brush up against, even if we never speak or learn each other's name. 

 

No matter who you are, or where you are, or how mundane or tough your situation may seem, I believe you can illuminate your world. In fact, I believe this is the only way the world will ever be illuminated, one bright act of grace at a time, all the way to the river."

~ Elizabeth Gilbert. 

Apple Pan Dowdy

 

It was the most lovely week teaching again at the old school. First off, the sense that I am so far from done teaching kids, as evidenced by all the new ideas for classes or variations of old ideas. Here I was playing Old King Glory with the 4-year olds, a game I’ve played more than any other for almost 50 years, and I spontaneously came up with a new variation that was fabulous. Same with variations of the Tic Tac Toe game, alongside the pleasure of teaching a completely new piece to 7^th graders (as noted before, Anitra’s Dance) and coming up with new variations of activities that fit together in my 3^rd grade classes. I made up a new blues riff to fold into the 8^th grade Blue Rondo a La Turk and new combinations of familiar body percussion patterns with 6^th grade. All clear signs from the universe that I’m not only still in the game but also moving upwards approaching my peak. 

 

Secondly, was the grand pleasure of teaching kids so well prepared to play, sing and dance, with great energy, enthusiasm, musicality, fearlessness and dance skills, thanks both to the ongoing stellar work of colleagues James and Sofia and those 50 years of energy behind the next day’s class. Besides the musical pleasure, it was so satisfying to re-connect with the Middle School kids I had taught when they were 3, 5 and 7, to meet new kids as if we were old friends, to feel the preschoolers I had just met greeting me boisterously after three days when I walked down the hall.

 

But there was more. That sense of continuity that is so rare, the 101 combined years of teaching that my wife Karen (42 years), daughter Talia (14 years) and I (45 years) have enjoyed at the school. This is the place were both my daughters went for 11 years each, where two of my nephews went for 3 and 7 years, and where so many teacher colleagues and parents became lifelong friends. A place where a remarkable array of remarkable human beings came to see what we were doing and left uplifted and impressed— Bobby McFerrin, Milt Jackson, Stefon Harris, Herlin Riley, Melba Beals and Minnie Jean Trickey (of the Little Rock Nine), Tibetan monks, Baka pygmies, Bulgarian bands, Aztec dancers and many, many more. A place where three inspired Orff teachers (James, Sofia and myself) shared their work together for some 25-30 years, attracting another Who’s Who list of famous Orff teachers from around the world. 

 

The school now has eight teachers who were all students I taught and all of them doing inspired work, keeping the thread of school tradition still woven firmly into the cloth while adding new colors and textures. Indeed, there was an Elementary School Town Meeting that was so impressive in the way it made clear to the young ones at their level what it means to be a good community member, a good friend, a good student, a good human being. In its 58^th year, the school could have easily gone off the rails of its original vision and lost its character and believe me, there were times when it was close. But now all seems back on track and evolving yet further down the line. 

 

Today was Grandparent’s Day and after spending the week teaching the grandchildren of various beloved teacher colleagues and the children of various beloved alum students, many of them came back to witness the Blue Rondo and other performances and I got to sit in on my daughter’s class, so impressed and proud at what she shared with the grandparents and how. 

I am fully aware that adding all these things together— and many other qualities and stories that would take many more paragraphs to tell— is not normal. In a world of constant chaotic and random change, of the current trend of going backwards into de-volving, in setting up obstacles to human growth and communion and happiness, this is indeed an oasis in a life-threatening desert. The hot lunch program that is still going has one weird twist where there are always dates put out and perhaps it’s a subconscious way to remind us of the date palm tree in that desert oasis. 

 

And speaking of food, James and I sang the old jazz song Shoo Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy and then James told the story about how a student named Carter came back the day after we sang that song so many years ago and presented us with Shoo Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy that his parents made. Sure enough, yesterday we found a bag in the music room with three portions of apple pan dowdy that 4^thgrade Celina made for James, Sofia and myself. This level of attention and kindness and generosity and appreciation that the school cultivates is an alternate universe to what the clown car of public figures in power offer to us with their mean-spiritedness, greed, indifference to decency and kindness. 

 

I, for one, am grateful. May The San Francisco School and all like-minded and large-hearted schools and institutions continue to prosper forever!

PS I see I repeat myself, having mentioned some of this in the Lobster post. Oh well. It's worth repeating!

Morning Visitors

THE GUEST HOUSE

 

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival. 

 

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

 

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture, 

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

For some new delight.

 

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing

and invite them in. 

 

Be grateful for whoever comes, 

Because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond. 

 

                                                            -Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)

 

Isn’t it remarkable how someone can speak across 800 years and 10,000 miles to my present condition? Offer me a spiritual perspective on my post-election pain and suffering that puts it all in a larger context? Ask me to consider what feels like disaster as something else entirely? If not politically, at least personally? I can think of three cases where poets were invited to the political table to offer new vistas of the social landscape and contribute to the national discourse— W.B. Yeats in Ireland, Pablo Neruda in Chile and Vaclav Havel in Czech Republic. Here in the good old U.S.A., we could not be further from that possibility. Though Robert Frost, Maya Angelou and Amanda Gorman have spoken at Presidential Inaugurations and we have all been the better for it.

 

But this was not sent me to my bookshelf this morning to find this poem. These days, I have other morning visitors on the physical landscape of my body. Woke up with a charley horse in my calf and had to wonder “Why?” Not like I had run a marathon yesterday. These days, it feels like each morning another unwelcome guest has walked over my body— the vast field of my back aching in new and unexpected places, a stiff neck, a throbbing tooth, a mole suddenly appearing on my cheek (this one looks like it’s moved in permanently). 

I don’t believe these are the guests Rumi’s talking about, but maybe I need to meet them and greet them in the same way. Perhaps naïve to imagine that these are benevolent teachers sent from afar and accept that they’re simply the signs of the decay of this aging body, the signposts of mortality. But in any case, worth considering just meeting them with open arms, if nothing else because they are signs that I’m still here, alive, breathing and open to the gifts of the day. That’s something. 

 

And so I limp down the hall to make my morning oatmeal.