Through the Eyes of Others

The most sensible thing I did on election day was to keep my phone turned off, the computer closed, the TV off. I went down to my basement and pulled out a box of old letters that I hadn’t looked at in the past 20 or 30 years. Such a pleasure to touch paper and smell the old sheaves and see card after card, letter after letter, filled with someone’s handwriting and all those “someones” loving friends, family, Orff students and colleagues, kids I taught. 

 

Mostly they were cards of appreciation and thank you’s for things we did together that touched them and helped them feel seen, known, appreciated and immersed in great fun and beauty. Included were some letters back in the days when that’s how we kept in touch, sharing the usual news of this, that or the other thing of a human daily life. I spent the morning sifting and sorting and allowing myself to soak in the bath of everything I had managed to do well, with artistry, passion and deep love. Included also were some reminders from both friends and strangers of things I said that confused or hurt them and all except the Mormon who objected to my considering all religions having something to teach, they were mostly right that I deserved a little loving critique. There were the touching birthday cards from my kids at all ages, from my wife and sister and from my father, who used the occasion to praise and bless the person I had become in ways he rarely could in live conversation. 

 

It was a healing tonic to read how my attempts to be a kind, caring and loving human being sometimes hit home and especially interesting to hear it spoken out loud in the eloquent words of others. Here are a few of the gems that continue to bring me some comfort in the aftermath of hatred’s victory yesterday and help me begin to get up from the floor and try again. These from music teachers who had taken a workshop with me:

 

“As I go back into the world to do my daily battle against mediocrity, I will be strengthened by the knowledge that I am not alone. You and your colleagues are stunning examples of what can be done with music in schools. I am uplifted by your example, your musicianship, your love of language and your dedication.”

 

“When I first met you in Madrid, you became part of what I had been looking for. Now I feel you have become a part of my base, of my place where I can come back to. A safe place, a safe person to trust in, someone close to travel with to previously unimagined lands. “

 

“There’s so many people who can sing and play and teach and just move nothing, I mean nothing. I have seen you do all that and at the end you deeply touch the people, it is the real thing.” (This part of re-written words to the tune One Note Samba— it goes with the bridge.)

 

“You made me go into depths that I had never experienced before. I especially want to thank you for being able to see me and understand me and advise me to go into theater. It was one of the best experiences of my whole life that I will forever carry in my mind and soul.”

 

“The author Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote: ‘If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” That idea of nurturing “spirit” before imposing “form” well describes what makes your teaching different from typical music classes. After your workshop, feeling my own spirit touched, I could see the future and it was beautiful.”

 

It has taken a lifetime to grow into the truth that my personal pronouns are “us/ we” and these letters have helped me remember. The beautiful future of that last testimony above seems out of reach at the moment, but it’s useful to remember that the future is created by each moment of the present. And my helplessness in not being able to reach the millions of voters in this strange land is balanced by the truth that we can only touch others one mind, one heart, one soul at a time. I have been blessed to have had the chance to do so and appreciative of all those who have taken the time to let me know. Naturally, I’ve also been blessed by all those who have touched and moved and inspired me and I do my best to let them know. 

 

My friends, if you have such letters in your basement or attic or tucked away in your desk drawers, this is a good time to get them out. Doesn’t matter if they’re ten or a thousand. And if you haven’t written for a while to all those who have been important to you and let them know how they’ve impacted you and how you love them, why, this is a good time for that now as well. It’s always a good time, but now more than ever.

And though I can’t see your faces and there may be many of you I’ve never met, let me take the moment to thank you for reading these blogposts. I hope they have brought something into your life that reminds you of your own goodness and beauty and upstanding moral values. Onward!