Wrapping It Up

It is the last day of 2024 and my last post of the year. An author once talked about writing as finding “a home for one’s happenings” and that is an apt description of this Blog. Remarkable to think that I’ve been doing this for fourteen years. And while I’m at it with statistics, I’ve written 4,391 posts and have accumulated 979,349 (almost a million!) page views. The last three years I’ve written 365 posts each year to average one a day and this year yet more— 380, to be exact. Not only am I not running out of things to say, I’m coming up with more! My “followers” have held steady these past few years around 242 and thanks to each and every one of you. 

 

Speaking of "followers," I wondered today if any of you have been reading these posts either regularly, occasionally or once in a blue moon since their inception. It would be remarkable to think that this might be so over the past fourteen years. If by chance that’s true, I would be delighted to hear from you in an e-mail: Goodkindg@aol.com. Has it really been worthwhile to follow my story and if so, why? Just curious. Meanwhile, I believe I’ll continue to use this venue for as long as it’s available to house what happens and bring it into some kind of meaning, either personal or collective or both, through the power of language.

 

I write this having just complete a 6-mile dusty hike in the Indio Badlands with my wife and two daughters, giving the grandkids a break and trusting them to entertain themselves civilly while we were gone. They did and we enjoyed some adult time. Back home to the kids alive and well and a refreshing well-earned soak in the hot tub washing off the dust of the world. (Well, physically in the shower before the soak, but metaphorically in the soothing heated waters.). I noted how 13-year-old Zadie and even 9-year-old Malik joined in the adult conversation at such a mature level. It’s a bittersweet goodbye to their childhood and hello to their maturing selves. 

 

We all hiked yesterday, played some basketball in Old Town La Quinta and treated ourselves to Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream Cones. I cooked a satisfying fajita dinner and we howled with hilarity playing the evening game of Salad Bowl, a mixture of Taboo and Charades. Tonight will be the card games Pit and Spoons with Talia’s boyfriend Matt joining us for the first time. I hope to close the last evening of 2024 with the telling of a folk tale to carry us into the New Year. 

 

Sometime in early December, I made a list of all the workshops I had taught, places traveled, people visited, books published, concerts performed, film showings of The Secret Song, TV series watched, books read or listened to, as well as other notable things like getting hearing aids, going to a poetry retreat, biking in Slovenia. In spite of November, it was a fine year and I’m grateful beyond measure for the strength, energy and health to keep doing all these things I love so much. Many difficulties lie ahead, both personal (my daughter’s divorce, my ongoing vestibular dizziness, the difficulties of aging) and collective (the nightmare of the election results). And much to look forward to as well—teaching in Brazil, Hong Kong, Ghana, Carmel Valley and a possible bike trip to France. 

 

And so the Wheel of Fortune turns round and round, now six hours away from its next spin. Wishing all of you the best of health, happiness and healing and once again, thank you for reading. May we all “drink a cup of kindness yet for the sake of auld lang syne.”

The Common Good

“The common good consists of our shared values about what we owe one another as citizens who are bound together in the same society—the norms we voluntarily abide by and the ideals we seek to achieve.” 

— Robert Reich: The Common Good

 

Yet another giant has passed from this earth and though his 100-year-life-span is more celebration than tragic loss, still we would do well to pause and pay homage to Jimmy Carter. Though like every single human being on the planet he was not flawless, his impressive legacy of installing solar panels on the White House (which Reagan took off!), advocating for both Palestine and Israel to have their homeland, supporting Habitat for Humanity and working alongside volunteers and much, much more deserves our attention. 

 

The dynamic is so simple. Either we’re in it for our own glory and power and greed and wealth or we recognize that we are all joined together and should work tirelessly towards the idea of contributing to the common good. Just writing that sentence and thinking about what’s ahead brings tears to my eyes, as we have yet again given power to people who don’t give a rat’s ass about anybody but themselves. The notion of a common purpose is not even on their table and they scorn those who value it as weak. 

 

We had a moment of silence at the dinner table with the grandchildren and afterwards, shared some of the impressive achievements of a former U.S. President. They were respectfully silent and listening with engagement. I’ve spoken much here about my vow to educate the young, my peers, my elders (not many of them around), anyone who’s willing to listen to the reminder that we owe each other. If they forget, I’ll remind them of Jimmy Carter, Zakir Hussein and my friend Wolfgang Stange, all models of humanity who have left us in the past month. 

 

Meanwhile, I hope the collective funeral and memorial services for President Carter are as grand and glorious as he deserves and help remind us of what we clearly have forgotten. Thank you, sir, for your stellar service.

  

Back to College

It’s that time of life. I now know three different couples in my peer group who have moved into retirement homes. We just visited one in a place in Montecito just south of Santa Barbara and in some ways, were mightily impressed. Taking the tour with them, we peeked into all the art rooms— pottery, textiles, painting, crafts and more, the music room with the Steinway grand piano, the games room, the library, the exercise/ weight room, the indoor pool. Outside was the bocci-ball courts, cornhole (and playing against myself, I made eight in a row! World record!), lovely gardens and more. The apartments were lovely and the dining room with its impressive breakfasts—French toast, omelets, waffles, orange juice, caffe lattes and cappuccinos, was a fine way to start the morning. All of this in buildings with their impressive California/ Santa Barbara exquisite architecture style with red-tiled roofs, turrets, wood-paneled walls and more. 

 

It struck me that it was like going back to college, but perhaps even better. That “ivory tower” feeling of being apart from life’s insistent demands and challenges. The residents were pretty much in the same peer group without the insecurities of hoping they’d be in the cool social group, they were free from the stresses and strains of  making a living, they could manage their own learning  without having to declare a major, they had the invitation to express themselves artistically and read books without the pressure of grades and schedules, they had the leisure time to play games, there is on-site medical care and both the “dorm rooms” and the “cafeteria” were many notches higher in comfort and quality. A sweet deal! In the last phase of their adult life re-living at a higher point in the spiral the first phase of their adult life. Something poetic about it. 

 

And yet. As attractive as it all seemed, it comes at a high price tag. Literally, as the cost of living in such a place is even higher than college tuition. The privilege of affording it affected the level of diversity— no surprise that it was about 99% white folks. And for me, the hardest part would be missing the diversity of ages. No kids, young adults, middle-aged folks. No immersion in the hustle and bustle of city life. No feeling of still contributing to the workaday world. Not my idea of paradise. 

 

Of course, other things may make the choice of living and dying in my own house not possible. The 13 steps to the front door, the door itself probably too narrow for a wheelchair, the possible need for more round-the-clock medical care. All these things that I’d rather not think about as I still hike and bike and travel and play some hot-body-percussion, but will have to face and prepare for some day. For now, “que será, será, whatever will be will be,” I sing as I get ready to swim in the pool and go on the day’s hike in Palm Springs with kids, middle-aged folks and elders. 

 

More Cowbell!

The mind, both conscious and sub-conscious, never fails to amaze me. Last night I dreamt a poem composed of alliterative and rhyming action verbs which could serve as a movement activity and it felt so inspired. I ran (in the dream) to the computer to set it all down and at different points in the dream, realized I was dreaming and none of it was being recorded. I was worried I would lose it and sure enough, now in my waking hours, I don’t think I can resurrect it. Dang!

 

But the general gist went something like this:

 

Leaping, landing, sitting, standing.

Moping, mopping, skipping, stopping. 

Lending, spending, bouncing, bending. 

Shaking, waking, running, raking.

 

You get the idea. It seemed better in the dream. 

 

Then it moved to singing with preschoolers at some beach and then playing a cowbell part with a Middle School band on a weak wooden instrument with a thin mallet. The director kept asking for “More cowbell!” but the instrument just wasn’t right. 

 

Knowing how interesting (not!) other people’s dreams are, I’ll stop here. Just wanted to see about that poem. Now it’s time for “washing, dressing, meeting (Karen’s friend), eating (breakfast).” Enjoy your day!

A Visit to the Farm

 I have an image of the perfect visit to the grandparents. The city grandkids go to the farm and help the grandparents with the farm chores— milking cows, feeding chickens, riding up on the tractor, picking fresh vegetables from the garden. Time in the kitchen shucking corn or shelling peas or baking some fresh-picked blueberry cobbler. The grandparents don’t have to plan any special excursions, just include the young ones in their daily routines. Then, of course, some storytelling and singing or reading on laps in the evening. 

 

For this city grandfather, it’s not quite the same. I do like to grab the kids and walk to the bakery to get the bread they like and have them help me with some shopping or cooking, to get on the bikes and wheel through the park, maybe with a basketball in the backpack to shoot some hoops. But both my wife and I spend a lot of thought and energy finding special things for them to do, some of it pricey like a play or magic show, some of it cultural like an art museum, science museum, jazz club, some of it just wandering around the city together on an “adventure.” 

 

Of course, Zadie at 13 has her own independent thoughts about what’s worth her time and Malik is starting to push back a little on the day’s planned activity (though after his initial resistance, he does end up enjoying it). They both humored me, with a little strategic coaching (that for once did not involve ice cream) and agreed to my Vertigo tour and Vertigo movie. But I can tell my “which Hitchcock film should we see next?” days are numbered. So it goes. 

 

Today, we finished the Vertigo tour with a quick stop at San Juan de Bautista and then had a short walk-around Hidden Valley Music Seminars in Carmel Valley where I enjoy two weeks of Orff-teaching bliss every summer. Though I've taught there 12 years now and gone there for weekend Orff retreats once every two years since 1987, none of my family—wife, daughters or grandkids—have ever been there. Partly because the summer course is always when my wife is in Michigan and the kids are traveling or parenting. For the grandkids, the memory of that short tour will certainly be 100 times less than the kid remembering the first time driving the tractor with Grandpa or Grandma, but nevertheless I persist in sharing such things with them. 

 

Throughout their short lives, they have seen me on my "farm" teaching kids at school, putting on a play at school, being honored at my pandemic-delayed farewell party at school, teaching classes in their school, leading the neighborhood Christmas caroling, playing piano at The Jewish Home, giving an Orff workshop to adults in the Portland Orff Chapter and more. Time will tell what it all means to them, but it certainly means a lot to me to share the things I love in this life with them. And that of course includes the cooking, game-playing, book-reading, movie-watching, music-playing, swimming, biking, hiking, basketball/ frisbee/ cornhole etc. we’ve all done together and continue to do. As well as starting to go to their organized league basketball games and hear them read things they’ve written for school and even listening together (and or dancing together to) songs they like. 

 

It has been nice to break up the drive to Palm Springs and go south on some new roads. The Carmel Valley Road east from Hidden Valley (which I had never driven!) is gorgeous and while the kids are with their Mom Kerala and Tita Talia in the town of Cambria,  Karen and I just had a dinner near Santa Barbara with Karen’s childhood friend. We’ll meet up tomorrow here and then finish the drive to Palm Springs (well, technically, Indio), where our annual wild rumpus there will begin. 

 

Maybe while I’m there I can find a tractor ride. 

Just Another Day

Sally go round the sun

Sally go round the moon

Sally go round the chimney pots

 Every afternoon.

 

Christmas Day has come and gone. For the crows cawing in the yard, it was just another day, nothing special. They cared nothing for the story of a babe born in a manger a few millennium ago that has grown to frenzied consumption and perhaps are the better for it. History suggests that countless human suffering might have been avoided if that innocent baby had never been born. No Inquisition, witch-burnings, world domination and colonization in his name, vile hypocrites willfully ignoring his true message as they gain great wealth and political power. The touch of dancing sugarplum magic, a few good songs and brightly lit trees indoors perhaps are not worth the price. 

 

But if that event never happened or never took hold, we would have invented others. Indeed, we already have in other parts of the world and some with the some catastrophic results (the Islam conquest, subjugation of women, jihads, for one, the endless trouble in the Middle East, the Hindu Caste system and beyond), so we’re to blame. 

 

Meanwhile, our little family here in San Francisco opened the little gifts we gave each other in the spirit of imagining what would give each other pleasure and help us with our next step in the cycling years. Needed clothes, fun games, utilitarian hairbrushes and hand-warmers, many books, culinary treats (granddaughter Zadie’s most enthusiastic whoop of joy came when she opened the package of Nutella!) and so on. We made and ate waffles, played one of the games and then had a lovely walk out at the edge of the land (Land’s End), all the way from the Cliff House to the Legion of Honor and back. Then the kids agreed to let me take them on my Vertigo tour—just about all the sites featured in the Hitchcock classic movie—and we watched the film that night. Part of my lifetime quest to initiate them into some of the classics that I’ve enjoyed, which they graciously put up with. Tomorrow we’ll stop at San Juan De Bautista on the way down to Palm Springs to complete the tour.

 

And so here we are, in this moment of the endless cycling around the sun, the moon, the chimney pots that hold the ashes of the flames that have lit our way forward and warmed our hearts. Every afternoon. 

 

Happy Kwanzaa, Boxing Day and for the crows, happy just-another-day! 

  

Bah Humbug!

When it comes to food shopping, I’m a Trader Joe’s guy. Alongside neighborhood corner stores and our local Farmer’s Market. But I dipped into Whole Foods today because I needed something and it was convenient. Walked in feeling “Happy Holidays” and walked out feeling “Bah! Humbug!”

 

For now where none had been before were seven self-check out stations on the right side of the aisle and three live humans on the left side. There was something about those seven SELF SELF SELF SELF SELF SELF SELF SELF signs in a row that screamed, “We have given up on human connection. Enjoy all our clever machines.”

 

Consider. So many now do their shopping by waiting for the Amazon truck to pull up and leave the package. Get their food from Grub Hub. We suffered so much from being isolated in our homes during the pandemic and yet we now do so voluntarily. And make people like Jeff Bezos rich so he can take a ride in space and donate millions to the politicians primed to tear down democracy and wreak havoc left and right. All because it’s such an inconvenience to walk to the store or bike or bus or even drive. 

 

If we do have to go out—God forbid!— to Whole Foods, why, we’ll just call up Waymo and sit in the backseat with nothing to say to the driverless car—or rather, no one to say it too. Then into the store and we don’t even have to extend a simple hello to the check-out person— there’s our self-check-out machine awaiting us in its glorious convenience. 

Then it’s time to go home and have a Zoom call with our therapist at an exorbitant price to wonder why we’re feeling lonely. Surely it was some childhood trauma with our mother or father or perhaps some “disease” named in the Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders which can be handled with expensive pills which we can order online and have delivered. The thought that it might have something to do with how we live, the choices we make as to how to connect with people, the choices our culture makes for us as it makes money from our machine-addiction and makes everything “easy” and “convenient” with no pesky human interconnection needed. 

 

And really, why bother to do anything so radical as think or feel or cook or play games? Our calculators do our math, AI will write our papers, Waymo cars will cart our inert bodies around, pre-package or pre-cooked food will do our cooking, our robot vacuum will do the cleaning, our Spotify algorhythm will choose our music, our endless streaming possibilities will tell us the stories we can’t be bothered to read or tell or invent,  and we never (or rarely) have to talk to anyone who is not our Facebook friend. What a life! The Jetsons never had it so good!

 

I’m picturing the modern-day Nativity scene. The Wise People will arrive in their driverless car, go through Security, order from Grub-hub, take selfies of them with the cute baby and send them out on Instagram or Tik-Tok, crank up Maria Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas" song” and have a big dance party in the Manger with robotic animals provided by the Disney studio. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

 

Okay. I'm done with my rant. Away with Bah Humbug! Tomorrow the grandchildren come and we will walk in the park to see the live yaks at the Academy of Sciences, cook together in our kitchen, light candles, talk around the dinner table, then gather around the piano to sing. Such human communion alone doesn’t solve everything, but it sure counts for a lot.

 

May it be so for you and yours!

PS And I'm happy to report that as of now, Trader Joes has NO self-check out! And I always enjoy a little chat with the folks at the register. 

Spreading the Word

I’ve been told to keep advertising my new Podcast on social media to build an audience and I have posted several reminders. But it struck me that it would be much more powerful if others started talking about it. And so I wrote this letter to send to folks on my various mailing lists. Might as well include it here and hope it may bear some fruit with you all, my blog readers. Thanks!

 

Hello friends, 

 

First and foremost, hopes this finds you healthy and finding some rest, comfort and communion at this Holiday time, however you may (or may not) celebrate it. We need each other as much as—and perhaps more than— ever,  so let’s make every effort to stay connected, to support each other, to appreciate it each other and— dare I suggest?— to love each other. 

 

In that spirit, I need your help. I’m doing everything I can to work through just about every medium available—books, articles, a blog, Facebook comments, a film, a recording and now a Podcast— to get the good news out. The truth that we all are better than we’ve been told we are, have the capacity for beauty, joy, kindness, justice and more, but need constant reminders and alerts as to all the forces trying to shut us down, ignore us, marginalize us, deplore us. I don’t know how I can manage to keep the flame of hope burning in the face of the hurricane winds trying to blow it out, but a large part is because of the people I actually know—you all, the children I teach, the teachers I teach and more. 

 

The effort I put into all the writing and speaking and teaching and volunteer singing times at schools and piano playing at Senior Homes is constant and considerable, but hardly ever a chore or exhausting. It is simple what I need to do and what gives so much back in renewed energy and sparks of happiness. On some level, simply doing it is enough. 

 

But I also do it on behalf of the people whose voices are rarely considered—the children, first and foremost and then the teachers and then anyone who believes that kindness is strength and takes courage far greater than just about any other human endeavor. In that light, I am hungry for more, for larger audiences and more exposure. What is somewhat exhausting is the constant apparent tooting of my own horn to get the word out there about all these projects—particularly this latest one, the Podcast. (First off, I don’t actually play trumpet and my wind is less than it has been!) But I think of it as tooting our horn. None of this is for my personal gain— literally, as I don’t get paid a penny for the podcast or film or blog or school/ senior home visits or even my books, on which I mostly break even. 

 

In short, all of this is not just for me, but for us. The children, as mentioned, but if you’re a teacher reading this, I hope you’ve felt my work as advocating for all teachers in all subjects, highlighting our dignity, our worth, our hard, hard work in the service of a brighter future. If you’re a nice, intelligent and caring person, I hope you’ve felt my voice reminding us that these are valued qualities. 

 

So in that spirit, I humbly ask that if you like what you’ve read of my writing (particularly the last book Jazz, Joy & Justice), that if you liked what you saw in the Secret Song film, that if you tried out a Podcast and found it interesting, that you tell people about it. Other teachers, other podcast listeners, friends and family. Give it a shout-out on social media, bring it up at school staff meetings, review it for any publications, choose one of the books for your book group, mention it at the next gathering of friends as your sharing what you’re watching, reading and listening to. I think it will carry more weight if others recommend it than if I keep posting. Yes?

 

As the inmates prepare to take over the asylum yet again, it is more important than ever that voices of hope, sanity, compassion be heard by any means necessary. I’m doing my part to try to keep these needed conversations going and I would deeply appreciate any help you can give. Links to all of the above can be found in one place, my Website: www.douggoodkiin.com

Thanks in advance and Happy Holidays!

 

Much love,

 

Doug

 

Just Warming Up

Back in those glorious days when I sang once a week with Fran Hament at the Jewish Home for the Aged, moving effortlessly from one old jazz standard to another, there came the moment when a nurse announced it was dinnertime. Though we had sung non-stop for an hour, we both looked at each other with familiar dismay, “But we were just getting warmed up!”

 

By all conventional standards, my 45-year career teaching at The San Francisco School was the main act of my professional life. When I retired four years ago, it felt like it should be the moment when I left the stage and spent the rest of the days looking through the scrapbooks while enjoying a few games of golf or lawn bowling. 

 

But now I’m wondering— what if all those years were just the warm-up act? Now I’m ready to begin my “career” drawing from all the skills I learned in that “starter job.” Consider: In the past few weeks, I led a Singing Time at the New Traditions School for 2^nd graders, another at the Redwoods Senior Living Home in Marin County and two at my still beloved Jewish Home. I played “cocktail Holiday piano” at the Sip Tea Room seven times in the last three Saturdays, always ending with getting the diners singing a song with me at the end. I led the annual Christmas Caroling last night with new and old neighbors, former SF School students with their kids and more. 

 

All those years leading a daily Singing Time at the SF School has certainly paid off. I know some 200 songs at the tip of my tongue and my fingers on the guitar from the American folk repertoire, some 300 jazz standards I can play on piano without a lead sheet, a wide variety of classical tunes from Bach Fugues to Mozart and Beethoven sonatas, Chopin nocturnes and mazurkas, Debussy suites and with the help of my Classical Music “fake book,” can move seamlessly between a Strauss waltz, a Sousa March, a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, Verdi and Puccini arias and yet more. Oh, and a fair repertoire of Scott Joplin and Joseph Lamb ragtime pieces. 

 

There is not an ounce of boasting here, simply the fact that this large and varied repertoire that doesn’t need me fumbling through pages has well-prepared me to be of use in all these musical situations. Combined by my decades-developed ease in leading a group, sharing entertaining stories and cultural information associated with various songs, I’m well-suited for this new/old work of bringing joy and connection through music to anyone of any age, “offering my simple songs to kids from one to ninety-two.” The World seems to agree as the opportunities to do so continue to appear. 

 

All of the above combined with the opportunities to keep the parallel work of Orff workshops that moves far beyond just songs to body percussion, speech pieces, folk dances, movement explorations, percussion playing, Orff instrument ensemble, musical drama and more. Dozens of such opportunities are lined up for next year in Brazil, Hong Kong, Vietnam, China, Ghana, Tennessee, California and beyond. Like I said, just warming up, now ready to begin my life’s work.

 

But it’s late to begin a job. The word in “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” has a different ring to them when they say, “through the years, we all will be together, if the Fates allow.” Despite my “encouraging” prognosis to my dizziness mentioned earlier, the exercises seem to have made it worse and I’m painfully aware that all of the above is wholly dependent on the miracle of good health. I feel I have so much to offer the World and I’m ready to do it— if the Fates allow. I agree wholly with Carl Jung:

 

“The life that I could still live, I should live, and the thoughts I could still think, I should think.”

 Paraphrasing the above to “the songs I can still sing, the music I can still play” and I believe that is what I shall do. With whoever is in the room with me. 

Bird Wisdom.

Sitting on a park bench today, I had the wisdom to turn off my Audible story and pay attention to the surroundings. 

 

Okay, I just lied. I actually finished my story about mayhem and murder and other delights of the human species and didn’t have another recorded story in the pipeline. But still it was a good idea to just sit for a bit and observe.

 

First I noticed a tapping sound in the branches above me and lo and behold, it was a small woodpecker searching for its lunch in full woodpecker style. Then there were all the small chickadees (I think—I’m no birder) flitting around from tree to tree and then down to the ground pecking away to find their lunch. I say lunch, but as far as I can tell, most birds spend the entire day foraging for food. 

 

So in those ten minutes or so of watching and listening, I came away with four words of wisdom from these fellow creatures that is as good advice as any that I might read in a book. 

 

“Find food. Sing. Fly.”

 

That about sums it up. 

  

The Stories They Tell

Five days ago, we took the live Norfolk pine from our deck into the house and strung it with lights. Two days later, we added the stringed beads, the gold and silver balls and the delicate baubles from our childhood packed in a small green box. Last night, we completed the tree decoration with the ornaments collected in 45 years of sharing life together. It was a progressive decoration project and a fun way to do it.

 

So now the tree is complete, adorned with the carefully-collected decorations that like wrinkles on the face (but a bit more attractive) tell a story of our life. Amazing that the thin glass ornaments that hung over 70 years ago on my Christmas tree in Roselle, New Jersey, are still intact (minus one Silent Night ornament my wife dropped and broke several years ago). Then there are the first ornaments we bought as a married couple, for 75 cents at Cost Plus. Out from the box came baby’s first Christmas, gift ornaments from old neighbors Peggy and Richard long gone from this world, a few from school parents expressing appreciation, a couple our older kids gave us as stocking stuffers. As we take each one out of the box, we pause and remember the stories they tell. 

 

To celebrate the completion of the decoration project, we treated ourselves to a viewing of Christmas in Connecticut  with Barbara Stanwyck. Easy to scoff at the old-fashioned men-women roles, but in truth, they were nuanced and shaded and the characters had a depth distinct from their modern Hollywood versions. Always a sucker for the old black-and-white films, the opening music, the credits that almost always include “costumes by Edith Head,” I could feel myself almost longing for those innocent, more unified times. 

Of course, they were anything but simple and certainly not unified when it came to racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny and beyond. But the combination of the films and music that defined American culture, the ethos that It’s a Wonderful Life when the greedy capitalist bastards like Potter are defeated by the good-hearted neighbors, the sense of working together and uniting against common enemies (the above film during World War II) feels so much more appealing than our current deep divisions, the clown-cars careening us towards oblivion, the superficial and musically dubious pop culture, the explosion of super-hero and violent films dominating the few movie theaters left standing.

 

Meanwhile, our tree lights up the room and stands as the testimony of the wonderful life we have lived. It evokes the presence of all those now gone whose prints are on these ornaments. It brings beauty into the home and revives the perpetual promise of the elusive peace the carols sing out. For a few weeks a year, there is a special magic in the air and don’t we all need it. Then the boxes will be re-packed and brought down to the basement, the tree returned to the deck, the colored lights sparkling throughout the city dismantled and we’ll be back to business as usual. 

 

But for now, the tree glistens, a living testimony and memorable gathering of our collective stories as we prepare to turn the page to the next chapter. 

 

35 Years

 

Monday night was our annual Men’s Group dinner out. Except that we had it “in” instead. We have enjoyed the decades of getting out into the world to different restaurants every December and the last eight or so at Zazie’s Restaurant on Cole Street, always on Tuesday when they offer a no-corkage fee. But the combination of the still-rising extravagant bill for food that is not wholly fabulous for this vegetarian and a noise level increasingly difficult to navigate, I suggested a new idea: a potluck at one of our houses. It was enthusiastically received and offered an extra perk as the member who hosted it recently split up with his partner and was feeling lonely in his large empty house. So we filled it with our good cheer and saved hundreds of dollars at the same time. With better food, I might add—these men are all good cooks!

 

“The good cheer” was not as cheerful as it might be, as now about to begin our 36^th year together, our check-ins almost always include the “organ-recital” of our declining physical bodies. I’m the youngest at 73 and the oldest member is 84 and for all practical purposes, not an active member of the group, living now in a home in Marin County in his 8^th year of Parkinsons. (Needless to say, he didn’t attend the dinner.) Another (82) was getting a new stint in his heart, I reported on my wisdom tooth extraction and Vestibular Hypo-function situation, another is having knee issues and so it goes. 

Then there were the reports of sadness from the relationship break-up, the daily visits with a 102-year-old neighbor who wants to die but can’t, the darkness of the season, the darkness of the political landscape (a topic we expressly forbid for the evening) and so on. 

 

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. There were the reports of visiting grandchildren, the progress on an addition to a house that will serve as a “retirement home” as one of the kids will take over the main house, the upcoming visit to Germany to visit a daughter and grandson. There were some genuine moments of laughter, helped by good wine and cognac and at the end, I suggested people share a favorite Holiday memory and there were some sweet and poignant stories. 

 

So things have changed since we began all those years back sharing the trials and tribulations of what it means to be a man. We reflected on how we have been wounded by the Patriarchy, how we have refused some of it and been caught by some of it. Alongside the human tragedy and comedy of our work, our marriages, our successes, our failures, our anxieties, our pleasures. Nine straight middle-class white men gathering every two weeks to try to share a bit deeper than the sports talk at the bar. We started in 1990 with ten of us, in the next decade, three dropped out and one committed suicide, around 2002 two “new” men joined and just last year, another man who we all had known joined. 

 

And so we go on. We have failed miserably to dismantle toxic masculinity in the world but have made sincere efforts to heal some of it in ourselves. The sheer longevity is reason enough for celebration and just to sit in a room with other men with the expectation that we will talk about things and in ways our gender is not trained in is a victory of sorts. We are painfully aware of the losses that lie ahead and make jokes about who will be the last man standing, but meanwhile, here we are, still upright and breathing. 

 

On to year 36!

Wedding Night

In the numerous multi-cultural festivities of December—Buddha’s Enlightenment Day (Dec. 8^th), Virgin of Guadalupe (Dec. 12^th), Santa Lucia Day (Dec. 13^th), Winter Solstice (Dec. 21^st), Christmas (Dec. 25^th), Hanukkah (moveable), Kwanzaa (Dec. 26^th), there is one most Americans don’t know about and it is today, December 17^th, the night that the Persian/Turkish Medieval poet Rumi died and united with his Beloved. He called his death his “Wedding Night” and that is still how it is referred to today. The Sufi sect of Islam, whose “whirling dervish meditative dance” was inspired by Rumi pay particular attention to this Holiday. 

 

Thanks to English translations by Robert Bly, John Moyne and especially Coleman Barks, Rumi’s poetry has become somewhat known to seekers worldwide. If you’re looking for a gift for your literate friends this Holiday Season, may I recommend Coleman Barks The Essential Rumi? Meanwhile, two short poems (from over a thousand quatrains) to introduce him to folks who might not know his work. (Enjoy the contradiction that Rumi suggests you buy your friend a musical instrument instead!)

 

            NO. 89

        Today like every other day we wake up empty

       and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study

        and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument instead. 

      

      Let the beauty we love be what we do.

      There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

 

 

 

     NO. 1504

   Do not sit with a sad friend.

   When you go to a garden,

   Do you look at thorns or flowers?

   Spend more time with roses and jasmine. 

Practice the Ending First

In a recent class with 7^th graders, I began teaching a piece by teaching the ending first.  I shared this strategy with them as a way to move into more familiar territory when learning a piece. An interesting contrast to mastering the first part and then moving into the unknown. The latter a  more common practice, to be sure, but the other is an interesting variation. 

 

And then thinking the way I do, I wondered if this strategy could be applied to living a life. “Moving into the unknown” pretty much describes how we live our life and makes sense, as the future is not there written out like a piece of music as something we can learn first. But there are qualities of the end parts of life that are accessible at all ages and it got me thinking that it could be a good idea to pay attention to them when you’re younger to prepare yourself for the fuller version of them when you’re older. 

 

What are the gifts of the last stage of life? We know all too well the maddening challenges of the ever-diminishing and decreasing physical body, the difficulties of reduced sight, hearing, muscular strength, endurance, libido. The mirror reminds us of our once familiar faces now sagging, wrinkling, growing moles or unwanted hairs. But what if all of this is not just the work of a mean-spirited Creator who gets his/her kicks watching us suffer? Might they all be signs of a greater and more positive purpose?

 

James Hillman’s book The Force of Character and Helen Luke’s book Old Age both suggest that there is indeed. The decline of the physical body makes room for the enlargement of the Soul. It suggests strongly that we stop paying attention to the superficial—how do we look? How can we show off our muscles or alluring shape? Who can we impress?— and begin to attend to deeper and more important values. Our diminished hearing shields us from all the unnecessary small talk, our diminished outer sight re-focuses us to our inner visions. 

 

I can personally testify, as can so many in my peer group, that in our 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and beyond, we can become more patient, more forgiving, more understanding and yes, even more wise as we have lived long enough to know that “this, too, shall pass” when life and life’s events seem intolerable. We can become more forthright and say what needs to be said without worrying if it will make us unpopular. As Hillman puts it:

 

“…life intends aging just as it intends growth in youth. As we unfold into speaking, standing, walking, discriminating, and mastering, so we may infold into the involution of aging. “

 

Helen Luke invokes King Lear in her thoughts about aging:

 

“As we grow old, our body weakens, our powers fail, our sight dims, our hearing fades, our power to move around is taken from us. In one way or another we are imprisoned and the moment of choice then comes to us. Will we fight this confining process or will we go to meet it in the spirit of King Lear—embrace it with love, with eagerness even?”

 

What is needed to develop the strength and courage and character to meet our inevitable decline, to face our mortality? Ms. Luke talks about the term “growing old” in its most positive sense. If we make the conscious decision to grow into our aging, we have the possibility of coming into the final flowering and meaning of our lives. If we resist it, are dragged into it by the lion’s paw of time protesting, crying out, making appointments with the plastic surgeon, we will simply become “olders,” not “elders.” True eldership doesn’t come for free just with the passage of time but must be consciously earned. 

 

So returning to the original premise of practicing the end first, I would suggest contemplating one’s mortality at every stage of life, not out of fear or cynicism, but as a way to strengthen our ability to separate the truly important from the trivial, to savor each gift of life and express appropriate gratitude, to forgive others and ourselves so that when we arrive at the time of life when we can begin to let go of outer achievement and impressing people, we are prepared. Practice the ending now so those last notes can truly ring out!

  

Red Sneakers

Often in workshops after an activity that evokes improvisation (like “The Secret Song”), I make the comment that you could have people of different ages, musical backgrounds, cultural backgrounds and they could all be successful, putting everything they know into the improvisation. And it all could sound good. The fresh ideas of a 5-year-old romping around five notes on a xylophone might be as musically interesting as the piano major in the University's solo. To really drive the point home, I mention a group of musicians who I consider at the peak of musical technique, sophistication and understanding as folks who would get something out of the workshop. Though the list is long, I tend to mention people like Bobby McFerrin, Yo Yo Ma, Wynton Marsalis, Yuja Wang and Zakir Hussein. 

 

And now Zakir Hussein has left us, at the too-young age (my age!) of 73 years old. He passed away yesterday from a heart attack and the tributes are pouring in from all corners of Facebook, the modern age’s Obituary Column. Out come the photos and the stories and the icons of sadness and rightfully so. Here’s my own two cents (again, paraphrasing JD Salinger’s image):

 

Raise high the roof beam, carpenters. A great man has passed out of this world, leaving a legacy of extraordinary musicianship coupled with deep humanity and we are all the poorer for his absence. 

 

Born in Mumbai, India, he was the eldest son of Alla Rakha, a highly accomplished and esteemed tabla player of Indian classical music. Sometime in the 1970’s, I had the good fortune to hear father and son in a concert and their virtuosity in a highly complex musical genre was breathtaking, to say the least. Zakir could have easily established himself following his father’s footsteps as one of India’s greatest tabla players. 

 

But early on, he was curious about other musical genres and cultures and ready and willing to experiment with the tabla and other percussion instruments in a wide variety of musical styles. In 1973, he played on albums by rock musician George Harrison and jazz musician John Handy. In 1975, he was part of John McLaughlin’s jazz/ Indian fusion group Shakti and in the next 5-10 years, recorded with Van Morrison and Earth, Wind & Fire. He joined Mickey Hart (drummer for The Grateful Dead ) in the Planet Drum project and continued to collaborate with jazz musicians like Pharoah Sanders, Chris Potter, Josh Redman and more. I attended his concert with Josh Redman at SF Jazz Center and it was one of the highlights of my concert-going life. 

 

Imagine my delight when I went to the wedding of a good friend and tabla player Jim Santi Owen and Zakir was there! He wore some bright red sneakers and the first thing I said to him in my starstruck ineloquence was “Nice sneakers!” At the end, he was standing alone in the hall as I was leaving and I said, “Thank you for making this broken world more beautiful with your music.” He nodded his head in acknowledgment and I added, “And I still like your sneakers!”

 

So that was my personal connection with this extraordinary musician and stellar human being, whose presence amongst us and still in his absence is a reminder to us all to work harder, express ourselves more fully, bring beauty into everything we do and still be kind enough to talk to strangers at weddings and cool enough to wear bright red sneakers. 

 

R.I.P., Zakir Hussein. 

 

"See You Later!"

So much is happening that life is outrunning my ability to write about it. Tempted to write a longer piece about how the kids in the music program where I have assisted have evolved so noticeably in the past three years, guided by the hard-working dedication of their teacher Yari, the feedback loop between well-chosen music that they now have the skills to play and thus, the motivation to keep working and hopefully, the effects of my guidance for both Yari and the students. It’s worth a reflection about the value of time and patience and every-firmer faith in the possibilities of each and every student, musically and otherwise. But for now, I’ll just share this surprising interaction. 

 

At the end of class, a 7^th grade girl spontaneously said to me, “You know, I think we could be good friends in another lifetime.” 

 

And my spontaneous answer; “I look forward to that. See you later!”

Music Marathon

 

                                    “Let the beauty we love be what we do.”

-       Rumi

Four hour-long classes with 7^th and 8^th graders at the Children’s Day School. Drive to the Jewish Home for the Aged and play piano for 1 ½ hours. Quick dinner at home and drive to The Sequoias Center for Senior Living to watch my film with some 60 residents and then discuss it after with a Q & A and a promise to come back next week to sing songs with them. 

 

The next day, play for an hour at SIP Tea Room, background Holiday Music while people enjoy tea and scones. Quick lunch and back for another hour. At the end of each, I invite 30  strangers to sing one of the songs together with me— and they do! Drop in on a neighborhood gathering and play some guitar with some five musicians. Back to the SIP Tea Room for another hour of music-making with Ms. Claus and lead some songs with the parents and kids dining there. 

 

In short, in the past two days, I've played music at five different venues with some 250 people of all ages (most of whom I didn’t know) for some seven hours of music-making one day and four the next. By all reckonings, I should have been exhausted. But I wasn't. In fact, wholly energized. 

 

That’s what music can do. It's the gift that keeps on giving. It’s an underground spring that cleanses and refreshes and brings life and vigor to all it touches. It’s a way to connect with people you've just met unlike any other. It’s the beauty I love. It’s what I do. Rumi affirms my good fortune, a movie title, my hope—“Happy. Thank You. More Please.”The World seems to agree, as opportunities keep pouring in and I says to every one. 

My upstairs neighbors gone and thus, evening curfew lifted, I can even play a bit of piano at 10:30 at night to properly close the day. And so I do.