Beginning Again

I began this Blog back in 2011, just before a trip to teach in Korea. I came up with the title thinking that the adventures of a music teacher traversing six continents might be of interest to someone. Granted, it was a far cry from climbing Mt. Everest, rafting down the Amazon or riding a camel across the Sahara Desert, but still it might at least be a bit more interesting than the trip to my corner store where they were out of milk, a new restaurant find or the latest series I’m watching on Netflix. I’ll leave that for you, dear Reader, to decide. 

 

But tonight, walking the Hong Kong streets, I found myself smiling for no apparent reason and so happy to be living this traveling music teacher life. Or perhaps for some very good reasons. Amongst them:

 

1)   Coming to foreign places to teach is a little bit like re-living my teaching life in San Francisco with a new backdrop. Carrying my repertoire with me and my tried-and-true way of teaching it, it’s familiar ground and perhaps more familiar than a trip to a new place should be, shielding me from the kind of re-invention that travel can bring. (Though also interesting that much of my material came from other travels, as if I’m bringing my whole history of visiting other places with me). 

 

Still, it’s a wonderful opportunity to keep teaching post-retirement, keep honing my skills, keep sharing something that has proved to inspire and uplift younger teachers, be in places where people clearly want me there and don’t take my offerings for granted. And still bring some money into the bank, hopefully to help me someday buy my daughters a house in San Francisco.

 

2)   Just about every place I go is a chance to re-connect with both colleagues and people I consider true friends. And then meet some new wonderful folks as well, my future colleagues and even friends. This is no small perk in this life and I am forever grateful.

 

3)   The little windows of time that have me wandering about aimlessly, with nowhere to go and nothing to do, is likewise a blessing. Tonight, the simple act of finding a little store to stock up on some breakfast food was so darn satisfying. I think it awakens that sense of beginning your life anew, that freshness of starting to get to know a new place, that excitement of making your way around like you’re a kid just out of college starting out in the world. Even if it’s a short three-week stint, it changes the quality of time, makes each day feel like a little life wholly lived, markedly different from the routines one gets into at home amidst the constant familiarity of people and places. After a full day of teaching today and the grand pleasure of sharing familiar material with new kids who responded with that deep appreciation of our short time together, it just felt grand to walk the blocks around the hotel and stumble into the store that had just what I needed. 

 

Tomorrow off to another school a ferry ride away and like this, my new life begins again. 

 

Teacher Manifesto

This is as simple as I can say what needs saying in our times, from a teacher’s point of view:

 

                                                     TEACHER MANIFESTO

 

1.     Every child, without exception, is worthy of being welcomed, seen, valued and loved.

 

2.     Every child comes to earth with a particular gifted genius that the world needs to advance knowledge, enlarge compassion, bring beauty and promote justice. 

 

3.     We all carry both the capacity for cruelty and kindness, brutality and beauty, ignorance and intelligence..

 

4.      It is therefore the responsibility—and the pleasure—of every individual, family, school, church, neighborhood, nation, electronic culture, artistic culture, ethical culture, corporate culture, religious culture, to organize itself around the practices that nurture and nourish our better selves, to stop the harm of hurtful habits and toxic narratives. 

 

5.     All leaders, followers, enablers, complicitly silent citizens who model the opposite of the above are causing immeasurable harm and need to be firmly resisted. Any behavior not tolerated in kindergarten should not be tolerated in government.

 

6.     Every act of practicing the above is a form of resistance, helping to drive out lies with truth, the dark with the light, the evil with the good, the ugliness with the beauty, ignorance with education, the toxic practices with the tonic ones. 

 

7.     We can do all of the above work better together. 

 

—   Submitted by Doug Goodkin, a lifelong teacher and American citizen

     PS: Like the children in the photo, we all know the answer. Now we just have to live it.

            For our sake and theirs.  

Art, Entertainment and Furniture

Let me confess here. I somewhat enjoyed the movie Anora. Especially when the Russians entered the scene and there was a break from the non-stop gratuitous sex , wanton spending of big money and drug/ alcohol abuse, an excessive hedonism gone 10,000 times more crazy than the Greeks could ever have imagined. It had the vibe of movies where everything goes wrong with a sense of humor, things like After Hours, Desperately Seeking Susan, Something Wild, Date Night. 

 

But even though growing up in the late 60’s and early 70’s,  I was on the team to break- through the uptight censorship of the movies  and books when it came to language and sexual situations, I didn’t really intend that to mean that the F-word would be ¼ of all words spoken throughout the entire movie and that I needed to sit through 30 lap dances in a row. Even as I was somewhat enjoying the film, I couldn’t help but think, “Whatever happened to It’s a Wonderful Life/You Can’t Take It with You/ Mr Smith Goes to Washington/ It Happened One Night/ Some Like It Hot/ Adam’s Rib and so on? Movies with people who had character, lovers who had chemistry, sweet depictions of mostly morally upright flawed human beings who both reflected something of our American culture and helped shaped our values.” It’s enough to make one nostalgic for the mythical “good ole days.” 

 

And yes, looking at the old movies, it’s hard to see all the black servants and porters and women only in the home or as secretaries in the offices with men patting their butts. But movies pushed those issues as well, films like Woman of the Year/ Gentleman’s Agreement/The Defiant Ones and many, many more. There was a sense that we were at least trying to be better within the confines and confusion of our times. 

 

Now it feels like we’ve given up. The Oscars going to Anora did not feel like a good sign for me. Yes, well-made and sometimes funny and a tiny, tiny dose of humanity in the character who she ended the movie with. But not the kind of film you’d want the children to see as a sterling example of what good humans are aiming for. In the Wild West of anything goes politically, socially, morally, personally, it’s yet another sign of the dissolution of the boundaries that keep our worst impulses in check. 

 

I had wished that A Complete Unknown would have gotten more attention, the way it beautifully captured that time of great hope for change while acknowledging the flawed human beings we are. Yes, Dylan comes off as a jerk in some ways, but a jerk with an extraordinary genius, an ability to capture the sublime, the whacky, the socially just potentials we were all hungry to have spoken aloud. And the eloquence of his poetic language was a bit larger than “F—k! F—k! F—k! F—k! F—k! F—k! F—k! F—k! F—k! F—k! F—k!……”

 

So it goes. Hollywood continues to crank out the shoot-em-up, sexy films that hit us in our brain stem and shut down higher thinking and feeling in the name of entertainment. Film (and literature) aim to move our humanitarian impulses higher in the brain's layers, moving against gravity to ascend the chakras in the spine. So when it does reach further, from “movie” to “film,” as it did in I’m Still Here, I would wish for the Academy to shine its spotlight on them. (Which, to be fair, it did with that film. Though I wished that that actress would have gotten “best performance.”). Oh well. As someone who worked in television once told me: “Film is art, movies are entertainment, television is furniture.”

Clipper Card Caper

Bay Area residents will recognize that name “Clipper card,” that convenient way to travel by bus, streetcar, BART, boats. They might also feel my dismay when I went to get mine out of my wallet—and it wasn’t there! Just as the bus was pulling up! I did cobble together enough cash to get on the bus but was so baffled by my card’s absence. Where could it have gone? I had just used it yesterday and yes, sometimes I take it out of my wallet and put it in my pants pocket to have available to exit a station. But then usually eventually return it to the wallet. 

 

So returning home, I checked all pockets from the clothes I wore the day before when I last used it and lo and behold, it was nowhere! So in the midst of an otherwise lovely day, I kept obsessing about it. Where the hell was that damned card?!

 

Then felt a little sheepish that in the midst of some of the worst moments in American history I can remember in my seven decades of citizenship, I’m getting so upset about a damn bus card? Really? In the world of small things, this problem is one of the smaller ones as the card is pretty easy to replace and stop payment. What’s wrong with me?

 

I think it has to do with the expectation that things are in their proper place, that you can find them where you put them, that when (or if) you do find them, there would have been a logical explanation. In short, I’ve lived with the notion that life makes sense, that even when it’s at its most chaotic, there’s usually an unseen and previously un-understood pattern behind it all. 

So in fact, the tiny act of losing that Clipper card is pretty similar to the larger issue of my country completely off-kilter. Where did we misplace our Democracy? Why isn’t it where we expected it to be? And especially for this coming-of-age in the 60’s guy convinced that we were going to make the world a more loving, peaceful, just and beautiful place, what the hell happened that Nixon suddenly seems not-so-bad? It’s maddening! And this will not be as easy to fix as calling Clipper, stopping payment on the old card and getting a new one in the mail.

 

So my obsession about that card is related to the needed obsession with our lost Democracy, but clearly the latter needs our full attention. 

 

Still though, where can that dang Clipper card be?……………

Three-Day Birthday

It has been a most memorable three days. The occasion was my wife Karen’s 75^th birthday. From a tree or bird’s point of view, it must seem absurd that we treat one day as more special than another and equally absurd that the number 75 carries more weight than 74 or 76. But that’s how we humans are put together and the ¾’s of a century mark somehow seems significant and worthy of special attention. While I’m on the numbers, 28 is also my birthday date and the average of my kid’s 26 and 30 and February 28^th is also my lifelong colleague James’ birthday (61), my student from long ago still friend Julie “Ralf” Gottschalk’s birthday (65), my SF School alum student and son of Patty the cook Eddie Corwin’s 39^th birthday. Oh, and I’ve known Karen for 50 of her 75 years. 

 

So the day before her birthday, there was already a hike scheduled of a group of San Francisco School retired teachers who after some 20 to 40 years together immersed in our mutual life at school decided, “Why stop?” So every two months or so, we gather for a hike and given the timing, I suggested we add a little nod to Karen’s birthday. The 4^th grade teacher/ librarian/ gardener Solveig (who organizes the hikes) brought a tablecloth, plates and real silverware for our pot-luck lunch, with cake (no ice cream) included and while we feasted we had a go-around where everyone named their own notable news and then evoked a memory of a shared experience with Karen. It was a lovely way to bring our shared life out on the table alongside the delicious salads and cheeses and breads and to honor Karen without stooping to outworn adjectives (Awesome! Amazing!). Each story evoked others and the appreciations of moments spent with Karen blended into the collective gratitude for our life together—and equal appreciation that we were still keeping our forever community alive. After lunch was a hike on a gorgeous sunny day in the Palo Alto hills. Perfect!

The next day, Karen’s actual birthday, began with a normal morning of each of us in our morning routines. After lunch, we boarded the 44 bus that goes right past the SF School and I had ridden often. But never beyond San Bruno Avenue, where it entered neighborhoods wholly unfamiliar to me. We got off at the last stop and headed to India Basin Shoreline Park, all territory Karen had been exploring and was eager to share with me. All sorts of impressive monuments to the history of this part of the city and we walked along the water’s edge in 75-degree weather (ordered for Karen’s birthday number!) for some 4 hours before arriving at Chase Center to meet daughter Talia and boyfriend Matt for dinner at a new pizza restaurant with a lovely view. The plan was that her brother Barclay and his wife Lori from Wisconsin were going to be there for their surprise visit, which almost worked out perfectly, but due to a bad moment on speaker phone the night before with Talia, Karen suspected something was up. Still she was delighted to see them and the six of us enjoyed some remarkable pizza and lovely salads, despite the clamor of the noisy restaurant. I looked at my phone to see how much we had walked that day and another serendipitous moment—7.5 miles on her 75^th birthday on a day that hit 75 degrees. 

 

And onto to Day 3. 10 friends/family met in Golden Gate Park to walk its length and end up at the Hong Kong Lounge for Dim Sum where 10 other friends would meet us. We met at the carousel and began with a ride on the merry-go-round, stopped to hit the ping-pong ball 75 times over the net, then collectively score 75 points in cornhole. We stopped at one of the pianos on JFK drive to sing a birthday song, threw some leaves in a stream to have a race, paused at the fly fishing pools where her brother Barclay wished he could stay (he loves to fish!), gathered briefly at the house on Fulton St. where I first met Karen and then took the Fulton St. bus to make sure we got to lunch on time. 

 

Dim-sum was delicious and we had another ritual go-around where everyone shared where and when they first met Karen and their first impressions. Brother Barclay clearly had the record, “meeting” her when he was born in 1951. After that, six of us (included me) met her in 1974 (51 years ago!), one in 1975, several in the 80’s, a few in the 90’s and so on until Matt, who just met her last year. Outside for the requisite group photo and the party was over.

But not quite. Eight of us walked back to our house and continued on there with convivial conversation, a Taboo game and a dinner I cooked, with the cake Talia baked. I should have gone to the piano and had us all sing, “The Party’s Over” but darn, didn’t think of it and missed that opportunity.

 

Pardon me for an entry that makes more sense in a personal journal than a public one. But as always, I think there are universal threads here that might be of interest. The idea of a circle of appreciation with different kinds of prompts (share an experience together/ tell where and when and how you first met and your first impressions). Hiking in the natural world as a venue for celebration. Some games, if you’re so inclined (ping-pong/ cornhole/ leaf-racing/ Taboo). Of course, food, food, food—the potluck, the restaurants, the home-cooked meal. 

 

At the school gathering, I ended my sharing like this:

 

The life Karen and I have built and lived has a fair measure of rituals and celebrations. One has been to go see the plum blossoms every February up on Edgewood Terrace. The trees are old, but the blossoms are perpetually fresh and new. Like us. 

 

And then, in a lifetime of going to the movies, we went last week to one of the few remaining theaters to see the film “I’m Still Here.” That title reminding us that at the end of the day, that is something to celebrate. “We’re still here” and doing what we can to savor each moment of this one precious and extraordinary life, in company with so many of the marvelous people we’ve traveled it with. Happy birthday!

The Kindness of Strangers: IV

To conclude this little theme, I’ll share the next two stories together. 

 

BALI: By June, 1979, Karen and I were visiting Bali and went by bus from Ubud where we were staying to Denpasar to see some powerful performances at a cultural center. Near the end, it started raining hard and it was getting late, so we decided we better start heading back to Ubud, but had missed the last bus. Some teenagers gathered around us and tried to help us flag down some of the occasional cars that came by, to no avail. (Again, note: Teenagers! Instead or threatening us strangers or taunting us, they were actually trying to help us!) Finally, a man on a motorcycle stopped. He agreed to take us the 30-plus-minute trip, but could only take one of us at a time. So we agreed he would take Karen and come back to get me. 

 

If this was an American movie, you can guess what would have happened next. A man alone with a young tourist women on a dark and rainy night in a remote area. Her soon-to-be-husband wondering what he had just agreed to and what would happen if the man never came back to get him. Enter all the danger music. 

 

But given the theme of these stories, you can predict that the man would deliver Karen to our hotel, come back and get me and not even ask for a penny. And of course, that’s exactly what happened. (I believe I did give him some money, as was appropriate).

JAPAN: We spent our final two weeks in Kyoto and Tokyo, back to picnic lunches with the prices of restaurants far beyond our means. After witnessing a wonderful festival (Gion Matsuri), we found a store and bought some cheese, crackers and sprouts. There was a bench overlooking a small canal, a perfect lunch spot. Across the street, a woman was sweeping the sidewalk in front of her house and started gesturing to us. We wondered if she was telling us we couldn’t sit there, but then she disappeared into her house, came out and crossed the street with two milk bottles filled with green tea. “How could we even think of having lunch without some tea?” she must have thought and without a second thought, brought us some. She then gestured for us to return the empty bottles when we were done and went back to her sweeping. 

 

And so these stories, that began with being invited to “tea” in a small town in England and ended with green tea in a milk bottle delivered by a kind woman, come full circle. And of course, there were many, many other examples in that marvelous year. But the dinners in England, the coffee and ride in Italy, the invitation to live with my teacher in India, the motorcycle “taxi” in Bali and the woman in Japan offering tea with our lunch all became these small and memorable icons of the beauty and power of kind strangers. 

 

In her lovely anthology of poems titled: The Path to Kindness, editor and poet Danusha Lameris writes her foreword:

 

“Kindness is not sugar, but salt. A dash of it gives the whole dish flavor. I want to keep remembering, to keep living into these moments and the worlds they contain.”

So I hope these stories help you feel the flavor of life restored in these cruel times when the simple act of breaking bread and drinking tea offered by strangers feels far away. Where the world where people offer their homes, their hospitality, their hearts, feels like a forgotten place that was “once upon a time.” It all is still here, but we are the ones that need to remember it and pay attention to it and create it in our each and every interaction. 

 

Today my wife who was 29 when we first lived these stories is now celebrating her 75^th birthday. We are still here and intend to keep on savoring each gifted moment of life, with gratitude, appreciation and our own small efforts of helping, from cleaning the street to playing piano at the elder’s home. May it be so for all of us. 

PS And for anyone intrigued by that one-year trip around the world, I wrote a whole first-draft back going back and forth between my memories and actual journal entries. Too busy at the moment to search out a publisher, but if anyone has a lead and wants to share it with me, by all means do! That would be a great act of kindness!

The Kindness of Strangers: III

After a few months in Europe, we arrived in India in December, 1978. True to the form of travel in those days, we had a vague notion of what we were there for—me to study some music, my soon-to-be-wife Karen to look at the arts and crafts and both of us to simply soak in the new waters of a different culture. No reservations, no pre-arranged study, just the name of a village in Kerala, South India where artists were trained in the Kathakali Dance Drama unique to that state. I knew that where there was dance, there would be music, so when we arrived at the doorstep of the Kalamandalam School in Cherethuruthi, I announced my hope to study a drum. They asked which drum and I replied, “What do you have?” and they showed me two different drums, neither of which I had ever seen or heard—the chenda played with sticks and the maddalam played with the hands. “I’ll try that one,” I said pointing to the maddalam and it seemed we were ready to go.

 

However, when I returned in a few days for my first lesson, they informed me that I actually needed a student visa. Rather than go through that complex bureaucracy, they told me that one of their graduate drummers was interested in teaching me and I could arrange it privately with him. Since that teacher, Narayanan, spoke no English and I spoke no Malayalam, they had one of their English-speaking students accompany me to Narayanan’s house. We quickly settled on the schedule and price— a daily 2-hour lesson five times a week for $100 per month— and then Narayanan asked Karen and I where we would be staying. We replied we’d probably stay in Cherethuruthi, even though it was 45 minutes and two bus rides away. That’s when, after talking to us for some 20 minutes, he said, “Oh, why don’t you just live here with us?”

 

Now as noted in my first story, we were already astonished by the hospitality of Jim and Karen Bold in Nether Poppleton, England that they were willing to have two strangers stay with them for a few days. But this was whole new level, as a complete stranger offered for us to LIVE IN HIS HOUSE WITH HIS WIFE, 3-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER AND HIM FOR THE NEXT THREE MONTHS!!! This was so far beyond our cultural upbringing of being wary of strangers and protecting your privacy and personal space that we were simply astonished. 

 

So I replied, “Do you really have room here?” and he said, “No problem! Come!” He took us to a room and opened the door to a bedroom with clothes about that obviously was being used. When I asked him about it, he just shrugged it away and said, “Oh, that’s just my mother-in-law staying here. She can go somewhere else!”

 

Now the cynic in me was probably thinking, “Ah hah! The perfect plan to kick out his mother-in-law!” but I don’t believe that was the case. At any rate, after a brief consultation, Karen and I decided to protect our personal space and stick with a place in Cherethuruthi, despite my daily 90 minute round-trip commute. 

 

I studied with him for three months and believe I was the first Westerner to have studied that drum. I briefly toyed around with staying there and building my life around that identity. But the combination of the fact that though I did a decent job with the instrument, I was far from virtuoso material and the fact that while open to living out the ex-patriate life in some tropical paradise, I think Karen and I both knew that this journey was meant to inform our teaching back at The San Francisco School. Which proved to be entirely true. My study culminated with a ceremony where I got to publicly perform and then off we went again, to northern India, Nepal, Thailand, Singapore and then Java, where we settled for the next three months. During that time, we spent 10 days in Bali and that's where the next story happened. Stay tuned!

 

PS After this trip, Karen and I returned to San Francisco, got married, got pregnant and named our first daughter Kerala after this extraordinary state we got to live in briefly. We always intended to take her there and as a 30th birthday present, we did go back to that village and re-connected with Narayanan and his family. He had traveled quite a bit as a performing artist and had learned to speak English, so it was a double-pleasure to see him again. And though I hadn’t played it in 31 years, I remember much of the drum piece he had taught me!

The Kindness of Strangers: II

Sharing that story of unexpected kindness in a 1978-79 trip around the world got me thinking about other such moments on that trip. I mentioned a few at the end of the last post and the one in Italy particularly interested me, as I hadn’t thought about that forever. I told my wife I had some recollection of a family serving us coffee in their home and a son proudly practicing his English, so decided to see if I could find that passage in my journal from 37 years ago. And damn if I didn’t get it right! 

 

The back story was that my college friend Bobby was living in a kind of Italian/American commune in the hills above Florence, so we decided to visit him. But back in those days, there wasn’t something called GPS and in the hills, even street addresses weren’t particularly useful. We just had to stumble along following some directions Bobby had written to us and again, depending on the help of strangers. Here’s the story from my journal:

 

From the train to the bus to Grassina in search of Bobby’s house in the dark. Following several people’s directions, up a houseless dirt road until defeated by a fork in the path and no encouraging signs to continue. Went back towards town, knocked at the first open door we passed and were swept straight into the heart of a delightful Italian family, who immediately got the expresso cups out and offered us a ride. Three children, the eldest who was 9 or 10 beside himself in self-importance talking to us in the few English words he knew, the proud father smiling and gesturing to him to continue while the two younger ones in pajamas looked on curiously. After coffee, up we rode into the hills, our host asking directions three times before finally finding Bobby’s house. Profuse thanks to them and a warm-goodbye and Bobby’s friends greeting us having expected our arrival. And then the shocking news that Bobby’s mother had died seven days ago and he had just left to go home to New York…”

 

Those were the pre-cell phone days where something surprising like that could happen. Bobby, of course, had no way to get in touch with us and we had no choice but to “go with the flow,” as we used to say back then. His “roommates” welcomed us anyway and we spent some five days there before moving on to Assisi and beyond. 

 

Without effort, I can think of three more memorable stories from that trip and it feels good to share them. And timely. The thing so few people talk about in our time of extreme turmoil is that we are in the midst of a crisis of character, with far too many people —and especially too many people in power—exhibiting their cruel and callous selves, shutting the doors to strangers with a slam, dismissing and deporting people they don’t know, fearful that everyone is out to get them and sitting on their porch with their shotgun. All logical responses in the face of real threats, but 99% is from a purposeful FOX News narrative designed to make people fearful when they needn’t be so those in power can carry out their self-interested agenda of greed and privilege. 

 

Exposing that false narrative alone can’t turn it around. After all, who wants to admit that they’ve been bamboozled and fooled? (Though interesting how many stories are coming out now of people voting Republican who are getting fired senselessly from their jobs and finally, they’re started to get pissed off.) Just as the only antidote to darkness is light, to hate is love, so might these stories of kindness and deep trust in the goodness of people help shake people out of their stupor and remind them that the world is filled with these stories. It might invite them to remember their own stories where they received such unexpected kindness from a stranger (even something so simple as a seat on the bus) and when they themselves offered an act of kindness. 

 

So to complete this little series from that trip, stay tuned for India, Bali and Japan. And consider doing something nice for a stranger today. 

The Kindness of Strangers

I imagine some readers might wonder after my last Blogpost: “What was your story?!” So here it is. 

 

The year was 1978. Remember that? (Laughter, as most of the audience had not been born yet). My not-yet wife and I had taught 4 and 3 years respectively at a progressive independent school, she as the school’s first art teacher, me as the school’s first music teacher. One day she looked to me and said, “I’m at the age when I’m thinking about marriage and starting a family, so before that happens, I’ve decided I want to take a year off and travel around the world. You can come if you want to, but I’m going no matter what.” “Sounds good to me” I replied and we both were granted a one-year leave from the school. And we did end up returning there and she taught for 42 years and me 45. (Applause)

 

But we had no idea back then how that would go. We were simply intent on selling my wife’s Pinto after driving it across the country to my old home in New Jersey, getting tickets on the Laker flight to London ($125 each) and beginning our adventure. We had a vague sense of our itinerary— England, Scotland, Germany and Italy (both places where we had friends to visit), Greece and then across the Middle East to India, visit another friend in Java, Indonesia and end in Japan. But everything was open and even if we wanted a more planned itinerary back then, these were the pre-internet days where you mostly just arrived in a place and walked around looking for a place to stay. Not a single advance reservation for accommodation, restaurants, trains or planes. 

 

And with $6,000 in traveler’s cheques (get your parents to explain them to you!) to last us an entire year, we mostly stayed in Youth Hostels and in the beginning touring the U.K., hitchhiked from one place to another. And so after a delightful time in Scotland, we stuck out our thumbs to head down to York in northeastern England. As we got close, we got picked up by an affable man who after five minutes of talking to us, invited us to his home for tea. Now keep in mind that not only did I have hair back then (take off my hat to laughter), but it was somewhat long and I had a beard. With our big packpacks, we were on the scruffy side of appearance and here he had invited us to his home. Where his wife and two young children, ages 3 and 5, greeted us with surprised faces. He introduced us and casually told them we’d be staying for tea and without missing a beat, they welcomed us into their home.

 

We sat for a bit talking and finally his wife called us to the table. Expecting tea cups and biscuits, there was instead an entire meal laid out. “We don’t want to impose on you during your dinner time” I remarked and they seemed perplexed that I was oblivious to the fact the “tea” in England means “dinner.”So down we sat and after, played some cribbage. At some point I suggested that we should probably get on to the Youth Hostel in York. 

 

“No need for that,” the man suggested. "You’re welcome to stay here for a couple of nights. And where are you going next?”

 

“We’re thinking about Cambridge.”

 

“Perfect!” he exclaimed. "I have a short business trip the day after tomorrow and I can take you to the junction that heads to Cambridge." 

 

The next day, my wife and I visited the girls’ school and I gave a little music class and my wife a little art class. And that’s how we spent two lovely days with Jim and Karen Bold and their two young girls in the quaint little town of Nether Poppleton. 

 

Jim drove us to the junction as promised and after a fond farewell, we stuck out our thumbs and got immediately picked up by an older gentleman. Five minutes of conversation and he said, “Well, before you go to the hostel, come stop at my house for tea.”

 

And yes, tea meant another dinner and yes, he and his wife invited us to spend the night and the next morning, she knocked on our bedroom door and came in with food on a tray to serve us breakfast in bed. Breakfast in bed!

 

It was an astonishing beginning to an entire year where we put ourselves at the mercy of the kindness of strangers and time after time, they delivered. With another six minutes, I could tell you similar stories from our time in Italy, India, Bali and Japan.

 

Back in New Jersey before we started, I noticed my parents were locking the doors when we are all inside our house—in the afternoon! But elsewhere in the world, the generosity and hospitality of people who barely knew us and had no guarantee that we wouldn’t rob them or cheat them or hurt them— and didn’t think twice about it— was a wonder to behold. It is good for us to remember this in this time when everyone is distrustful and at each other’s throats. It is possible to count on the kindness of strangers and even more important, to be that kind stranger ourselves. 

Moths to the Flame

It has long been said that for most people, fear of public speaking is greater than the fear of death. For whatever reason, not for me. So when my daughter invited my wife and I to accompany her and her boyfriend Matt to a storytelling event called The Moth, it sounded interesting. Especially since he had already told stories at a few and hoped to do so again this night. 

 

A brief background: The Moth is both a podcast and a live event once a month in various places. The idea is simple: Everyone has a story to tell. Why not give people a chance to tell it? And gather others around to listen, attracted as we are to each other’s stories like moths to the flame.

 

Each event has a particular theme—like Friends or Pets or Regrets. This one was “Oblivious”— something that happened that you didn’t see coming. For those up for the invitation, you simply go up to the host beforehand, write your name and address and add the paper to the hat. 10 people are then randomly chosen. The rules are clear and again, simple:

1)   No story longer than six minutes. 

2)   No notes to read from. Tell the story.

3)   No hate speech or obviously bigoted material. 

4)   Three different groups of pre-selected judges will give you a number rating from 1 to 10. The “winner” gets to go on to a later “Grand Slam” event. 

 

We arrived and the place was packed to the max, about 150 people or so. While waiting for it to start, it occurred to me that I had a story I could tell. My daughter discouraged me, reminding me that most people had thoroughly prepared and practiced their stories, especially to meet the 6-minute deadline. And I was worried that one more name in the hat would slightly affect Matt’s chances of being chosen. Nevertheless, I persisted and put my name in.

 

Then, I confess, I felt just a little bit nervous. So in the five minutes before starting, I came up with an enticing beginning and what I thought might be a satisfying end, confident that the middle would take care of itself. The lights went down, the first speaker stepped up and he was quite good. My nervousness amped up an inch. The second speaker not quite as engaging, but also good. And then, lo and behold, I hear my name being called for the third!

 

Once on stage, all nerves settled, back in a familiar territory to speaking to a group. The audience seemed to sincerely enjoy it and my judge’s score was just below the 1^st speaker and above the second’s. And then, hand to heart that this is true, I put my hand in the hat to pull out the paper for the next speaker and…drum roll here, it was Matt!!!! What were the chances?

 

What’s more, his story was great and his delivery great and his score the highest so far. Two hours later, when all 10 speakers had delivered, he “won” the event! And I was 3^rd! Of course, that wasn’t even close to the point of it, but still very satisfying for both of us. 

 

The host, with his spirited and funny banter, was very good and at some point he asked if anyone had any questions. One asked, “How do we save Democracy?” His instant reply was, “Doing things like this. Gathering together, sharing our stories, listening to each other and realizing that we’re all in this together, all to be equally valued, all with so much more in common than the politicians would have us believe.” 

 

And he’s right.