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. 

 

Change and Acceptance

 

“The portals of age lead to the profound understanding that people are going to do what people are going to do; They do not want my always-good ideas on how to have easier lives and possibly become slightly less annoying.  Now there is some acceptance (partly born of tiredness) that I can’t rescue or fix anyone, not even me. Sometimes this affords me a kind of plonky peace, fascination and even wonder at people and life as they tromp on by.”  — Anne Lamott

 

I’ve always enjoyed the humor, insights, heart and cautious optimism of Anne Lamott’s writing, so it was a pleasure to stumble across a guest editorial someone printed out and shared with me that includes the above. I think she honestly expresses the secret arrogance that many poets/ essayists/ fiction writers have—“Hey! If you listen to me, things are going to be much better for you.” Of course, they often disguise that “better” doesn’t mean “easier” and indeed, that’s why most people don’t listen. Because to truly follow any suggestion of improving one’s life worth its salt requires a depth of thought, reflection, courageous action that few of us are willing to undertake. 

 

Nevertheless, I persist in writing (these blogposts, articles, books, social media posts) and speaking (lectures, podcasts, workshop comments, dinner conversation), not wholly with the intent to change people’s minds and hearts and more to clarify what’s going on in mine. But secretly (and not so secretly), I DO hope people will listen and consider a new point of view that can bring some healing and hope and happiness. And to be honest, as Ms. Lamott is above, people are mostly going to keep on doing what they do, thinking what they think, feeling what they feel. 

 

At some point, I have to come to terms with that, be at peace with it, accept it and even enjoy the “plonky peace, fascination and wonder” of watching the whole show tromping by.  That day may come, but it will come much sooner when the people “doing what they do” are either stripped of their voting rights or have to earn them through demonstrating some basic knowledge and intelligence. Because at the moment, they’re not just tromping by but tromping on all that I hold sacred. That’s where the tension between “accepting what we cannot change” and “changing what we cannot accept” lies. If you know how to walk that tightrope without falling to your demise, well, let me know. 

  

The Test of Faith

For reasons beyond my understanding, I have had faith my whole life that this world is a beautiful place and we are meant to participate in that loveliness, preserve it, add to it, praise it, express undying gratitude for it all. We also have the blessed obligation to reveal it to others and to reveal to others their own forgotten beauty. As a teacher and an artist, that is certainly what I have attempted and occasionally accomplished. 

 

But I’m not naïve. I can see clearly how we’ve squandered our incarnation as human beings, fed our brutality over our beauty, soiled our own bed, chased after the wrong things that bring nothing but more pain and sorrow and emptiness, stood by silently while others have pillaged and raped and trashed and thrashed and beaten and bullied the innocent and the vulnerable. 

 

So it takes a great leap of faith to come to terms with humanity’s capacity for extraordinary kindness and tenderness and courage and love mixed with our equal capacity for bottomless greed and cruelty and stupidity and hatred. How much of that is a mirror to Nature’s cycle of Creation and Destruction and how much is a thing entirely to the side, not to be casually accepted as the cycle of life and death? 

 

Every year I revel in the plum blossoms in February, the reminder that life endlessly re-generates itself and from the bare branches of Winter come the fragrant blossoms of Spring. In both my personal life and cultural life, I see some cycles of extraordinary creativity and hopeful signs that we will finally learn how to co-habit peacefully and joyfully together alternating with both personal and cultural betrayals where the whole show crashes to the ground. Whereas the plums are reliable and on a timetable, these other deaths and re-births are unpredictable and at the whim of forces none of us understand. We can’t just grit our teeth through the December and January of our lives knowing that the February blooms (at least in San Francisco!) are on their way. 

 

So today’s Mary Oliver’s “poem-d’jour” both gives me a crumb of comfort and makes me wonder if indeed the human cycle will follow the natural one. My faith that this might be so is certainly being tested in this moment. 

 

What do you think?

 

1/2 + 1/2 = Whole

In his book The Genius Myth, author Michael Meade tells an old tale from Borneo.

 

There was once a boy born with just one half of a body. Painfully aware of his deformity as he grew up, he felt alone and rejected by the people in his village. He decided he had no other choice than to leave his home and when he got to the edge of the village and took his first step out into the larger world, there was no one to see him off or wish him well or say a prayer or sing a song. 

 

He wandered until he came to a river and there on the other side, he saw another half-boy. He had only the left side of his body, that boy had the right. You might imagine they simply joined together to make themselves whole, but instead they began to argue and fight about which was the better half, which was the true half and in so doing fell into the river. Still thrashing about together, the river began to heat up and boil and throw up huge waves until it finally settled. Out of its waters came a whole boy with two arms, two legs, two eyes. 

 

This new boy was deeply confused and staggering about, not knowing how to coordinate its two halves. He met an elder who told him that he in fact was right back in the village where he started, a place where no one had sung or danced or celebrated together since he left. So the old man taught the young boy how to move his arms and legs together into a dance and they both came dancing into the village, where all—young and old alike—began dancing and singing and drumming together. We hope that they are dancing still. 

 

If that’s not a story for our times, I don’t know what is. Every day it feels like we’re thrashing around in the raging waters of the news, beaten down by the waves and boiling over with outrage. The left and the right polarized and split apart and incapable of knowing how to dance together. And because of that, the whole village suffers and the world is at the mercy of half-people. Though he wrote his book in 2016, Meade illuminates with his prophet’s eye exactly what is happening here and now. He says:

 

The half-village is the place where people see with the single eye of self-interest and act with the habits of self-involvement. The half-village denies the presence of universal pain and suffering in order to get on with the basic activities of life. Typically, the half-village will ignore the wounds of life until they become insufferable. Beyond that, the half-village will often reward and even sanctify the kind of self-involvement that drives the frequent misuse of power and the extremes of greed. (boldface mine)

 

In the half-village, people reduce everything to polarities—oppositions in which everyone is expected to pick a side. All that can be seen are the opposing halves of life: left or right, right or wrong up or down, good or bad, white or black, male or female, old or young. The very idea of wholeness presents a problem, as most people cannot even acknowledge the common state of divisiveness and opposition. In the modern world, the need for experiences of feeling whole grows greater and greater, while the problem of wholeness grows larger as fewer people recognize the need for healing and the longing to become whole becomes lost in the distractions and delusions of mainstream activities. 

 

Are you with me here? Can you feel how so much of how we react to the challenge of turbulent times is a superficial putting band-aids on cancer rather than the deep-tissue healing our times demand? That how we raise our children— in our homes, our communities, our collective media and our schools is not simply about making their life a bit more pleasant and fun, but is a vote for a future where kids grown to adults with the tools and intentions of growing fully into their own genius will stop the harm and hurt that the half-people in power are causing?

 

As Meade suggests, if each would follow their own thread of life and learn how and where to weave it to the living community of souls, then the world could become again what it has always been and is meant to be: a place of awe, beauty and wonder,  a living ground of renewal and revelation…The true wonder of creation is that is continues to create and that each of us has been invited to participate. The way to participate most fully is to find the unique thread of our genius and gift it back to the waiting world. 

 

Neither inward personal growth or outward political action is enough— both are needed. What is unresolved inside of us in our personal life is necessarily unresolved outside of us in our collective life. What changes in the political realm can’t take root if nothing changes inside of us. In that way, this is a story for all times that dates back to the ancient Greeks, yet is still little known or considered in our modern times. 

 

As noted in James Hillman’s The Soul’s Code and Michael Meade’s The Genius Myth, we are all born with an accompanying genius, an inborn particular pattern that we spend our life trying to recognize and claim, another half that waits to complete us. It calls to us in countless ways and we can only become whole if we tune our ear to the call, agree to respond to the call and follow it regardless of wherever it might lead. That will take some courage, determination and grit, for it will not be calling us to the shopping mall, the video game, the obedient worker doing whatever the boss tells us. If we refuse the call, we live as half-people and never learn how to dance into who we are meant to be. 

 

In short, if enough of us refuse to allow half-people to run the show in both the outer world and our inner world, the possibility of real change may come. Amongst everything else, let us put our own quest for wholeness on the list. 

 

(NOTE TO READER: Occasionally these posts are the same or similar to what I put on Facebook and this time, it’s what I just recorded for my Podcast. I’m hearing the first reports of people silenced for exercising Free Speech, so while I can, want to exhaust every medium available to keep the free exchange of ideas a priority in our crumbling democracy.)

Waymos Don't Honk

I continue to wage my one-person war against the invasion of driverless cars in my beloved city and am losing two ways. They continue to multiply without my permission and continue to piss me off every time I see one, which is about once every 30 seconds when I’m out and about. Nothing new here—I’ve griped about them before. But today I added another reason to wish they never had been made and hope against reason that they disappear.

 

In my earlier post Back on the Streets, I celebrate the good feeling of being out again amongst protestors, but was missing the songs and music. I ended that post with “Next time bring some drums.” So I showed up again at another protest  in front of the Tesla Showroom on Van Ness and it looked like someone had the same idea. Not only were there drums, but there was an entire band with a name—The Liberation Brass Band. I had brought my tambourine and jumped right into the swingin’ music well played by men and women on horns and drums, with some spirited chanting mixed it. Again, the colorful and clever signs were in abundance and best of all, the cars on this heavily-trafficked street punctuated the music with tootin’ their horns in solidarity. Lots of them. Reminded me of the scene outside of Yancey’s Bar and Grill when the Giants won the World Series or the Warriors won the NBA Championship. Collective euphoria and more fuel to the fire from the horns of passing cars. 

 

But all the damn Waymos on Van Ness Avenue were silent. And the sad riders sitting alone with their invisible driver had nothing to add to the energy. Amongst a thousand reasons to stop replacing humans with machines is this: Waymos don’t honk. No way to express joy or offer resistance to the dissolution of democracy, just silently gliding through the streets in their compliance. 

 

Meanwhile, honk if you like this photo. 

 

New Ap—Not!

What goes on in your head when you’re not watching? Be it in your daydreams or night dreams, what thoughts or sounds or images are swirling around in your grey matter? It’s one way to figure out which of our multiple intelligences tends to be our default one, the one that is wholly ours without our intention, the one we were born with and born to develop. 

 

Stories abound of musicians hearing all the notes in their head before writing them down on paper, scientists solving mysteries with images that come to them in their dreams, writers that have perfectly formed sentences arrive that get them up in the middle of the night to jot them down on the nearest scrap of paper. It’s the way our unconscious “declares its major.”

 

When I first read Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences, I was fascinated to discover that while my entire life was devoted to teaching music, I wasn’t actually a musician in this sense. Except for occasional earworms, I wasn’t walking around hearing music in my head. It seemed that the linguistic intelligence, my predilection with putting vague ideas into more articulate words and phrases, was really the dominant mode of engaging with the world. 

 

And in a strange way, this was —and is— what made me a good music teacher. Being a “non-musician” who got as far as one can go with music as my “minor” rather than “major” helped make me more patient and tolerant for the kids and adults who likewise were not born to music. “Real” musicians often are notoriously impatient with their students who simply can’t hear things the way that they can and don’t have any strategies to enlarge the hearing and understanding of their pupils. 

 

Feels like my legacy will be more about my ten books exploring those strategies, my talks and lectures, these blogposts rather than memorable musical compositions or recordings of inspired improvisations. The way I feel compelled to connect what goes on in the music classroom with greater issues of humanitarian communities, social justice and the soul’s work, all of which have fascinated me my whole life. Using my linguistic aptitudes to reveal, to shine light on, to express what other people feel but haven’t found the words for (a common and always-appreciated comment many have made about my writing). 

 

So why this title? Because the way electronics are creeping into my dreams, last night they announced that whatever I was thinking in my dream life would automatically go into the Notes on my phone and I didn’t need to get up and search for a pen and paper. In this way, the musician’s score in their head would already be fully formed on some electronic music-writing ap (What? No more Finale or Sibelius! I’ve heard rumors of something called Dorico), the scientist’s breakthrough would be ready to print out to present at the next Conference, the dancer’s choreography would be videoed, the artist’s painting ready to go. 

 

Some might think, “Fantastic! I’m sure AI can do it someday!” But I hope not. The old tried-and-true method of dream it, bring it slowly into focus and do the work to birth it into form, then re-work it and edit it and re-work it again. Whether Shakespeare or Da Vinci or Bach or Martha Graham or Mary Oliver or Hazel Scott or Einstein or Steph Curry, this is the proven durable method to human invention, imagination and intellectual accomplishment. 

 

Happy dreams! 

Prep Before Painting

The painters have been hard at work for three days now and there’s not a square foot of new paint on the walls. And yet, they said they’d finish the job tomorrow. 

 

It has been a while since I’ve painted and probably never did it as thoroughly as them, but it struck me that most of the job— in this case, 3/4ths of the job— is preparing the surfaces for painting. Washing the walls, sanding parts, spackling, covering the furniture and more. What lesson is here that we all might take to heart?

 

Let’s imagine that that color is the needed change in our lives, our culture, our government, that allows us to start afresh and be uplifted by the beauty of a newly chosen hue that speaks to us. Not possible to just slap it on on top of the old color without all that other work. Washing out the accumulated dirt of grimy greed and malicious malfeasance, sanding down the gritty texture of hurtful and harmful toxic narratives, spackling in the holes in our soul that we try to fill with drugs and shopping and electronic addiction. Covering things to protect them in this time of transition while our house in chaos. Whether it be the furniture and the food or the vulnerable— children, immigrants, trans people. Also covering the vulnerable parts of ourselves that ingest news like toxic lead paint. In short, before the first brush of new paint can be applied, we simply have to do all the prep work for it to truly be effective, for it to last long enough until the next needed change. 

 

For me, that preparation is education. Ongoing, in-depth, purposeful and provocative education for all ages at all times. Without it, news is just random information that seems senseless because we’re not prepared to see the patterns and connect the dots and understand the logic that continues to fuel the actions that beat us down. 

 

Let’s also remember to open the windows so we don’t inhale too many of the fumes and let the paint dry before we hang all the old pictures up again on the walls. It’s a complex process and I thank the painters for reminding me. Knowing all that it took, I believe I will appreciate it all yet more when the house I live in feels new and vibrant.

Now What?

My e-mail is down to zero, no Facebook posts that are getting comments, no current book-writing project (though two whole books written first draft that I hope to get back to). Someone mentioned Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations to me the other day and I spontaneously went out and bought the piano score and then realized I don’t love the music. Plus it’s technically daunting. 

 

I finally located a replacement watch online (after exhausting all S.F. stores) through Fred Myers jewelry and am awaiting its arrival. I got a needed new pair of glasses, a new credit card after mine had been hacked. I went to DMV to finally deal with the totally unnecessary “real ID” so I don’t have to take my passport every time I fly. Got a number in line—G212— and noticed on the board they were serving G060. A nice security guard confirmed that it could be 4 hours before my number came up—and he was right! But instead of sitting with the masses amidst traces of urine smell, I went out for lunch and walked around the Panhandle of G.G. Park, sat on a bench in the sun and read my book The Three Musketeers. (Which is actually pretty good and just found out yesterday that author Alexander Dumas was a mixed-race Frenchman.) Every hour or so, I popped back in to check on the numbers and finally mine arrived.

 

So here I am on a Friday morning, all dressed up and nowhere to go. Well, actually not. I have a Men’s Group meeting this morning, walking out on Crissy Field toward Fort Point, my beloved Jewish Home afternoon piano play, a childhood friend of my wife’s meeting us for dinner at a Burmese restaurant. With the painters in their third day in our house, it’s an extra blessing to have somewhere to go, something to do and people to do it with. 

 

In a little over a week, I’m back on another whirlwind Orff tour, this time in Hong Kong teaching kids and adults in some 12 different venues. My schedule all laid out for me, no need to wonder “What to do today?” But when you’re all caught up with the small stuff (still have taxes to deal with) and you have that moment’s satisfaction of crossing everything off your list, there’s that next daunting moment to face: “Now what?”

 

Well, there’s always dismantling the Patriarchy, tossing out White Supremacy, 

smashing the Capitalist State that puts profits over people. That should keep me busy. 

The Mystery Novel I Will Never Write

 Mary Lynard. It had been 40 years since I last saw her, heard about her, even thought about her. Yet here she was. 40 years after we graduated from our Orff music training together, she turned up at my Orff workshop. Naturally, we had to take a selfie together to mark the occasion.

 

And that’s when things turned strange. I woke up. It had just been a dream and that already was mysterious. Why think about her now? What had triggered my sub-conscious to bring her back?

 

I got out of bed and on an impulse, went to my phone. And there in recent photos was the selfie we took in the dream!…

 

Of course, that last bit never happened, but I woke up thinking, “That could be a good beginning to a mystery novel!” One that I will never write. 

 

You are welcome to use it. If it’s a best seller, I’ll take 5% of the royalties. And Mary, if you’re reading this, get in touch and tell me what you’ve been up to. If you tell me that you dreamt about me last night, we should write the novel together. 

The Weight of Poetry

For my wife’s 75^th birthday, I decided to say “Yes, dear” when she suggested we re-paint the kitchen and hallway. By “we” I mean the painters we hired. Our “can do” spirit when we first moved in has metamorphosized to “we’d rather pay someone else. “ And so the painters arrived to our hallway stripped of all the photos and artwork on the hallway’s walls and a kitchen with all counters, walls and such cleared, from the spice rack to the toaster oven to the baskets stored atop cabinets. 

 

We didn’t count on them wanting to move out entirely the four bookshelves in the hall, so while they laid down the tarps on the floor, I was frantically figuring out how to un-shelve and re-shelve come 350 books in various nooks and crannies of rooms not to be painted. It turns out that poetry weighs quite a lot! Its job is to lighten our burdens and help the spirit fly a bit freer, but the cumulative weight of all those words on printed pages turns out to be quite a lot, as my upper arm muscles can testify. 

 

When the job is done and it’s time to replace them in their bookshelf homes, I suspect that this is just the right moment to consider, “Do I really need this collection of French poetry from my high school English class?” Likewise, the kids’ old piano books in a bottom drawer of one bookshelf. Just the tip of the iceberg of the “death-cleaning” (the Swedish term for getting rid of things you never look at and really don’t need so your kids won’t have to do it when you’re gone) that lies ahead. I’ve already made a pass at the old videos and DVD’s and cassette tapes and T-shirts from Orff chapters and such, but so much more awaits. Four file cabinets of old notes from just about every Orff workshop I’ve ever taught, some 50 cassette tapes I couldn’t yet bear to part with, but most likely will never listen to again—how can I? Yesterday my wife recycled the stick that had the kids’ heights at different ages and I protested strongly. (Where is that stick, by the way?!)  She did decide to keep the box of letters they had written to Santa and that was a delight to re-read.

 

And so it goes. I’m still creating work that I hope to preserve, mostly in this i-Cloud form, still buying books and CD’s, still tucking away gifts from my trips in this drawer or that. But just as the body begins to shrink and the hearing and sight and libido diminish, so should we reduce the things around us to the essential, the memorable, the useful and yes, a few nostalgically sweet. Hopefully in physical form. As noted in my “4444” post, I would be happy to have a spiral bound paper copy of all these blogposts in the hope that someone somewhere someday may sit down with a cup of tea, soft lighting, nice music playing and read of this marvelous adventure that has been part of my life. But as that last entry testified, that would need to be a 15-volume set! Is it worth the paper?

 

Before closing out, anyone want any poetry collections? 

4444

Four 4’s feel like a number that deserves attention. Look it up in Wikipedia and the first entry about the number 4 reveals: 

 

“Almost from prehistoric times, the number four was employed to signify what was solid, what could be touched and felt. Its relationship to the cross (four points) made it an outstanding symbol of wholeness and universality, a symbol which drew all to itself".

 

An auspicious beginning to its mythological significance. From there, there are the 4 elements—earth, water, fire and air, the 4 directions—North, South, East, West, the 4 Seasons—Winter, Spring, Summer Fall. Many songs and fairy tales have three repeated things—phrases, tasks to accomplish, wishes—and then are completed by the 4^th—the capping phrase, the marriage, the consequence. 

 

Things are less happy in the Chinese, Korean and Japanese cultures as the word for 4 is a homonym for “death” in their languages. 4444 as death-death-death-death is not something to celebrate! Unless it be the death of cruelty, ignorance, hatred, greed— I can get behind that. 

 

So why am I writing about 4444? Because this is the four thousandth, four hundred and forty fourth blogpost I have written since I began in January of 2011. (Interestingly enough, as I was about to set off on my first workshop teaching in Korea.) I’ve sometimes thought I should have a paper version of this whole project and still do. But that’s a lot of pages! If anyone wants to celebrate the occasion by printing them all out for me and binding them (probably in some 10 to 15 books), I would happily accept the gift. But I won’t be waiting for Fed Ex on my doorstep. Instead, it’s time to write 4,445.