Final Exam

This another great find from social media. Here’s my assessment of how I did (or still am doing), as shown by comments in italics:

 

42 lessons life taught me

Written by Regina Brett, 90 years old, of the Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio.

"To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 42 lessons life taught me. It is the most requested column I've ever written. My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:”

 

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good. — Yep. 

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.— Good reminder.. 

3. Life is too short – enjoy it..— Doing my best here. 

4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and family will.— Yep.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.— Without fail..

6. You don't have to win every argument. Stay true to yourself.— Got better at the first part.  No choice but to follow the second.

7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.— Yep.

8. Save for retirement starting with your first pay check.— I think I might have waited 10 years or so. When you’re 24, who’s thinking about retirement?

9. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.— Thanks for affirming that.

10. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.— Good advice and mostly, I’m on it!

11. It's OK to let your children see you cry.— Yep. Sometimes in front of the whole school where we all were.

12. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.— Excellent reminder. 

13. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it... —No comment.

14 Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.— Every morning and then some. 

15. Get rid of anything that isn't useful. Clutter weighs you down in many ways.— Hmm. Work in progress.

16. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.— Yep.

17. It's never too late to be happy. But it’s all up to you and no one else.— Hard-earned truth. 

18. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.— Never did, never will. 

19. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.— Hmm. No to the fancy lingerie.

20. Over prepare, then go with the flow.— My teaching North Star!!

21. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.— Yep. And I wore purple (upon advisement) for my TED talk. 

22. The most important sex organ is the brain.— Thinking about that.

23. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.— Yep.

24. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?'— Sometimes. 

25. Always choose life.— Yes, I believe I do. .

26. Forgive but don’t forget.— This I have learned and the sign is that I can tell the same story without calling up the cellularly-remembered outrage and sense of betrayal. But I have not forgotten a single detail. 

27. What other people think of you is none of your business.—Getting better at understanding this. 

28. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.— Work in progress.

29. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.— Yep!

30. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does..— Pondering.

31. Believe in miracles.— Yep, because I witness them in my classes. Not so much in the political landscape. 

32. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.—Okay. 

33. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.—Amen!

34. Your children get only one childhood.— Yep. Grandchildren too. 

35. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.— Hope so!

36. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere. — As for the first, more or less. Again, agree with the second but works better if I don’t take my phone out walking with me..

37. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.—Good point! The Devil you know, etc.

38. Envy is a waste of time. Accept what you already have not what you think you need.— Work in progress.

39. The best is yet to come... Hope so!

40. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.— I do. .

41. Yield.— Improving

42. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift.— Sometimes hard to remember in these dark days. But always aiming for it. 

 

How did you do on the test? Share it with a friend. 

 

The Coffee Parable

(I found this intriguing story on social media. See if it works for you.)

 

Let’s say it’s a beautiful day outside and you decide to go for a stroll. You pop by the local coffee shop to pick up your favorite brew. And as you turn around from the pickup counter, someone accidentally bumps into you and, as a result, half of your coffee ends up splashing all over the floor. The question I pose to you now is why did you spill the coffee?

 

The obvious answer that comes to mind for most people is the reason why you spilled your coffee is because that other guy bumped into you. If he didn’t bump into you, you wouldn’t have spilled your coffee. This is true.

Perhaps taking it one step further, the reason why you spilled your coffee is because you weren’t paying attention to your surroundings. If you had glanced over your shoulder before deciding to turn around, you may have been able to avoid that collision and thus saved your coffee. That might be true too.

 

But both of these are almost beyond the point if we were to consider the situation on a much more literal level.

 

Inside Out

The reason why you spilled your coffee is because your cup was full of coffee. If that cup was full of hot tea, you would have spilled hot tea. If the cup was filled with lemonade, you would have spilled your lemonade.

At the very core of it all, the thing that you spill is what was within you when you got shaken or jostled. The thing that comes spilling out is whatever was inside your cup when you got shaken or jostled. Getting bumped simply released what was already there. If you didn’t get bumped, nothing would have spilled, but in life, you can only expect to have your world shaken, jostled, and turned upside down every now and then.

 

Start at the Beginning

Now, this story isn’t really about coffee, of course. The point is that whatever is inside you is what will come out when you get shaken. If you are already filled with anger and resentment, that’s what will come out when things don’t quite go your way and you get bumped. If you are already filled with frustration, that’ll spill out ten times hotter when you get jostled.

 

Many people assume that they’ll be happy when they’re successful, but that’s putting the cart before the horse. It’s completely backwards. You must first start from a mindset of happiness and gratitude before you can really achieve any kind of real success. That way, when the world inevitably bumps into you, the thing that will come spilling out of your cup is happiness and gratitude.

The challenge, then, is figuring out how you can choose to fill your cup with positive vibes, humility, kindness, compassion and ambition, rather than resentment and frustration. It needs to be a conscious choice. So, start there. Fill your cup with joy, so when you do get shaken, all it means is you now have room for a refill.

 

Interesting? Right now we are all of us being shaken and jostled at 7.0 on the Richter scale. Rather than causing reactions, it is revealing what’s already inside of our cup. All the toxic narratives of the Patriarchy, White Supremacy, unchecked Capitalism that have been raging inside some cups are splashing out and burning anyone within reach. At the same time, our highest humanitarian impulses that have been waiting to be called on are overflowing in others. 

 

My work as a teacher is to help fill everyone’s cups with joy, connection, communion and great music and dance. And help re-fill them when the contents spill out. Well, not a perfect metaphor— the hot coffee of kindness still spills out so we can’t drink it and gets our clothes wet. But you get the point.

 

Me and the Boy

 I was a “boy’s boy” growing up— sports, occasional fist-fights and the smug certainty that mine was the superior gender (despite Suzanne Anderson beating me in arm wrestling in 4^th grade). The one cliché that didn’t apply was building and fixing things, an aptitude that continued to elude me my whole adult life. 

 

By the time I got to college, the feminine side of my psyche, nurtured by Whitman, Chopin and a growing interest in teaching young children, began to grow along with my hair and embroidering flowers on my bell-bottom jeans. I took a class on Feminism and two years after graduating college, got a job at an elementary/preschool where most of my teacher colleagues were women. A few years later, I had two children, both girls. Who later filled our house with their friends, also girls. As a music teacher, I found myself wholly at home teaching the girls and puzzled about how to reach the boys. Especially as the school grew to a Middle School. 

 

By the late 80’s, Robert Bly, Michael Meade and James Hillman began organizing Men’s Retreats, noticing that men embracing their feminine sides was an important step, but fell short of the possibility of embracing a positive masculinity. So by 1990, I joined a Men’s Group of mostly men who knew each other from the school with the hope of investigating what a non-toxic masculinity might look and feel like. 35 years later, we’re still trying to figure it out!

 

But somewhere along the way, I noticed my relationship with the boys I taught shifting. I somehow learned how to appreciate their energy and help turn it into a positive musical experience. When my granddaughter Zadie was born, I was thrilled and delighted. Familiar territory and happy to be in it. By the time my grandson Malik was born, I finally felt ready to grandparent a boy. 

 

And here we are, my wife and I up in Portland caring for the grandkids for five days and loving every minute with them both. But particularly appreciating my comfort with Malik— playing cards, playing basketball (he beat me in HORSE!), watching the Warrior’s game. He also makes his own breakfast and lunch, reads voraciously, can be wholly tender and sweet alongside his boyish swagger and confidence. 

 

I’m fully aware that the very notion of masculine and feminine, even discussed as different energies within both boys and girls, has been called into question and sometimes downright dismissed. I also noticed early on that in staff meetings, the women teachers would agree that this was all socially constructed and then in their casual conversation, those parenting boys and girls would confess, “They’re SO DIFFERENT!” It seems logical to me that nature’s choice of division of labor through creating two sexes in mammals would have some effect. 

 

Simply put, the energies needed for killing animals and nurturing children are different. Long after such division of labor is actually practiced in a world where both men and women go to the office, those energies would still be present in our ancestral cellular structure. Not one iota of this means excusing men from child-raising and women from kick-boxing. But it seems wise to start the conversation of balancing the two energies from the foundation of  where they both begin. 

 

But I’m not going to solve that here. Or anywhere! I’m just happy to have a chance to bond with my grandson. That’s all I really wanted to say.  

Homage to Tom Lehrer

A few weeks ago, Tom Lehrer turned 97. 

 

I imagine one of two responses to this news bulletin:

 

1)   Who?

2)   OMG, I loved him!!

 

I’m in the second camp, as early as 1965 when his album That Was the Year That Was came out. My social criticism neuron connections where just forming in my 14-year-old brain and his songs lit me up like the finale to the 4^th of July fireworks. Songs like The Folk Song Army, Smut, Pollution, New Math, So Long Mom (A Song for World War III), the Vatican Rag and the album opener, National Brotherhood Week. Hilarious and deadly serious at once, profound and silly, scathing and light-hearted—in short, satire at its best. Just him singing while playing piano in a wide variety of styles. That iconic purple-covered album was so memorable—just seeing it again, while looking up the Wiki entry on Mr. Lehrer, brought be right back to that childhood delight of listening to his sophisticated humor. 

And they hold up! Some years back, I played many of Allen Sherman’s re-working of known songs for my grandkids (Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh the top hit) and they loved it. But Tom Lehrer takes the humor up to another level. I’m writing this from the airport on the way to spend a week with them, so maybe I’ll give it a try. But I suspect 9 is too young an age and a contemporary 13-year old might be impatient with the uncoolness of the music. I’ll give it a try and report back.

 

Meanwhile, I remember during Earth Week some 10/ 15 years ago singing Pollution with the kids at my school and wondering whatever happened to Tom Lehrer. His songs were featured briefly in a 60’s TV show of the same title as that album, but he gradually dropped out of sight. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that he was living literally down the road from me (well, an hour down the road) teaching math and musical theater-history at the University of Santa Cruz. He also spent some time back East teaching math at MIT. I had the bold plan of tracking him down and inviting him to come sing for the kids at school, but alas, I got distracted and never did. Apparently, he still lives in the Santa Cruz area, but at 97 years old, not too likely he’ll drive up to San Francisco. 

 

At any rate, I’m happy to know he’s still on the planet and want to publicly thank him here for all the years of delight. For those whose response to the opening sentence was number 1, by all means, check out his songs. For the most part, they hold up. And those who answered 2, dig out your old records or go to Spotify, whatever, but check back in with the guy you once enjoyed. And both groups, share it with the kids.

 

Finally, here’s the lyrics to National Brotherhood Week to entice you. 

 

(And, by the way, does that week still exist? Outlawed? Cancelled?)

 

Oh, the white folks hate the black folks

And the black folks hate the white folks
To hate all but the right folks
Is an old established rule.

 

But during National Brotherhood Week
National Brotherhood Week
Lena Horne and Sheriff Clarke are dancing cheek to cheek
It's fun to eulogize
The people you despise
As long as you don't let 'em in your school.

 

Oh, the poor folks hate the rich folks
And the rich folks hate the poor folks
All of my folks hate all of your folks
It's American as apple pie.

 

But during National Brotherhood Week
National Brotherhood Week
New Yorkers love the Puerto Ricans 'cause it's very chic
Step up and shake the hand
Of someone you can't stand
You can tolerate him if you try.

Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics
And the Catholics hate the Protestants
And the Hindus hate the Moslems
And everybody hates the Jews.

But during National Brotherhood Week
National Brotherhood Week
It's National Everyone-smile-at-one-another-hood Week
Be nice to people who
Are inferior to you
It's only for a week, so have no fear

Be grateful that it doesn't last all year. 

Lithuanian Birthday

Lying in bed this morning, betwixt and between sleeping and waking, while the world spun on in its usual mix of hidden harmonies and outer chaos, I was making a list of countries. As follows:

 

• Guatemala, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Argentina, Australia, Indonesia, Lithuania,

Macedonia, Mauritania.

 

Can you see the connection? With one exception, all of them share the following:

 

• They all end in A.

• They represent all six inhabited continents. 

• They all are 9 letters long. (And here’s the exception: Mauritania)

 

Once I woke up, I checked out a list of countries in the world to see if I missed any that fit the above criteria. And I didn’t! I did find the longest single word country. Ironically, also one of the smallest: Liechtenstein (13 letters). The tie for the two longest of more than one word? Democratic Republic of the Congo and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (sounds like a rock band!), both clocking in at 28 letters. And no, I never heard of the latter either. It’s in the Caribbean near Barbados. 

 

So yet another testimony to the strangeness of the human mind. Why would it be researching in the neuro-circuitry of the brain these 9-letter-ending-in-A countries at this particular time? Or at any time? And how could it do so so accurately in that state between sleeping and waking (and leaning heavily to sleeping)? And what was it trying to tell me?

 

Well, this is a stretch, but today is my mother’s Heavenly Birthday. She would have been 104 had she lived 11 more years. Her parents emigrated from Poland, around the turn of the century, but late in life, she discovered they actually were from Russia and went to Poland first before coming to the U.S. Since Russia ruled Lithuania and Lithuania borders Poland, it’s entirely possible that my grandparents were born there. So maybe that deep subconscious mind was trying to make some connection on the occasion of my Mom’s birthday. And then spun off into those other countries who shared the above superficial connection. Who knows?

 

Meanwhile, happy birthday. Mom. Off to care for your great-grandchildren today while your granddaughter takes a trip to Cleveland. (Also 9 letters!)

 

Staying Alive

No, not the Bee Gees song from Saturday Night Fever, but a poem by that most marvelous poet, Mary Oliver. Here’s an excerpt:

 

“You must not ever stop being whimsical.

And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.

 

I don't mean it's easy or assured, there are the stubborn stumps of shame, grief that remains unsolvable after all the years, a bag of stones that goes with one wherever one goes and however the hour may call for dancing and for light feet. But there is, also, the summoning world, the admirable energies of the world, better than anger, better than bitterness and, because more interesting, more alleviating. And there is the thing that one does, the needle one plies, the work, and within that work a chance to take thoughts that are hot and formless and to place them slowly and with meticulous effort into some shapely heat-retaining form, even as the gods, or nature, or the soundless wheels of time have made forms all across the soft, curved universe— that is to say, having chosen to claim my life, I have made for myself, out of work and love, a handsome life.”

 

What drew me to this? Looking at the Warriors-Rockets score in the 3^rd playoff game and seeing my team down by 10 points. When I was in high school, I was a rabid fan of the New York Knicks and after some severely addictive viewing, I finally realized that they were deciding whether I would be happy or sad that night or the next day. So even as a teenager I learned my first lesson in the folly of giving someone else or something else responsibility for my own happiness. I finally stopped watching the Knicks and felt better. 

But here I am, 60 years later, still vulnerable to numbers on a scoreboard determining my state of being. The consolation if the Warriors lose this first round of playoff series is my life will be wholly mine again. Well, almost. There still is the news trickling in. 

 

So I looked up the Mary Oliver poem where I remembered her advice and was tickled to see the line just before it about whimsy. For I had just spent a week playing whimsical games with kids at school and today, did the same with adults at an Orff workshop. So doing well on that front. 

 

And as I’m constantly reminding myself in these posts, it is a freakin’ miracle that I have “chosen to claim my life” and “managed to make for myself, out of work and love, a handsome life.” Like all of us frail humans, shame, grief and a heavy bag of stones are part of the scenery, but when there is a choice between anger and bitterness and something more alleviating—and there is always a choice that can be made— my work and play lead me more often than not to a light heart and dancing feet. And that in itself is both a personal victory and a social act of resistance. 

 

And speaking of dancing,  I looked up the Bee Gees lyrics and while not even close to the eloquence of Ms. Oliver, it gets some of the same points across (with an interesting allusion to the effect of the news):

 

“You know it’s alright, it’s okay

I’ll live to see another day.

But we can try to understand

The New York Times effect on man.

 

Whether you’re a brother or whether you’re a mother

You’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.

Feel the city breakin’ and everybody shakin’

And we’re staying’ alive, staying alive.

Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive 

Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin’ alive. 

 

So while we’re alive, let’s keep dancing, heavy bag of stones and all.

TGIF

It’s been five years since those four letters meant anything to me. Yet here I was again, the end of a full week of teaching at the same school I taught for 45 years, driving the same route I drove for the last 37 of them, ending the day the same way I had for the last 7 of them— from playing the banjo while 2^nd graders danced Bow Belinda to playing Bach’s Cello Suites on piano for my friends at the Jewish Home for the Aged. That route to school pretty much unchanged, except for the damned Waymo cars that still make me bristle. The school halls and rooms just about all changed in some way, including the way the kids face at Singing Time in the Music Room, but mostly recognizable. 

 

Of course, the people in the school have changed— about half the kids are brand new to me, another half new by virtue of growing old and taller and more mature. I’d say 60% of the teachers are familiar colleagues, about six of them in the 30 plus-year old-timers club. A new crowd in the Jewish Home, but a core group that has been with me the last four years and one man who was there back when my Mom was. 

 

What’s the point here? Well, there’s the obvious. Change is the only certainty and even if the schedule, the route, the rooms, the people are mostly the same, of course, they’re different. This fellow walking down the same hall he did now 50 (!!) years ago carries the same dreams, values the same things, cares about the same hopes for a better world. But when he first walked to lunch each day, they were all airy possibilities and dreams just breaking in their walking shoes.  Now they’re a closetful of stories memories and testimonies, a detailed map of precisely where and when all the magic and miracles took place. Also the betrayals and disappointments. So walking those steps again, I’m the same and yet not the same.

 

There’s also the extraordinary gift of dancing Bow Belinda with the son of the father who I danced with some 40 years ago. Singing the same songs with the daughter of the mother who I sang the songs with way back then. And the equal pleasure of getting to meet the new kids and receive yet another testimonial gift from the 2^nd grader who walked up to me after class, looked me in the eye and said with such sweet sincerity, “I like the way you teach.” Without missing a beat, I replied, “Thank you! And I like the way you learn!”

 

The last point of this little report. 73 years old, 50 years now of teaching, a full five days of some 4 or 5 classes a day with kids from 3-years-old to 6^th grade (plus the Jewish Home) and the cliched TGIF!! feeling driving home was noticeably absent. I was not in the least tired and didn’t feel the need to “recover” from anything. Could easily have taught another 5-days straight without a break. And in fact, will go to an Orff workshop tomorrow to participate with other music teachers. 

 

My apologies if this sounds like bragging. The deeper point is that when you’ve been lucky enough to find your passion, you live out William Blake’s astute observation: “Energy is eternal delight.” My new mantra is TGFED. (Thank God for every day.) 

 

Happy weekend!

1991 and The Myth of Sisyphus

Researching some history for my book, I recently watched two documentary films: Amandla! A Revolution in 4-Part Harmony and The Singing Revolution.

The first is about the South African resistance movement in the face of apartheid, the second about the Estonian resistance movement in the face of the Soviet Occupation. The stories of each were distinctly different and the style of singing also, but both shared the same theme of the power of music to bring people together and face horrific oppression. 

And there was one other interesting coincidence. Both were happening just about the exact same time! The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 and by the end of that year, Estonia had declared its independence. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela was released from jail, various laws upholding apartheid were repealed, paving the way for Mandela’s election as President in 1994. 

 

That made me curious about what else was happening around that time and according to The Year in Review on Wikipedia, there were some other significant turns towards independence, liberation and tolerance. Amongst them:

 

• In addition to Estonia declaring independence and beginning its own self-government, Latvia, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Lithuania and the various “stans”—Kirgizstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan— all became independent nations. 

 

• Free elections were restored in places where there hadn’t been any for decades—Benin, Sao Tome and Principe, Cape Verde, Albania.

 

• A Haitian coup failed and Jean-Claude Duvalier was convicted for trying to overthrow the country’s first democratically elected government.

 

•  On the 50^th anniversary of the Babi Yar massacres in the Ukraine that killed over 35,000 Jews, President Gorbachev officially condemned antisemitism in the Soviet Union. 

 

• The Ukraine became the first post-Soviet country to decriminalize homosexuality. 

 

These and more seemed to point the way to a future committed to democracy, increased tolerance, the beginning of the end of government-condoned racism, intolerance, colonization and violent overthrow. Taking down the Berlin Wall just two years earlier was a massive symbolic foreshadowing of a more just, peaceful and inclusive future. 

 

Of course, just as the new directions were birthing, 1991 was also carrying on business as usual with the Gulf War, IRA terrorist bombings, the violent dismembering of  Yugoslavia, the Rodney King beating by police and yet more. Clarence Thomas, a black man appointed to the Supreme Court, seemed a promising step forward until Anita Hill revealed his history of sexual harassment, only to have misogyny win the day. 

 

So though I desperately wanted to—and still want to— believe that these events in 1991 foretold a kinder, more just and more compassionate future, here we are again. The Berlin Wall is being built again on the Mexican border and more disturbingly, built in the minds of people purposefully promoting walled thinking instead of bridge thinking. The Russians who came into Estonia and executed thousands are now in the Ukraine. Traumatized by decades of apartheid, Mandela’s beautiful vision of a Rainbow Nation where people once so deeply divided could live together in harmony remains a work in progress, hampered by corruption at various government levels. Anita Hill’s dismissal by a patriarchal misogynist Republican culture was replayed again in 2019 with Christine Blasy Ford’s sexual harassment by Brett Kavanaugh and yet again, the misogynists appointed him to the Supreme Court. The same court which overtured Roe vs. Wade, excused the various illegal dealings of our Toddler King and… well, let’s not go down that rabbit hole.

 

So it turns out that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that it seemed we were dancing toward in 1991 is more like the heavy stone of human cruelty we push up the mountain like Sisyphus, only to have it roll to the bottom again just when we think we’ve made it to the top. That’s the unwelcome truth we just may finally have to face. 

 

If that be so, let’s follow Irving Berlin’s advice:

 

“Let’s face the music and dance.”

 

And as the South Africans and Estonians can testify, don’t forget to sing.

Forward and Back

(I introduced a chapter in my new book like this and then decided it was not the best way to start that chapter. So decided to just put it here.)

 

“May you live in interesting times” someone once said and at this writing, the truth —or curse—of that is being tested in my home country of the United States. It is a time when the states have never been less “united” and between climate change and the rise of fascism and fundamentalism both nationally and worldwide, it is a time of great upheaval. Like an ongoing great earthquake, the ground beneath our feet is no longer dependable and we are all of us thrown off-balance. 

 

Democracy in the U.S. has been flawed from its inception in 1776, available to some and not others. But its vision, articulated so eloquently in The Declaration of Independence and put into law in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, gave us the possibility of participation in a more equitable governing system unavailable under the rule of Kings and Queens. In this year of 2025, the very foundation that promised certain freedoms to all and delivered to many is being dismantled in front of our eyes. 

 

“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” served as our mission statement, even as the gap yawned wide between the privileged white landowners who penned the words and signed the document and marginalized groups like Native Americans, African Americans, women, children, poor people. These were the words that allowed for the possibility of closing the gap between the promise and the reality, a process that slowly granted long-delayed rights to the above and later included groups like Latin Americans, Asian Americans, the disabled, the LBTQ community and more.

 

In spite of distances still to be traveled, all have made significant progress in cashing in the Constitution’s promissory note. It cost a lot of blood, sweat and tears to push that moral arc closer to justice, but push it we did. Always with resistance each step of the way from those who benefitted from privilege. But perseverance paid off to the point that a woman I meet at a party can introduce me to her wife without either of us batting an eye. A black man could — and did—become President and a sexual harasser could be jailed.

 

Or become President! And to use his power, enabled by an entire Repugnitan Party, to actively turning the clock back to a mythical time that never was, reversing the laws and procedures that have been the guard rails of justice, all with the permission of 80 million voters. This is a grave, grave danger to democracy, human rights and human decency. 

 

Those of us who care about such things are in a state of shock and baffled as to how to survive this battering storm, how to wake up each day with our spirit intact, how to effectively resist. Where can we turn for guidance?

 

(To find out one possible answer, buy the book when it comes out!)

How It Goes On

The other day I received this letter from one of my favorite former students who I taught at The San Francisco School in the 1980’s. 

 

Hi Doug! 

 

I hope you're doing well!

 

I received this from one of my professional Iist-serves (DEHPD - Diversity and Equity in Hiring and Professional Development, WA community and technical colleges) and thought of you and The San Francisco School.

 

"Education, whether public or private, is the one place we come together for a prolonged amount of time, with a shared purpose."

 

"...imagine a place where educators model what caring for people outside your immediate circle, for strangers, can look and feel like; a place where we intentionally pattern and teach behaviors and values associated with public love." 

 

This place was not imagined for me and my sisters. It was The San Francisco School. Even as we grew up with some instability in our family life, SFS and its "family" of caring teachers and staff were our constant. You and Karen were a huge part of that. Thank you! 

 

I was also lucky enough to be able to seek out and find a similar loving school community for my kids. I couldn't imagine putting them in a standard school after having experienced SFS in my own childhood. I think my kids are more joyful, caring people for it. So, the gift keeps on giving! 

 

What made reading this letter extra special was where I was when I read it—in my old Music Room in The San Francisco School! I was on break from teaching once again in my home away from home. This is the second time this year I realized my “retirement” dream of subbing for a week while my colleagues are off doing other things. In November, I subbed for Sofia while she was teaching at The Orff Institut in Salzburg and this week, I’m subbing for James while he’s on a Social Justice (remember that?) Field Trip in Alabama with the 8^th grade. 

 

Since returning from the intensive teaching in Hong Kong I loved so much, I’ve been fine going four weeks without teaching— enjoying my writing and home life of walking, cooking, playing piano and such. But always wonderful to be back with children and yet more wonderful to be with some kids I taught five years ago now (predictably) grown and matured and yet more wonderful to be in my old music room where miracle after miracle took place for over four decades. 

 

Equally wonderful to be in a gathering of people with a “shared purpose,” still “intentionally patterning and teaching behaviors and values associated with public love." And yet more wonderful because six of the current teachers were my students, some 18 teachers who I taught with are still there and most special of all, some 14 kids of kids I taught, 3 of them grandkids of teachers I taught with, are sitting in ye ole Music Room singing some of the same songs their parents sang with me. How it goes on.

 

And so happy my student found a similar school for her kids up in Washington where she lives. I know that the SF School did not corner the market on loving and caring progressive schools and of course, am happy to know there are many such schools out there. As my alum student testified, it makes a difference in nurturing the next generations of joyful, caring people. 

 

Two more days of music teaching bliss and then up to Portland to visit the grandkids, where my wife and I will offer a guest art and music class for grandson Malik’s 3^rd grade class. And his teacher? One of our SF School alum students!!!!

 

How it goes on. The gift that keeps on giving, indeed.

Still Marching

I went on my 3^rd protest march of the month and once again, noticed that most of the heads were grey and the people marching alongside of me might have been next to me in Washington DC in 1969. Where are the young people? I’m missing them, for sure. 

 

Amongst the many ways I’m astonished that we are where we are, top among them was my sure-fire conviction over 50 years ago that we young people were going to turn things around. First on the list was to stop the war in Vietnam, but close on its heels was more civil rights for black Americans, women’s rights, ending homophobia, living in greater harmony with nature, more organic food and plant-based diets, legalizing marijuana, more art and music and theater and yoga and meditation, more cultural focus on quality of life than quantity of money and the big two-car garage house in a sterile suburb. And even in the act of writing that list, it’s clear we accomplished a lot!!!! 

 

At least in my world, a woman can introduce her wife to me at a party, a man his husband, without batting an eye. When I ask an alum school parent what their son is up to, they tell me what she’s doing. My daughters both played basketball and are Lake-Wobegon-strong. One daughter was allowed to marry a black man, the other goes camping most every weekend and has to reserve in advance because the parks are so full of nature-lovers. Marijuana is now legal, the military draft ended and we have not been involved in a major war since Vietnam (a place where I just taught a workshop and tourists frequently come to visit). Farmers markets abound in every city, as do yoga studios and Zen Centers. In short, we made a difference.

 

And yet. Here we are back out on the streets again trying to protect so much progress being back-pedaled to the Stone Ages by cruel billionaires and ignorant voters. It is tempting to think that all we dreamt of, all we worked for, all we lived for, didn’t amount to hill of beans. And here we are yet again, trudging up that hill with our fellow septuagenarians and octogenarians wondering, “What the hell happened? How did we go wrong?”

 

But here’s another point of view. When I was 22, everyone predicted we all would “sell out to the Establishment” by the time we reached 30. But we didn’t. Sure, we bought dishwashers and remodeled our kitchens and invested in retirement funds and some went on cruises, but all in all, the folks that I know my age have kept their values and ethics and morals and determination to live decent and healthy lives intact. And to create and protect the conditions that allow others to do so. As the marches testify, we all still care.

 

That counts for something. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, our hope still burns. If not brightly, at least enough to bring a little light into the darkness. So see you at the next march. And young people, please join!!