Music and Memory

“The songs we know from childhood, the pieces we have played, the recordings we have listened to lodge themselves in the temporal lobe of the brain, where memory is stored and savored. Like the smell of Grandma’s kitchen, even a few notes of a song can conjure up cellular memories and bring us comfort. It might bring us back to our first kiss or a magical night around a campfire with a skyful of stars overhead or driving to our first day of college with our whole life before us.”

 

The above a quote from my forthcoming book The Humanitarian Musician. Today, on my 74^th birthday, I’m feeling the truth of those musical memories so strongly. In the course of ten days teaching Level III, we learn some 45 pieces/ songs/ games and I have a story for each one. Sometimes it’s a memory of a kid I taught who sang that song as a solo in the Spring Concert, sometimes it evokes the place where I learned the piece, sometimes it calls up the people I sang side-by-side with. I often include telling these stories alongside teaching the material because I believe that personal touch enlarges the meaning of the activity. Even if it was my experience and not my students,’ their mirror neurons carry them into the particular memory that reminds them of the more universal one and the whole enterprise is touched with a sweet emotion. 

 

Today was our 3-hour journey over 400 years from Gregorian Chant to Palestrina and all of it designed to illuminate how functional harmony grew step-by-step from an older modal style. But some of the pieces recalled those memories that brought me to the edge of tears once we began singing or playing them. There was Tristan’s Lament which I used to listen to in college on a treasured vinyl record, often lullabying me to sleep. There was Edi Beo which I played with my nephew and brother-in-law as processional music at my daughter’s wedding (now with a bittersweet tinge as she is newly divorced 17 years later). There is a short canon from the Requiem which I sang in Notre Dame with my college choir in my first trip to Europe that burst my world wide open in the best of ways. I could viscerally feel my 22-year-old self standing next to today’s 74-year-old-self and both of them bathing in the beauty together. 

 

Alongside the brilliant backwards birthday movie my colleague James made, the lovely little gifts from many of the 90 students gathered here, an extraordinary birthday card (see photo below) made by one of my Thai Level III students, there was the great privilege of spending my birthday morning teaching and circling back to the above memories.

 

Now mid-afternoon, I will plunge into the (thankfully) small hotel pool and do my ritual one-lap-per-year review of my life, trying to remember something significant from each of the 74 (though a little sketchy on the first three!). At some 8 strokes per lap, it’s a bit of a challenge, but a good warm-up for my daily swims in the Michigan lakes coming up (where each year I do at least one swim of a thousand strokes—and yes, I count them while I swim.)

 

Maybe some songs will come up to accompany each year. Or not. 

 

Farewell to 73

So the last day of 73 years old (technically the end of my 74^th year) arrives and naturally, I feel a need to mark the occasion. I’ll celebrate with laundry, brunch and perhaps a walk on the beach. And with a look backwards to recall some of the highlights of what certainly was a marvelous and memorable year. Here are my personal highlights:

 

WORKSHOPS/ COURSES: The great privilege and pleasure of teaching in Carmel Valley, China (Beijing and Shanghai), Washington DC, Rochester, Little Rock, Brazil (Sao Paolo, Tatui, Brasilia, Rio), Hong Kong (9 different schools) Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City), England (London), Austria (Vienna, Salzburg, Linz), Ghana (Dzodze), Memphis and again Carmel Valley. Five continents and a big carbon footprint, somewhat offset from 50 years as a (mostly) vegetarian. Also sub teaching at The San Francisco School and the Children’s Day School. 

 

WRITING: Gave readings of my Jazz, Joy & Justice  book at Green Apple Bookstore, Bird and Beckett Bookstore, The Pingry School (I’m an alum).  The Audible book version came out and I wrote a first and second draft of my new book hopefully released in November, The Humanitarian Musician. Continued the 14^th year of this Blog and passed the million-page-views mark. 

 

PERFORMANCE: Jazz trio at Flower Piano, Bird and Beckett Bookstore, told a story at The Moth. Ongoing piano playing at the Jewish Home for the Aged (17 years!), also the Redwoods and Sequioas. 

 

FAMILY: Vacations/ visits with my wife, two children and two grandchildren in Michigan, Palm Springs, Portland, San Francisco. Bike trip in France with my wife and friends. Talia celebrated a year and a half anniversary with her soulmate Matt, Kerala got officially divorced from Ronnie. 

 

LOSS: School parents Joe Sam, Eli Noyes, Dee Canaveral, Naomi Weinstein, Pauline Peele, Orff friends Mary Goetze, Wolfgang Stange, Grace Butler, Sarah Wilner, college friend Glenn Pape, travel agent Connie Dahlstet, Jewish Home resident Steve Heffner.

 

WORLD: Disaster left, right and center. Alongside growing resistance.

 

VOWS: To renew my determination to spread the good news of Orff Schulwerk, heart-opening music, caring humanitarianism, fun-loving play and child-like wonder and curiosity, courageous resistance, speaking out and keeping silence when wisdom suggests it, good food slowly savored and lovingly cooked, exercise combined with connection to the natural world (not the gym) with hiking, biking, walking, stop avoiding the Bach Prelude and Fugues in keys with 5 or 6 sharps, find occasions to reunite on the stage with the Pentatonics Jazz group, choose one of the three books waiting in line that are already written in first-draft form—• Around the World and Back Again: Travel with a Point of View; •  Zen, Jazz and Orff: A Life in Three Worlds  • Music From Five Continents.  Also get good sleep, continue zazen, keep reading, assist my wife’s neighborhood clean-up and continue to feel and express gratitude for waking up each day to the next possibility. 

And it all begins today with the laundry. 

This Too Shall Pass

Those adolescent feelings I confessed to in the last post flew instantly away once the staff came back from whale watching and we played our annual cornhole tournament. So much fun! And so refreshing to be with each other in a different way. I keep talking about how playing, singing and dancing is one of life’s quickest and most profound way to connect with other people. But there’s lot of other ways— and cornhole is a pretty great one! So nice to see a different side of people I know so well in one way and all it takes is a board and a beanbag. 

 

So a good reminder that while it’s fine to check in on your feelings at any given moment and in my case, try to express it in writing, we should understand that “this too, shall pass.” Perhaps that’s part of the Buddhist wisdom of non-attachment. Don’t’ get too attached to your feelings, your thoughts, your reactions to events, for they all shall pass away like a leaf in the wind. 

 

That goes equally for the good, bad and the ugly. And the beautiful. No matter how bad things seem—witness the clown show in Washington— or how good things seem—every day in every Orff Course I’ve taught this year (or any year)— all is impermanence and subject to change. So had I continued to pay undue attention to that whiny violin tune I was hearing instead of getting out and jumping in the swimming pool, I would have wasted so much time on an unnecessary pity party. 

 

So good to remember: “This too, shall pass.”

 

Get Out the Violins

A predictably fine last two classes on Friday, our traditional staff dinner out in Monterey and determination to see a movie, even if 9 out of 10 offered were the same old tired formula of superheros and psychopaths and guns and explosions and villains aiming to rule the world and wham! bam! nonsense that is so damn tiresome and pointless. Doesn’t even come close to the status of film as an art form but also pretty bad as entertainment. Just gratuitous schlock.

 

Half of us chose The Fantastic Four and the other half (my group) Superman because I heard it had some tender humanity and social justice sub-themes. Well, not really. Just more of the same-old-same-old, so driving back when someone asked what my favorite part of the movie was, I replied without hesitation, “The end.”

 

So now it’s the weekend frivolity and many chose whale watching at $75 per head, so I initially declined. Then felt like I wanted to be with this group of teachers who I admire and adore, but by that time, tickets were sold out. Two who didn’t go whale-watching wanted to go to Carmel, but somehow they stopped looking at WhatsApp when I tried to connect with them. So there I was, all by my lonesome and feeling a bit left out. Did anyone notice? Did anyone care? That old adolescent voice that still lives in our head and wants to fit in was whining a bit. 

 

But I’m well-practiced in my own company and chose to play Bach and then jazz on one of the nice pianos and two hours later, thought maybe I should look for some lunch. Then maybe swim in the pool, practice some cornhole, do a Crostic, listen to the next chapter of my Audible story. Plenty to do and I’m happy doing it, but still that little whiney voice is playing its sad violin tune. Faint, but still audible. 

 

My friends, we never outgrow our lifelong issues. Yes, we can grow larger and diminish their power, but they never go away. Hopefully will re-bond with my comrades tomorrow when we do laundry and have breakfast at Jeffrey’s. For now, it’s the pool!

The Meaning of Tears

 

                                  Live close to tears. – Albert Camus

 

My annual talk at the SF Orff Course last night was reading from the draft of my new book, The Humanitarian Musician. It felt good to hear the words come off the page and out into the air to the listening ears of music teachers ripe to receive them. Both as a teacher and a musician, I’m sensitive to the feeling in the air and I could feel the deep listening as a palpable presence. It meant the words were hitting below the belt of the analytical mind and finding their way to the heart. 

 

Afterwards, four different people came up to share what the words released in them, often parallel stories testifying to the sweet or sorrowful memory of those moments in their life when they were moved by a piece of music, a teacher, a fellow musician. And each of the four in turn began to tear up as they told me their story.

 

In my talk, I suggested that our usual reaction when we cry in public—“I’m sorry!”— is a bad sign. Because when tears come forward unbidden and at surprising moments, it is because we have tapped into a memory that was tender and touching and opening us up to the full splendor of our vulnerability, willing and able to live far deeper than business-as-usual. Why apologize for that?!

I had such a moment in my talk and these four people, none of whom were my Level III students and some whose name I didn’t even yet know, were wholly comfortable sharing their story and their tears with me. We are all of us so obsessed with protecting ourselves, with hiding our deeper feelings, with denying our vulnerability, with wanting to appear to be “having a nice day” that of course we say,” I’m sorry” as if we were breaking some sacred social contract to avoid emotion at all costs. This is not healthy.

 

Of course, some degree of armor and protection is helpful in keeping the etiquette of sociality running smoothly. No one wants to be around a snifflin’ cryer 24/7. But note that Camus said, “Live close to tears.” That implies not being overwhelmed by them or crying our way through life. We simply need to be close enough so that they can appear as an invited guest when the occasion calls for it. And if we find many times when it does—speaking about a beloved teacher, recalling a beautiful sunset moment with a loved one, remembering a grandparent passing or child being born— then we indeed are living an authentic life.

 

Thanks to the many who came to the talk and those who shared further thoughts afterwards. And now, after yet another stellar day teaching, the weekend beckons.

The Joys of Blasphemy

Here I am again, about to praise in wonderment the relentless delight of teaching Orff courses. Will I ever get tired of writing about this? Will you ever get tired (perhaps 100 posts ago?) of reading about this? Can I say the same old thing in new and refreshing ways? Well, we’ll see.

 

At the poolside after a marvelous morning, I handwrote in my journal—yes, still trying to keep that alive— the following:

 

“ In former times, I might have been burned at the stake for blasphemy for what I’m about to say. But the truth is that my seven days (well, ten) of Creation feel far superior to God’s messy work. He created mosquitoes, poison oak and deeply flawed human beings who would go on to become Republicans, invent Disco and sell their souls to machines. But every day in my World, there is love and laughter, kindness and caring, joy and jubilation, alongside exuberant and euphoric music and dance. I love teaching ALL of my various courses— an intro. to Orff, Jazz, World Music, Pedagogy, Poetry and more. But Level III holds a special place in my heart, that finishing school that really marks the true beginning of the authentic Orff teacher. These people know things so that the magic and mystery of Level I is revealed as the detailed work deeply understood in the mind, heart and body. Without diminishing an ounce of that initial magic. 

Every day we gather and jump straight into the refreshing waters of fabulous music, dance, songs, games expertly taught and delivered with humor, fun and affection. The students feel it in their bones, it dances in their muscles, it sings in their heart, it lights up the circuits in their brain. Each piece, each activity, each song, each concept springs forth from the one just before it and births the one about to come after it. Everything intimately connected so that every thing in this universe makes sense. Each class is punctuated by laughter, tears, deep quiet, vivacious “Yee-hahs!”, fireworks “A-hahs!”, sincere praise and healing blessings. 

 

To top it off, the days are painted in an enormous palette of emotional colors, released in powerful Bulgarian voices, vibrant Brazilian dances, “exotic” Balinese gamelan pieces. New instruments abound— shaking Thai anklung, buzzing Ghana gyil xylophone, the pure notes of the Finnish overtone flute, the fierce Bulgarian bagpipe, alongside the sweet tones of the Orff instruments. The rhythms live inside the different houses of 2/4, 3/4, 4/4/, 5/4, 6/8, 7/8, 15/16 meters, the melodies sing in some 12 different modes and scales, the harmonies and textures create whole worlds unto themselves. If indeed, every piece of music rightly heard, sung, played, unlocks another faculty of soul, then all these sounds and timbres and rhythms and melodies serve to make us all so much larger than we were before we began, so much more nuanced in our abilities to feel and welcome that large palette of emotion the music can release. All in company with each other, joined together in these life-affirming and love-connecting vibrations.”

 

So before you light the fire at my feet for daring to compare my Universe to God’s, consider the above. And of course, I think God is pleased, having endowed us with the possibility of participating joyfully in Her creation and to use the full measure of our faculties to co-create alongside Her. 

 

On to Day 5. 

  

Down to the Valley

 

A friend sent me a short obituary of author and Buddhist environmentalist Joanna Macy. I had read some of her impressive works and could feel both the sorrow of her “ name has been erased from the roaring volume of speech" (from a Rumi poem) and the celebration that such a one graced us with her presence for 96 years. And of course, her voice will echo on in her writings and recorded talks. 

 

The obituary includes this short paragraph: 

 

Through her work and life, Joanna imparted a way of being that does not shy away from collapse, but listens for what is emergent within it. She reminds us that grief is not a failing, and that to feel sorrow for the burning world is to be awake to its beauty: “In the face of impermanence and death, it takes courage to love the things of this world and to believe that praising them is our noblest calling.”

 

 Yes, indeed. What other choice do we really have but to love and praise? Why would we choose anything else? The simple answer is that “it hurts.” It hurts to care and it hurts to lose what you care for. But I imagine it hurts far greater not to care and to pretend that loss doesn’t affect you and bury yourself in denial. 

 

At any rate, I am yet again wholly immersed in a landscape of extraordinary love, in company with 98 beautiful souls gathered from around the country and the world in this sacred spot in Carmel Valley. I witness their joy and little breakthroughs to a Self beyond the self and I habitually praise them when those moments arise. I’m also noticing the small selves people unavoidably drag with them and am noticing a more fierce determination in myself to be more present as a leader to mediate the small conflicts that inevitably arise, in defense of the connected community we are aiming to create and sustain. There is one student causing some havoc demanding that her fantasy of her spiritual needs be met at the expense of others around her and I won’t have it. We haven’t had the needed talk yet, but the challenge will be to be clear and firm about what’s acceptable while also finding something to praise so she won’t feel the need to throw her weight around. We’ll see how that goes.

 

Meanwhile, as I write, I’m remembering an old spiritual Doc Watson sings on a recording I’ve loved. The lyrics I remember are: 

 

“As I went down to the valley to pray, studying about all kinds of ways 

and who shall wear the golden crown, oh lord, show me the way. 

Oh, sinners, let’s go down, let’s go down, don’t you want to go down.

Oh, sinners, let’s go down, down to the valley to pray.”

 

Thinking about teaching this song with new words. Going down to the valley to praise. Yes, studying all the many paths to Spirit in hopes of finding one that fits our feet. And yes, we all shall wear the golden crown. No kings to obey or worship, just the realization that we are all royalty. That golden crown represents the light of the sun transposed to an earthly head and we all are worthy and capable of wearing it. And instead of sinners, that tiresome guilt-trip, let’s say singers.

 

So here we are, down in Hidden Valley in Carmel Valley, a group of royal singers studying all kinds of ways to learn to love and praise, both others and our own deep Self.

 

I think Joanna Macy would be pleased. R.I.P. 

Resist!

In batik, resist refers to the technique of applying a material like wax or paste to fabric, preventing dye from penetrating those areas and creating patterns. This creates a design by leaving certain areas of the fabric its original color or a previous dye color while other areas are dyed. This process can be repeated with different resists and dyes to achieve complex, multi-colored designs. 

 

In opening the 42^nd annual version of the Orff Levels Training my teacher Avon Gillespie started in 1983 (with me in that first Level I class), I used the cocoon metaphor from July 7^th’s post to describe what these two weeks are for. But after reading a poem someone posted on Facebook, a new image came to mind—the notion that what we do in this course is an act of resistance.

 

I remembered that word “resist” in the process of batik dyeing and it seems like the perfect metaphor. We are here applying wax or paste to the precious parts of our original self to prevent the toxins from entering. When we remove it, those preserved parts blend with the dye that inevitably is stamped on parts of ourselves to create a pattern of blended horror and healing in a complex, multi-colored design. We can’t wholly resist the horror—it’s in the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the media we consume. But we can stay strong in those ancient, universal, soulful parts of ourselves that the dye can’t reach to choose to work with the situation and grow a pure lotus flower from the muck and the mud.

 

That thought, along with a new idea of blending the rhyme Peter Piper with the Deep Purple rock tune Smoke on the Water, complete with body percussion, vocal ostinato, movement and Orff Ensemble, is what the gods offered me at 5:45 in the morning on the 2^nd day of this promising SF International Orff Course. Off I go to teach and here’s the poem that inspired it all. Love. Faith. Education. Community. Joy. That's what we're all about. We got it covered. 

Beyond Faith

I saw a large billboard in Memphis that said: “”There is proof that God exists.”

“Oh, really? “ I thought. “I’d like to see it.” Because either God is a cruel megalomaniac that lets his children run around killing each other, hurting each other, hating each other and fouling their nest, who takes the lives of innocent people and gives cancer to beautiful people while letting the scum of the species off the hook and allowing them to be elected to high places or he’s a deadbeat absentee father who just doesn’t care. Again, show me your proof.

 

But though I’ve never drunk the Kool Aid of blind faith, of believing because somebody insisted I should, of giving over my own intelligence and power to develop my own spirit and enlarge my own soul to some organized religion that wants my money and allegiance, in fact, I do believe that higher powers exist conveniently gathering under a three-letter word, but definitely not an anthropomorphic bearded and gendered entity. 

 

First off, I agree with most of the world’s spiritual practices before the monotheists grabbed power that God is plural, that there are multiple spiritual energies running through our bodies and through the natural world. I’m okay with some form of prayer or supplication to summon various deities to ask for help as needed, but I also know that none of them are dependable. After all, I petitioned them like crazy back in November and look what happened. 

 

But what is real for me is their presence when I don’t even consciously ask them to visit. Like last night in my dreams when I figured out the  songs for tonight’s opening to our Orff Levels Course, the order of events, the people who would lead certain parts of it, the new rhythm I would add to one piece, the shaker I should bring from home and off to the side of all that, the hangars I should bring to my hotel room. All of this in my sleep, the place where the spirits come to visit. This kind of thing happens so often— the next sentence in my book, the next body percussion pattern, the next ingredient I need for the meal I will cook— that it’s clear as day. God (in this form) is real. 

 

And quite specific. My hopes that the other world will manipulate events in this world like moving pieces on a chessboard so my team will win the game seems to be a total fantasy. (Though even here, what appears to be a disaster sometimes is a necessary part of a greater plan that leads to healing and redemption). But within my little sphere, my own contribution to that healing and redemption, those invisible presences are consistently reliable. 

 

Now back in the day world, time to back the shaker and the hangars and get ready for the next step toward restoring hope and beauty, in company with some 100 lovely souls from around the world. And of course, God (s). 

 

Multiple Choice

For those have been faithfully reading this Blog, I imagine you can predict a lot of what I’m going to say. And that’s not a bad thing. Though occasionally I surprise myself with a new thought, 99% of my writing and thinking is finding a new way to say the same old thing— or things. 

So here at the Memphis Airport, waiting to board one flight to L.A., another to SF, an Uber back home (too late for my usual BART— I arrive after midnight), I’m thinking about what I could say to close off this marvelous 5-day Jazz Class I just finished teaching in Memphis. So to try to make it interesting, I’m going to give you a multiple-choice test. Put an x next to the statements that you think are true. 

 

___. I loved every minute of each of the five 6-hour days. 

 

___ I loved watching every single one of the 30 teachers showing us

       their childlike-self that loves to play, their musician self that loves to play, 

       sing and dance, their adult self listening with intense seriousness to the 

       hard stories that birthed this music and thinking about what needs to 

       happen to bring some healing and health.

 

____ I loved how each participant found the way to do the above that revealed

       their particular character and offered their particular gift— energy, 

        imagination, humor, virtuosity, soulful feeling, etc— to the group. 

 

____ I loved the way they had informal jam sessions during the breaks and 

       loved the small group Blues Pieces they created. 

 

_____. I loved the final choreography of the group creating a movement piece to

          a sultry blues and was proud of them for their accomplishment and me 

          for taking the risk of doing something new with a familiar piece. 

 

____ I loved the casual way we put together two killer pieces for the sharing

        with the greater Orff gathering, how it incorporated their particular

        strengths and included some of their inspired ideas and how relaxed they

        were while taking it seriously that they wanted to do it well.

 

____ I loved yet another renewal of vows between the perfect marriage of

        Orff Schulwerk and Jazz. The love fest between them goes on.

 

____ I love that I still get to do this work and there are still people in the 

        world who are hungry for it and value it. 

 

___. All of the above. 

 

I will reveal the correct answers tomorrow.  

 

PS  _____ I love that I looked at my watch and realized I better buy a little dinner before having to board the plane in ten minutes!

 

Jazz, Joy & Justice

 

                        Little Sally Walker, sittin’ in the saucer

                      Cryin’ and a’weepin’ over all she has done.

                      Rise Sally rise, won’t you wipe your cryin’ eyes

                      Won’t you turn to the East, Sally

                      Turn to the West, Sally

                      Turn to the very one that you love the best.

 

What I’m trying to get across to teachers, what I’m trying to model and trying to live, is teaching as a call and response. You grow your repertoire song by song, dance by dance, piece by piece, your imaginative ways of teaching each activity and bringing it fully to life, your deep reflection on why you chose that activity and what it might mean to human development and how to think about it and talk about it with your students. All of this happens class by class over many years and the more years you do this with constant consideration about how you might do it better or differently, the more authentic and powerful it all becomes. Then before you enter each class, you plan your lessons meticulously and once in the mix, you feel what the group needs, what the moment calls for and with all of this stored in your own body and memory, you respond to what’s needed. Just like a good jazz musician who does the work to learn some 500 tunes, knows all the changes of the chords and scales and tempos and grooves and comes to the stage alert to what the others are playing and responding accordingly. 

 

How different than so much—too much—of what I’m seeing in even that most creative and radical approach to teaching called Orff Schulwerk. More and more, I’m seeing Power-pointed steps and genuine flowing process reduced to ice cubes of nouns all taken from their uniform trays. Where the waters should be flowing, they’re frozen and packaged and sold under the fantasy of This is Orff Schulwerk. Well, what should I have expected from a culture based almost exclusively on marketing and monetizing and shopping and owning things. It leaks into every facet of the way we live. 

 

All of this is a long prelude to the moment yesterday when my tears came forth publicly in front of the group without apology, released by once-again watching a video of Nina Simone singing “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free.” It was time to play Little Sally Walker. I walked into the center of the circle going down to the ground to “sit in a saucer” and cry and weep over all we have done (me included) to cause and perpetuate the human misery of racism mixed with misogyny mixed with profits over people, those three great evils that have poisoned the human spirit. Then (follow the text here) rise up into hope, healing and redemption, wiping away the tears and point to the East and then the West and then with eyes closed and arm extended, turn in a circle to the last phrase, stopping on “best.” Then opening my eyes and whoever I pointed to comes in and joins me while we repeat the song. From 2 to 4 to 8 to 16 to 32 and there we all are, singing and moving together, ending in a circle with arms around each other. 

 

And then my words to the group: 

 

The song is teaching us what we need to know to begin to turn things around. Go down into grief. Let the tears flow and feel the full pain and shame of what we have done. But don’t stay down there and wallow in it. Rise up with renewed determination to do better and to do whatever it takes to create a happier future. But we can’t do it alone. So turn around with eyes closed and whoever is in the room, whoever has made the effort to join the circle and share their true heart is someone worthy of love. You don’t get to choose based on all the superficialities of difference, attracted only to those who look like or think like you. Just close your eyes and when you open them, whoever you pointed to is the one you will learn to love and the one you’ll bring by your side to go down and rise up together with. 

 

At the end of the matter, after all the fun and frolicking and playful approach to learning a fabulous repertoire of games, songs, dance, instrumental pieces from the world of blues and jazz, that’s what this course is really about. And here in Memphis, I can testify that every one of these 30 beautiful teachers are ambassadors of jazz, joy and justice. 

 

 

Outside the walls, the horror continues—the latest attempt to shut down conversation and needed information with the cancelling of NPR and PBS, the devastating news that the CBS is cancelling the Stephen Colbert show, the ongoing repulsive actions of elected representatives afraid their unearned power and privilege will be threatened if the population learns our history and is trained to think. Lucy snatched away the football of hope yet again and again and leaves me wondering, “When will this end?”

 

But end it will, the truth will out and a lot of damage with be left in the wake of its tornado of shameless decisions, but we will rise again. My friends, please keep the pathway to grief open, the determination to rise alive and every day, turn to the one that you love the best and grow who those people are so we can do this together. 

 

On to the closing day. 

The Evening Sun

I left San Francisco yesterday in the thickest fog I’ve seen in a long time. Winged my way to Salt Lake City and then Memphis to begin to teach my first Jazz Course in this city. Given its illustrious history with Beale Street and the Blues, I decided to accent the blues side of jazz and with just 5 short days to get the essence of the Orff/Jazz marriage across that, that seemed a good idea. 

 

I confess I came with a little trepidation, for several reasons:

1)   Only three of the thirty people signed up had worked with me before.

2)   All of them are graduates of the Memphis Course which has a markedly different focus than my San Francisco Course. 

3)   Though I don’t know how Memphis voted, some 64% of Tennessee voters chose last November to install the regime I hate from the depths of my soul. 

4)   I wondered if I can tell the stories that gave birth to the blues and freely name the role of white supremacy and systemic racism.

 

Once I began, all such worries vanished in an instant. Not only was the group receptive, but they were beyond-the-norm in their overall spirit and musical energy and nodding their heads in both affirmation and interest as I told some of the history essential to understanding the blues. And in over 35 years of teaching the course, I had more black participants than ever before, making up 30% of the class. 

 

I love this work so much. I am 150% the person I was born to be when teaching courses like this, mixing my passion for calling out the obstructions to social justice with my equal passion for creating a container of pure joy and fun and powerful, life-affirming music dance. I simply never want to stop. And with the invitations still pouring in and my health holding up, I see no reason why I have to.

 

Today, in analyzing the poetic side of the blues, I sang the W.C. Handy lyrics, “I hate to see, the evening sun go down…” I left out the punch line and asked the group why someone might be worried about that sun going down. And one young woman knocked it out of the ballpark when she answered with a thought I have never thought before or heard expressed:

 

“Because the person is in the evening of their life and not ready for the sun of their spirit to set.”

 

So much more profound than the actual punchline of  “Ever since my baby, done left the town.”

 

And given what I’ve just said about not ever wanting this teaching to stop, I felt the full resonance of that remarkable insight. Bam!

 

But set it must someday. Meanwhile, here I still am basking in its light and warmth and doing all I can to shine it out to others. 

 

Can‘t wait for tomorrow! 

PS Wrote this last night and woke up this morning remembering an e.e.cummings poem I hadn’t thought of in some 50 years. Change “5 or 6” to “75 or 76” and it speaks to the above. 

 

who are you, little i

(five or six years old)
peering from some high

window; at the gold

of november sunset

(and feeling: that if day
has to become night

this is a beautiful way)

The Crumbling Foundation

Imagine you just invested your life savings to buy a house, only to later discover that the foundation is crumbling and the house is in danger of collapsing. You feel some seismic shifts and see the house begin to tilt. It seems like it would be a good idea to check it out. Perhaps find the original house plans and find out what happened or at least get qualified experts to take a look at it and see what they can do to repair it. 

 

But either by law or unspoken agreement, you are not allowed to see the original plans nor allowed to hire people to ascertain what the problem is. You might justify it and think, “Well, not my problem. I didn’t build the foundation. If it’s shoddily done by people who didn’t know better or chose to use cheap material for their own profit, that’s not my fault. “But those people are dead and gone. You’re the one who paid high prices for your home and you will suffer the consequences if the roof falls on your head. Hard to imagine any homeowner who wouldn’t understand that whatever happened before is their problem now. They might try to sell the house and buy another, but it turns out that every house in that neighborhood has the same shaky foundation. In fact, every house in the town or city or state and indeed, the entire country! 

 

If I’m teaching a Jazz Course, as I’m about to do in Memphis, and start talking about jazz originating and developing within the cultural context of systemic racism and white supremacy, the alarm bells will go off at Republican headquarters and the stormtroopers might burst in, either literally or metaphorically, to shut me down and shut me up. But even as I know that those continuing to drink the toxic Kool-Aid of the white supremacy narrative are not the best candidates for a logical discussion, still I wonder if the metaphor above might penetrate the armor and make sense to at least a few people. 

 

For the fact is that the house we all live in, the United States of America, was indeed built on a shaky foundation, both through intention and ignorance. If we don’t go down into the basement and consider what needs repair, we are all in danger of our house crumbling. Indeed, the signs are all around us as the daily news dishes out the next crack in the wall or dangerous tilt toward full-blown collapse. And remember, there is no “safe house” that can be bought with big money. The very ground we build on is a shaky foundation with techtonic plates rubbing against each other in unresolved trauma. 

 

So let’s roll up our sleeves, get to work and rebuild a solid and safe house for our children and grandchildren to enjoy. 

 

What? Me Worry?

 

Here’s a simple truth— it hurts to care. When you have an expectation that life should be fair, people should be kind, leaders should be honest and all trains should run on time, you are setting yourself up for heartbreak, disappointment, betrayal. You return time and time again to kick the football and Life, like Lucy, snatches it away and you’re flat on your back. It hurts. 

 

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like not to care. To sleep on the floor so you needn’t worry about falling out of the bed. To lower the bar so that even the smallest insect can crawl over it. 

 

In preparing for my upcoming Memphis Jazz/ Blues course, I started collecting some memorable blues lyrics. Like B.B. King’s 

 

 Nobody loves me, but my mother,
 And she could be jivin` too.

 

One of my favorite blues composers is Mose Allison of “your mind is on vacation and your mouth is working overtime” fame. Amongst his treasury of clever and thought-provoking songs is I Don’t Worry About a Thing. 

 

If life is drivin' you to drink
You sittin' 'round wondr'in' just what to think

Well, I got some consolation, I’ll give it to you, if I might
You know I don’t worry ‘bout a thing, cause I know nothin’s gonna be alright. 

You know this world is just a one big trouble spot
Cause some have plenty and some have not,   
You know I used to be troubled, but I finally saw the light
Now I don’t worry ‘bout a thing, cause I know nothin’s gonna be alright. 

Don't waste your time tryin' to be a go getter
Things'll get worse before they get any better
You know there's always somebody playing with dynamite

I don’t worry ‘bout a thing, cause I know nothin’s gonna be alright. 

 

Well, isn’t that an interesting thought? To habitually expect the worst and then you’re not surprised when it happens. No outrage, no disbelief that this could happen, just a nod and the thought, “Well, here you are. I’ve been expecting you.” This just might be the most effective survival strategy for our day and age. Maybe I should try it out.

 

But of course, I won’t. I know that the depth of caring is directly proportional to the richness of life and wholly necessary not only to thrive but to resist our lemming march to the cliff’s edge and steer us to some degree of sanity. But I’m intrigued by the idea of trying it out for one day to see what it feels like. Join the millions of shoulder-shruggers who allow so much evil to flourish with their “whatever” attitude. 

 

But there is a kernel of wisdom knowing that the world has always been a first-class shit-show alongside its pageantry of beauty, that we have no choice but to accept the inevitable pain of simply being human—the heartrending losses and broken dreams and random disasters. Even the spiritual practice that offers the promise of unity with the Universe and blissful tranquility begins with Buddha’s First Noble Truth—Life is suffering. 

 

So next time you’re feeling the weight of it all beyond what you think you can carry, listen to Mose’s song and sing along. It just might help.

 

PS Anyone recognize the title? From Alfred E. Neuman of MAD magazine fame.