Bridge to Childhood

It’s nighttime in Singapore and I’m listening to Offenbach’s Barcarolle in my 12^th story hotel room. The body fortified by another simple dinner at “my” vegetarian restaurant, topped off by a $.35 (US dollars) soy ice cream cone from Ikea, the Spirit uplifted by the final day of my three-day Jazz Course, my Soul at peace after a full 9:00 to 5:30 day of teaching and another two hours gathering the notes to send out while planning tomorrow’s workshop on the theme The Humanitarian Musician. Busy, but also moved to tears at least four times today, not counting a brief awakening in the middle of the night last night and getting an e-mail from a group of college friends reaching out to each other in this time of great darkness. 

 

Spotify sent me from the Barcarolle to Saint-Saen’s The Swan and here in this blessed Solitude, the space is cleared for the notes and the feelings behind them to fully enter. Now it’s on to Carmen and all of this music that I’ve known for oh- so- many years. The mere arrangement of tones and rhythms is walking me across the bridge to my childhood, where I sat in this same sanctuary of solitude and let my imagination roam freely. Each piece bringing me to a different land, but all lands sharing the sense that this world is a beautiful place to be wholly savored and enjoyed. A place where everything makes sense, where I could feel invisible helpers assuring me that I was put here for a purpose, and they were here to escort me to the life I mysteriously was meant to live. 

Adult life seemed a confusing interlude, determined to distract me from my childhood wonder and bury me under busyness, to damp down or downright trample my dreams, to lure me into the trivial and away from listening dreamily to music and letting it carry me where it will. Like everyone, I kept losing that thread. 

But if I’m to claim any merit, it would be a certain tenacious determination to not wholly let go. So yet another day of playing with strangers become instant fellow travelers, creating the space for both laughter and tears. As I mentioned, the latter came to the edge of the eyes many times today, most profoundly watching the video of Nina Simone singing I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free. In a mere six minutes and ten seconds, her singing and playing travelled the full range of emotion that constitutes an authentic life—the tender hopes and dreams, the angry outrage and fury, the sly smile of joy untouched by other’s failings, the humility and grace, the courage and purity to be wholly herself. 

 

Back in my hotel room, the music rolls on, now Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, bringing this aging man back into his 10-year-old body and mind. But the adult-mind reminding him that he’s in charge of 30 people tomorrow for 7 more hours and that it might be a good idea to go to sleep. So I’ll leave off here, grateful have revisited that child filled with wonder, innocence, dreams and love for this life. 

Good night.