Balls in the Air

I have never once been, nor aspired to be, a farmer. And yet I’m not only indebted to them for the food on my table, but I admire the great variety of daily chores any farm demands. Feed the chickens, stack the hay, milk the cow, plow the field, plant the garden, mend the fence, harvest the corn, pick the berries, gather the eggs, fix the tractor and so much more. A lot of balls in the air to keep track of and expertly juggle so they don’t crash on your head.

 

In my life, growing food for the soul through writing, playing music, teaching and such, my days are also filled with a sometimes dizzying array of things to keep track of. Like now. Preparing for my “belated birthday bash” this Saturday that I decided to organize, I’m feeling that “too many balls in the air for my juggling skills” feeling. I’m practicing the music I want to share, gathering the poems I’ve written over the years that I want to read, shopping for the food we need amidst keeping up with my Podcast, writing, teaching, travels soon to come. In the past few days alone, I’ve connected with people on the Nunya Academy (in Ghana) board, the SF Orff Course board, the SF School Alumni Council, the AOSA Conference Chair, a new editor for my books, my Pentatonics Jazz Band, my kids and grandkids, etc. etc. Today I have a Men’s Group meeting and a standing piano playing at the Jewish Home. 

 

Blah blah blah. No one cares about another’s busyness/ business nor should they. I’m just saying it out loud thinking that it might help me juggle it all. But you deserve something more interesting. So having looked back at over a 100 poems I’ve written over the years that I never share—except once read out loud at my 60^th birthday party— I’ll choose one to include here and then get on with my day. As should you, knowing all the things that you have to juggle.

The one I’m choosing makes no sense to share now—better to wait until Spring—and will be more meaningful for Orff music teachers than the general reader. But I had forgotten I had written it and got a kick out of it, so here it is:

 

Spring Concert (Dedicated to music teachers everywhere and with apologies to William Shakespeare):

 

That time of year thou mayest in me behold

When all that hath been silver, 

Must now change into gold.

When that which hath been mere sound, 

Must change to pleasing tone,

And played with two swift mallets

Upon the xylophone.

When children casually tinkering,

Must now show what they feel.

Express their deep emotion,

Upon the glockenspiel.

 

Now merrily the bells doth ring,

With well-shaped mouths, the children sing.

The teachers tense, some close to rage,

Moving hordes of children upon the concert stage.

How shall they enter, go off, which way?

And who knows why Johnny,

Isn’t here today?

Why are all these recorders,

So dreadfully out of tune?

Maybe we can just skip May, 

And go straight to June. 

 

Yes, that time of year indeed has come,

To join together bell and drum.

To take off bars, then put them on.

(And just where has that F# gone?)

Make sure each movement’s choreographed.

Precise and joyful, with room for laughs,

 

Spring Concert’s here, oh, fun! Fun! Fun!

In a mere three days, they’ll be done! Done! Done!

 

 

  

Watch Your Step

October 1^st has arrived and I greeted it with all my little quirky rituals. Which included turning the paper calendars in the house and reading the one with a message: 

 

Lovely photo and sage advice that I can attest to. Can’t we all? We jump from one stone to another and hope we don’t fall in the water. If we do, to paraphrase the song that Fred Astaire sang in Swingtime and  “pick ourselves up, dry ourselves off and start all over again.”

 

My daughter Talia is a fearless stone-jumper, not only in her daily work as a bold and adventurous 5^thgrade teacher, but in her weekend-life running marathons, snow camping, jumping into mountain lakes. And so the irony of her simply running with her cross-country team and mis-stepping on concrete and fracturing her foot. It’s not a happy prognosis— 2 months on crutches and 4 months before she can run again the first-draft first opinion and for someone as active as her, that will be like a prison sentence. Not to mention negotiating the stairs to her classroom and her house with a crutch. Aargh!

 

This news hit me in my heart’s core. And that’s the problem with empathy. The capacity to feel other’s pain can be a heavy burden to carry and if opened ourselves fully to it, the weight would be unbearable. Walking past the homeless, listening to the news, hearing stories from friends, on top of bearing up under your own challenges of physical, mental, emotional health. So we let in what we can and necessarily deflect the rest. Whatever choice do we have? Certainly not the one far too many take of refusing all empathy and creating the narrative that others deserve it so they can sleep at night. 

 

My wife and I called Talia while shopping (at Costco, of all places!) for food for my “belated birthday bash” this Saturday, my hope to get so many of the people I care about in one room with me still in it, alive and breathing. I will play music with my band, lead a little Orff workshop with old friends and neighbors who have never been in one with me as well as those who have and most exciting of all, read some of my poems written over the last 50 years, but rarely shared. Alongside the informal party socializing.  I’ve set aside three hours for it all and it already feels too short. 

 

But back to Talia. Talking to her, she felt resigned to it all and aware that she has cheated accidents like this for years. And we all concurred that this is going to heal and given the long list of potential health disasters, we should be grateful it’s not worse. And we are. 

 

But I guess she won’t be dancing at my party with the others. So it goes. 

 

Happy October! And watch where you step!