The Past Smiling to the Future

Bella Notte

It was my last night with little Zadie before another separation of a few months. Mama, Mima and Tita (Kerala, Karen and Aunt Talia)  had gone off to hear Fran Lebowitz speak, so it was to be our special night together. We began with some piano playing, putting rocks in containers and taking them out, taking the lids off Tupperware and putting them back on— you know, the usual 18-month entertainment fare. But tonight I had something special planned— to watch our first movie together.

People who know me may be aghast. Encouraging an 18-month old to stare at a screen?

Well, everything in balance and let’s face it, we had had a full week of live music and dance, walks in the park, playing in the playground, throwing and fetching the ball, hugging and snuggling and giggling, working on vocabulary (added “shoe” “Hey, you!” and “I love you”) and more. We earned a moment lost in the magic of the silver screen, even if it was on our old TV.

So we settled down for a Friday night viewing, sprawled out on the living room floor and heads together on the pillow watching the old classic, “The Lady and the Tramp.” For the first 45-minutes, Zadie’s running commentary (every 20 seconds or so) was “Doggie!” We then added “water” and “uh-oh” and had ourselves a delightful time talking to each other and thoroughly enjoying the show. Truth be told, it kind of felt like my first genuine grandpa moment, a special moment together that we both felt as such— well, in my fantasy, at least.

When the gals game back, there we still were, me on the floor sitting on a pillow with Zadie on my lap while Tony sang with his accordion to Lady and the Tramp—“This is the night, such a beautiful night and they call it bella notte.”

And it was. 

Sacred Space Re-Sanctified

In 1969, a group of visionary parents bought a church on a little street called Gaven St. and turned into a school. When I arrived in 1975, I was given the room that used to be the chapel for my music program. That always felt right, since each class well-taught and well-received (and it was a bumpy road for awhile!) felt like a worship service minus the dogma and theology or the need to put a name to the sacred forces behind joyful expression and expressive jubilation. At the party celebrating my 20^th year at the school, I gave a speech about the music room, the space where so many miraculous works unfolded and named some of the memorable ones. Almost 20 more years since then, the walls hold yet more records of what the human spirit unleashed can accomplish, from children and adults alike.

And today, another sacred event was added to the room’s memory as my granddaughter Zadie walked through the doors. She sampled the xylophones, the piano, the drumset, the congas, the shakers and the wind chimes, enthralled with all the different voice available to sing the spirit. She danced to the 7^th grade’s music, helped me teach Table Rhythms to the 8^th grade, sat on the choral risers with the 5^th grade. But the highlight was the spontaneous circle of 100 elementary kids who gathered around her at Singing Time and sang to her while she danced in the middle. They then stood up and copied her movements while I played “Yes, Sir, That’s My Zadie” on the piano and a more hilarious and sacred event would be hard to come by. The girl is not shy!

This day with Zadie will take its place amongst the potent sacred history of the SF School Music Room, join the Graduations and Samba contests and Cookie Jar contests and Halloween extravaganzas and Martin Luther King ceremonies and exalted guest artist moments (Milt Jackson, Bobby McFerrin and beyond) and singing fests and adult workshops and quiet tender moments in the daily music classes and Sofia’s choir singing last week at Grandparent’s Day and James’ Golden Gate Bridge project presentation last year and farewells to beloved teachers, the whole heart and soul of a community gathered in this old chapel made sacred anew each day truth is told and sung and danced and witnessed by the community together.

Zadie spent five hours at the school surrounded by adoring children and teachers, dancing her heart out, visiting the bunnies and geese, uncapping markers and capping them back up again. When we left, I put her in the car seat and she was asleep after five seconds. She was riding high on Spirit, but even Spirit could use a nap once in a while. Thanks to my darling granddaughter for yet another taste of the sacred in ye old music room.

The Loves of My Life

This morning,  I pushed my granddaughter Zadie in a stroller through the park. The flowers were blooming, the bees were buzzing, the air was fragrant. She sang from her seat and I sang back. Every chance I got, I kissed her smooth cheek, the unwritten page of her life to come, and reminded her that I loved her.

This afternoon, I pushed my mother Florence in her wheelchair around the grounds of her Old Age Home. The flowers were blooming, the bees were buzzing, the air was fragrant. She commented in pithy one-liners from her seat and I sang to her. Every chance I got, I kissed her rough cheek, lined with her 92-year story, and reminded her that I loved her.

And then, I brought the two of them together and played piano while my Mom clapped and danced in her chair and Zadie clapped and twirled and jumped and rocked and ran around, to the utter delight of all present. My Mom kissed Zadie’s cheek and told her she loved her and we lifted Zadie up to return the favor (though not quite in her skillset yet at 18 months old). I believe they both understood each other perfectly. And so did I.

The Zombie Apocalypse

People sometimes ask how I write these blogs and the answers are varied. Often, I have some experience that merits reflection or I read an article or poem or book that invites further thoughts or I write simply to survive, to sort out the seeds of a situation. But sometimes it happens that a title presents itself to me and then I figure out what to say about it. When my daughter casually mentioned something about surviving the Zombie Apocalpyse, I knew a blog was soon to follow! Great title! (And also a good name for a rock band.)

First, I had to do that painstaking 10-second Google research. I thought Zombie might refer to people walking around brain-dead and be a great metaphor for the victims of conformity education. But hey, it’s the U.S. of A and nuanced metaphor isn’t our strong suit. Instead, I found the references to all the horror films like The Night of the Living Dead and some tips on how to outrun the ghoulish creatures and such, with the tongue not wholly in the cheek.

So it turns out that Zombie isn’t the most accurate description of one who is sleepwalking through this life. There is a Haitian Voudoun version that came from earlier versions of the Congo and some of these descriptions are similar to the Buddhist Hungry Ghosts. What I’m thinking about, though, and running into more often than I care to, is best described in the movie The Stepford Wives, a Grade B underground classic about women in a suburban town who undergo an operation to be robotic non-thinking obedient husband-pleasing companions. They look like us and talk like us, but there’s not an original brain-cell in their body. They’ve always been with us—both men and women.  I’ve met them at the Russian Consulate, Heathrow Immigration and all those places where people are trained to go by the book when the situation demands reading in-between the lines.

But now they’re creeping into places they don’t belong. Their arms aren’t outstretched, there is no blank, vacant stare on ghastly faces. In fact, they might be smiling. There’s always something up their sleeve and it’s not their heart. They hide behind the official language of doublespeak and claim to be transparent when they couldn’t be more opaque. 

How to survive the Zombie/Stepford-Wived Apocalypse? It ain't gonna help to get expensive running shoes. Just raise children to think, question, critique, imagine, speak up, to give language to their heart and to put heart into their words. The only way to de-populate the Living Dead is to people the earth with living, thinking, feeling folks. And that starts with the kids. 

Another Vote for Beauty

“Beauty has no obvious use; nor is there any clear cultural necessity for it. Yet civilization could not do without it.”  —Sigmund Freud: Civilization and Its Discontents

“You are always eager to make everything useful, yet here is a useless plot. It would be much better to have salads here than bouquets.”

…the bishop replied, “You are mistaken. The beautiful is as useful as the useful.” He added after a moment’s pause. “Perhaps more so.” — Victor Hugo: Les Miserables

It took a visit from my wife’s cousin to get us out of our routines and be tourists in our town. We did ye ole Lombard St. run (and distraught to see the Vertigo house had been changed! Sacrilege!!!) and headed up to Coit Tower. With the bonus of yet another rare warm San Francisco night, we stood in awe of the Bay Bridge below, its newly created undulating lights our destination.

For you out-of-towners, the bridge lights have been described as an “iconic light sculpture” designed by the artist Leo Villareal. Using LEDs (light-emitting diodes) and computer-driven imagery, the lights move in long-looping patterns, sometimes looking like fish swimming across, sometimes exploding into dazzling slow-motion fireworks. The effect is mesmerizing and stunning, especially viewed from Coit Tower on a warm Spring night. We “oohed” and “aaaahed” alongside many other folks who had chosen to spend Friday night witnessing a spot of beauty to cap off a week of work and open the door to the weekend. Lovely.

Over on the other side stood the Golden Gate Bridge, that other icon of dreams and grace and splendor looking a little forlorn. We were imagining its younger Bay Bridge sister, always the neglected one, shouting across “In your face, batch!” Even in beauty, I suppose the seeds of envy, bitterness, revenge are present.

In my TEDx talk on “Why Music in Schools” (still time to see it! Just google me and TEDx Conejo), I ended with Beauty as one of the compelling reason for arts education. When I introduced the Spring Concert the other night, I spoke of this again, invited the audience to notice the many faces of Beauty the children would be showing them. Not only the beauty of each piece of music calibrated to the child’s level of understanding, the dances, the songs, the games, the choreography, the art work slide show, but also the connected “ands” between them all. And not only the material, but the beauty of each child and the particular way he or she receives it and expresses it. And not only the quiet moments of beauty that bring the house down to a hush, but the humorous ones, the boisterous ones, the swingin’ ones, the zany ones, the driving dynamic ones. All the many faces of beauty.

The Bay Bridge lights are scheduled to be displayed for two years, thought it’s hard to imagine shutting them down when the time is up. Well worth a trip to Coit Tower. Put it on your list.

The Broken Mallet of Doom

It doesn’t take much to make me happy. Yesterday found me in deep meditation about how to fix what didn’t work in the Spring Concert rehearsal with the kids— with a two-hour deadline before performance that night! I hit upon the three things I needed— a fake beard, a pig nose and new vibraphone mallets. Just what you were thinking, yes?

First stop at Cliff’s Hardware yielded one and a half out of three— got the fake beard, but had to settle for a pig pacifier. Then to Haight Ashbury Music Center and as my cynical self suspected, they didn’t have the precise mallets I needed. But I tried out a few pair and found something I thought even better. Things were looking up! And then a couple of doors down, I popped into Mendell’s and voila! just the pig nose I needed! The skies parted, the trumpets sounded, celestial light flooded over me— I was a happy man.

Turns out that indeed, the pig nose and fake beard helped save the day for 2^nd grade and the new vibraphone mallets helped as well with 4^th. My colleagues’ work with 1^st, 3^rd, and 5^th was simply breathtaking and the whole evening a wonderful affirmation of why I’m in this line of work. But no time to relax yet— tomorrow was the Middle School rehearsals and that night, their concert.

And so I woke up with concert details on my mind and on a rare warm day, mounted my bike to ride to the Brava Theater. The 8^th grade’s version of “Love Is Just Around the Corner” was singing in my mind, I was enjoying the flow of fellow bicyclists and loving my city in its summer clothes. And I was thinking about those vibraphone mallets, and how happy I was going to be to show them off to the 8^th graders. Like I said, it doesn’t take much to please me and I have a special affection for a new pair of just-right mallets for the vibes.

I entered the theater with a spring in my step, greeted my colleague Sofia and within one minute of starting to set the stage, she showed me something: a broken vibraphone mallet! Yes, the one I had just bought that had been used for exactly two pieces last night! And yes, they were the last pair at the Music Store and no, no other store in San Francisco carries them, and yes, the concert was tonight.

My fall from light and bright to doom and gloom was swift and devastating. I was crushed. What have I done to deserve such pain and sorrow?! How I needed to be happy for more than five minutes! Was that too much to ask? And by the way, just who or what am I asking? Never been a big fan of the Supreme Being, who if he/she/it exists must have more important things on his/her/ its mind than my broken mallet (or the equivalent of 7 billion broken mallets to contend with). I do have a sense of angels and helping hands and karmic flow and muses and lost twins and inner voices worth listening to, but what exactly are they all trying to tell me? And why am I failing all their tests so miserably?

Well, with two hours before concert time, there’s no time to ponder that. I need to pay attention to whether a djembe played with brushes is a suitable replacement for the missing snare drum and how to position the piano so the sightlines work. Wish me luck.