Taking Down the Tree

It’s time. It’s not a date on a calendar. It’s not the fact that the neighbors are doing it. It’s not that it has lost its glisten. It’s simply that the lovely lights and glimmering ornaments are still sparkling, but the sparkling has lost its meaning. Physically, nothing has changed. But the myth that surrounds it with significance, that awakens deep feeling and a sense of magic, has reached the end of its story and it’s time to move on.

I’m talking, of course, about taking down the Christmas tree. But with the next of my few remaining old-time colleagues at school contemplating retirement, the metaphor holds. She’s reached that point where some inward part moves and whispers “It’s time.” Though they will enter the conversation, it doesn’t have to do with age or money or an agreed-upon date. It’s just waking up and looking at the tree and feeling like it’s beauty has lived out its cycle. Time to close that door and open the next.

Someday it will happen for me. But not yet. After a brief moment that all teachers know well after a two-week vacation—“How do you do this again?”—I jumped back into my classes like entering an old familiar home and my children running into my arms, as they did all those years ago, shouting “Dad!” No matter how I calculate the years or wonder why I’m not tired of it yet, the Christmas tree of teaching kids at the school where I work warms my heart every bit as much—and indeed, more—than when I hung the first ornament 42 years ago. The lights and balls and decorations added over the years shine in some harmonious balance, each one holding a memory or a story that still touches my heart. I know the day will come where the gleam and the glitter will suddenly seem dull to my tired eyes. But not yet.

And so I take down one tree and leave the other. On to today’s classes!

Nostalgic for Nixon

When a presidential candidate says, “I could go out and shoot someone in Times Square and they’d still like me” in a boasting voice, then the rules of the game have changed. Amidst the tangible horrors of this lunatic's master plans—threats to human rights, nuclear build-up, perilous purposeful ignorance of climate change, for starters— there is the erosion of basic human ethics, morals and just plain common sense that we’ve voted in. The human capacity for adaptability can often work in our favor, but adapting to the next lower level of human decency works against us. This now is the new standard of civil discourse and it feels like a new low in human history.

In Nixon’s time, Watergate was seen as a transgression against an accepted ethics. The game had certain rules and people generally understood that politicians broke them all the time. But the one forbidden thing was to get caught. If you did, there was a public outcry and a logical consequence— you were removed from the game. It’s one of the agreements of human community that made the game work on same basic level.

Now it's like a basketball game where the players can do whatever they want and ignore the referee’s whistle. They can punch an opponent in the face and take the ball and then say they didn’t do it. Or claim the referee was just putting his liberal spin on it. Or say it wasn’t as bad as what the other player did and got away with yesterday. Or tell people to just relax and don’t get so worked up about it—it’s just a game. Who would want to watch games like this? Who would want to play?

Evil and injustice we have always had with us, but note how the game used to work:

Rule 1: Justify bad actions with some lofty moral, political or religious claim.

Rule 2: Keep the story going and hide everything that contradicts it.

Rule 3: When the truth comes out, deny everything. If that doesn’t work, show remorse and ask for   
              forgiveness.

That was the game when Nixon was President.

Now the rules of the new game:

New Rule 1: It’s true if I say it is. It’s not true if I say it isn’t.

New Rule 2: It happened if I say it did. It didn’t happen if I say it didn’t.

           New Rule 3: I am never accountable. It is always someone else's fault.

What kind of game is that? It means the end of the exposé because there’s no gap between the moral claim and the actual action. The moral justification has simply been removed. No apologies necessary, no remorse, no justification of actions (remember: you may see it on video, but it didn’t happen. That’s just liberal spin.)

In the days of MLK, social resistance meant exposure, getting the TV cameras rolling in Birmingham so citizens still capable of concern would see what had been hidden from the world and be outraged. But now what? What happens when no one cares that the Emperor has no clothes or keeps denying that he’s naked? Where do we go from there?

My friends, those of us who still have the capacity to care and be concerned and engage in civil discourse (which is a majority by popular vote) are carrying the shame and frustration of  a new era/error, where the only qualification for a job, be it President or Secretary of State of Secretary of Education or what have you, is that you are distinctly unqualified for the job. If you know something about it or care about it, you’re out. Need I say that this is deadly to human progress? 

I thought I felt a minor earthquake yesterday, but I believe it was Nixon rolling over in his grave. We miss you, Dick Nixon!!!

Sleeping in Socks

“The coldest winter I ever spent was January in the Goodkin’s house.”  - Mark Twain

San Francisco is generally warm enough that one old chugging heater in the hallway is enough. Except in January. We could leave ours on all night and that would solve it, but we have some unspoken agreement that this is forbidden. Don’t ask me why.

But last night, my feet were too cold under the blankets to sleep. So being the clever person I am, I put on some socks. That solved one problem. But the fact is that it doesn’t feel right to sleep in socks. Like some energy that needs to flow out the feet is capped and bottled up and affects the rest of the body. Is there any science behind this? How many people actually sleep in socks? Just wondering.

Our country may be going to hell in a hand-basket, but at least it’ll be warm and I can sleep without socks.

Just Another Day

Hooray for January 2^nd! Just another day. Nothing to celebrate, no special traditions or ritual gestures, no expected social gatherings. The pressure’s off. Just wake up and the day is yours!

Of course, I love Holidays and all the added color, music, binge eating, parties and general fal-de-ra. But the only thing that makes them colorful is the contrast with the earth tones and muted grays of the usual day-to-day. So after this month of constant trumpet-blaring reds and greens, it’s nice to wake up to grey. I didn’t even turn on the lights of the Christmas tree this morning.

New Year’s Day itself is a high-pressure day for me and it’s my fault. I treat it like the opening theme of the year’s symphony, the jazz tune that I’ll improvise through the changes with for 364 bars. So I take extra care that day to live properly to set the tone for all the days to follow.

I began with a longer-than-usual Zen meditation that included chanting all the way through the Sutra book. Some stretching, oatmeal breakfast, my three Solitaire games with my new deck of cards (and won two of them!). Then listen to Bach’s Cello suites, play Bach’s French Suites and write a blog about Bach. Also write a paragraph in my next book-to-be (part of my New Year's Resolution!). On to e-mail, make a summary of my Fall school classes and send it to the Interns now Externs, transcribe a new Ghanaian xylophone piece and start to plan my workshop coming up next Saturday. Almond butter and banana sandwich on hearty whole wheat bread and out the door to walk in the park. Crisp cold air with a wind-chill factor, walk around Stowe Lake and sit in the sun and memorize a poem by Seamus Heaney. Write in my journal, read a bit of Jane Hirshfield’s book on how poetry transforms the world and my current novel, Lucy Barton. Home to cook a stir fry with brown rice, do a Crostic puzzle, write in my granddaughter Zadie's journal and watch one of the first film noir movies, Stranger on the Third Floor.

And so a day where I ate well, exercised, played music, listened to music, read fiction, non-fiction and poetry, memorized a poem, meditated, prepared classes, watched a classic film and more felt like a good start to the year. None of it was a chore, all of it was a pleasure, but still nice to have the pressure off and know I can mess up today—eat some chocolate, sit indoors too long, not read a poem—and there won’t be too many repercussions down the line. Except there will be if I keep neglecting the tried, true and important. Let’s face it—every day should be New Year’s Day, vows renewed and scrubbed and turned on. I’m going to think about that while I lie down and take a nap. 

Happy January 2^nd!

Beginning with Bach

And so it begins with Bach. In a year that seems to promise nothing but fear, chaos, mean-spiritedness, the triumph of ignorance, why not look back to the certainty, grandeur and glory of Bach’s extraordinary intellect and imagination? Every time I play something by this man—and it has been often in my life and even more so recently—I am in awe of the multitude of notes that pour forth, each in its proper place and flowing inexorably from one to the other, a veritable river emptying into the ocean of Spirit. The sheer volume of his work—over 1000 works that were preserved—and the range of his composition: chorales, cantatas, Masses, Passions, orchestral works, chamber music, organ music, clavier music and more— is simply staggering.

I began studying the organ at 6-years old and once I got through the “Lightly Row” phase of reading notes, Bach was the first composer I got to know. My swan song of formal lessons in 8^th grade was a vinyl recording (I still have it) of me performing in a school concert his Prelude and Fugue in D minor. (I’m proud to say I made it through without knocking any of the notes off their pedestals.) Entering a high school with a newly built pipe organ, my travels with Bach continued even when the formal lessons stopped. And even into college getting permission to play in a local church. There was many a sublime moment alone in the church with the Toccata and Fugue in D minor or the Passacaglia, swept along in that river of sound toward the final cadence, the echo of the last chord with the pedal at full throttle and then the silence that followed. Just me, the dying notes and the stained glass of Jesus walking peacefully amongst the lambs. I almost could have become a Christian.

Bach died at 65 years old—my age— and on my birthday—July 28^th.  I’m not trying to claim any karmic connection here—after all, he was a genius and I’m a mere admirer of genius. Bach accomplished more musically on a bad morning than I have my whole life. But nonetheless, his music speaks to me—or rather, sings to me—and I like the message. There will be dark passages at the bottom of the cello in minor keys and triumphant high notes from sopranos and everything in-between, but tying it all together is an exalted human spirit in touch with the Divine.

I just finished Eric Siblin’s The Cello Suites, a three-part meditation on Bach, Pablo Casals and the 6 Cello Suites. Bach’s full humanity comes through—his impatience with stupidity (he called someone a nanny-goat bassoonist), his frustration with authorities upon who he depended for his livelihood (getting jailed for trying to leave one post for another), his unending work ethic, composing not for fame or fortune, but often for function (the singers need a new cantata—tomorrow!), his devotion to his children (many of whom became fine composers themselves).

The sections on Pablo Casals were equally inspiring, this humanitarian musician exiled from his country because of the rise of the Fascist Franco. I read with even more interest on how to survive the immense gap between the sublime music of Bach’s Cello Suites and the havoc wreaked by a Fascist dictator. In 1958, Casals wrote:

“Confusion and fear have invaded the whole world. Misunderstood nationalism, fanaticism, political dogmas and lack of liberty and justice are feeding mistrust and hostility that make the collective danger greater every day. Yet the desire for peace is felt by every human being.”

Well, I guess things have not changed so much. The years cycle around and around and we imagine they are moving up some mountain summit where human promise is fulfilled. And perhaps they are, in some strange circuitous path. Or maybe they just keep bouncing back and forth between those who serve life and those who bring death. Who knows? The best I can do is step forward into the unknown, with Bach and Casals and other creators and lovers of life by my side, to keep the music rolling and the parts in harmony the best I can. To, in the words of W.H. Auden, “stagger forth rejoicing.”

And I wish the same to you.