The Perfect Sentence

A student in my Level III Orff class surprised me with this sentence posted in Facebook:

Every detail is thought with love so that we have moments of happiness.

She was describing her experience of the classes I was teaching and how happy did this make me? I love just about every word in this sentence:

• Every.  I have not always been the most thorough practitioner—just ask my childhood piano teacher! But in these long years of teaching, I have worked to fill every corner of the canvas.

• Detail. While the effect is often magical and seemingly effortless, the craft is really about the details.

• Thought. Yep. I never just blindly inherited or accepted any notion without subjecting it to constant scrutiny and thought. I think hard about my lessons before I teach them and after I teach them. While I teach, I just have fun. (But draw from my repertoire of thought to react appropriately to problems and opportunities.)

• Love. Ah, there’s the key. I love to think, I love to make music, I love to create classes that lead forth great music and inspire further thought. I love teaching and I grow to love the people I teach.

• We. And it’s not about ME. It’s about WE. All this work is in service of others.

• Moments. Every moment is opportunity to fill it with the best we can bring to it. I take that responsibility seriously and am impatient with dead space where nothing is happening.

• Happiness. Whether it’s the goal or the by-product doesn’t matter so much as the fact of its presence in the class. Teaching makes me happy, the way I teach makes (some) people happy and music well done makes us all happy.

So thanks to Fernanda for noticing and for finding the words that capture my intention. Once again:

Every detail is thought with love so that we have moments of happiness.

The Gifts of Loss

Mortality changes everything. Everything. We wake each morning assuming that we will and that we will meet the bed that night and life could not be otherwise. But when we are aware that one day that bed will be empty, it changes everything. We savor things a bit deeper, appreciate the moment a bit fuller, consider mending fences that have long been in disrepair and find a bit more space in our heart for gratitude and each little blessing that comes our way.

Thankfully, I’m not writing this because of the loss of a loved one or a severe medical diagnosis. The death I am facing is one of the hundreds of little ones a human being knows when confronted with the loss of something you have loved. Without saying too much right now, a dear friend has decided to “retire” and that will end a long and glorious run together. I don’t wholly understand or easily accept the reasons, but it’s not my place to question them. It’s my job to honor them and feel the heartbreak of what will be no longer and the beauty of what has been. And that’s hard work. But probably the only work worthy of our efforts.

At 67 years old, I am no stranger to loss and change. So many colleagues who grew up together making a world at The San Francisco School have left, including my wife. And of course, every year I bid farewell lo some 32 8^th graders and their families, some of whom I have known for 11 years. My parents and some dear friends at The Jewish Home for the Aged are gone, as is my Orff mentor and Zen master, my city’s face is changing, as is its affordability and my country is barely recognizable. The loss that comes with life’s unfolding is constant.

But here’s the truth. I’ve survived it all and keep putting one foot in front of another and behold, it is good. This is the change that is inevitable (not the kind the ignorant try to shove down our throats) and to move along with this change is precisely the art of navigating the river of life’s flow. It is good to grieve and let the loss in and good to keep moving down the road that is yours to walk. Different companions may now be at your side, but it is the moving and the path itself that count.

Today I’ve had the good fortune to awaken again. There are papers to correct, Skype meetings to call, e-mails to answer, laundry to be done, the second week of our Orff Course to plan. Internet is down for the moment, the morning air is chilled. The sun shines outside my door and the next step down the path awaits. I lift my foot and begin.

Tempered Outrage

I gave my annual talk at the Orff Course today and my now dear friend and supporter Peter Meckel came up afterwards and said: “The anger is gone.” He has come to my talks each of the past 7 years and always found appreciative things to say, but he had mentioned before that the anger got in the way of the message. So tonight he said, “You are not the same person you were five years ago.”

And he’s right. And really, no need to try to figure out why, but that’s like telling me “Don’t think of a monkey.” Of course, I ‘m going to try to analyze it and reflect and figure out what happened.

I came up with three things:

1)   First off, I was going through a crisis in my school back then that shook me to the core and made me feel like my life’s work was a short flush down the toilet away and none of it was deserved. It was Shakespearean betrayal to the max and I simply found it impossible to accept that it was happening. Now it’s all in a much, much better place.

2)   While I still believe in the importance of outrage, the refusal to accept that the way things are is so, so far away from the way things should be, I also understand more clearly that such outrage needs to move to another level. Not only does it start to eat away at the person outraged, but it doesn’t attract the people you want to reach to help turn things around. You may be right to feel it and justified and all of that, but none of that ultimately helps either you or the world if you get stuck there. Oddly enough, I think it is Trump that is helping me take a larger and more philosophic view that “this too, shall pass,” more so than was possible for me during the Bush times. He just is so ridiculously horrible and unqualified that I feel the country starting to wake up a bit and lean towards human decency.

3)   If I never read a newspaper and relied solely on my experience, my perception of the world would be, “Fabulous!! Such wonderful people! Such a joyful time we’re having! Such fantastic music and dance! Such lovely children! Such delicious food and beautiful parks and vibrant city streets! Such a thorough education!” Of course, plenty of room for complaint - the SF Sales Force tower, a few bad ideas leaking through at school, relationship troubles, too much garbage on the streets, too much time looking at cell phones, etc. etc. But taking this summer as an example, every single day of these past seven weeks has been worthy of praise and gratitude. Why waste time being angry when life is so glorious?!

So I was happy to get Peter’s comment. I still believe in the value of outrage and in my talk, I most definitely mentioned things that need work or expansion or new life. But especially showing the videos of all the kids and people making such expressive music with so much joy, how could I be anything but optimistic?

So maybe it could change, but looks like I’m not going to be that cynical, grumpy, grouchy, old codger. I’m keeping my outrage on a leash and it feels good.

Towelmania

In my hotel bathroom are:

  • Three washcloths

        • Four hand towels

              • Five bath towels.

And yet,

I have but one face, two hands and one body.

What is the thinking here?

Look to the Stars

Walking back to my room from the folk dance last night, I suddenly noticed that the sky was filled with stars. It struck me that it was the first time all summer—indeed, all year—that I stood and gazed upwards and felt the awe of this enormous universe. This was something I often felt camping or finishing the last meditation of the night at Mt. Baldy Zen Center and lying down on a rock looking up at the star-studded sky. The borders of my body had already grown thin through meditative breath, already I felt that enclosed self dissolving and merging with everything around it and when those stars twinkled down at a me that was becoming a we, well, it was simply stunning.

Do you remember that feeling? We are so small and insignificant and all the day’s little disappointments and tangled relationships mean so little in the face of the majesty of this grand universe, all the pushing and pulling and the wronging and the righting and the outrage and the pleasures is put in its rightful spot, a tiny, tiny insignificant corner of this extraordinary unfathomable cosmos of which we are a mere wink of a mayfly’s eye.

But none of it depressing, more like astounding to be granted the privilege of being part of such magnificence. Along with the sensation of endless space came the parallel beauty of profound silence and I stood outside my hotel room for some 10 minutes transfixed by it all. Living in a city, living my busy life thrown into the heady mix of the human drama, this happens so seldom. My vow is to remember to go out to the beach at night when I get to Michigan with my grandchildren and share these moments with them. Maybe see a few shooting stars.

So tomorrow is Day 4 of this beautiful gathering, classes at a peak and I know those shining orbs light years away don’t care, but who knows, maybe it makes them happy that this little mortal stumbled into something that uses every ounce of him and seems to make people happy and help them find their own star. Or at least one little star out there is glad that I have followed it and fulfilled some destiny that awaited me. And I hope it will forgive me not going outside to look up again—I have papers to grade. Maybe tomorrow night?