Finding the Pieces

And so, my first Winter Vacation in over 40 years where I don’t go from the 150 miles an hour of the Winter School Festivities to the lazy 20 mph ramble through the countryside of vacation. Nevertheless, the extended family time (all Covid-tested and approved, of course) in a vacation home grabbed just before the further restrictions, indeed feels like a change in routine. And the pool and hot tub certainly help make it feel like vacation!

 

Amidst the long-list of relaxed-scheduled activities was the family hovering around the 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle we had gifted our daughter Talia on her recent birthday. How fun was that? A lot, especially that satisfying moment of putting in the last 10 pieces. 

 

I already have my routine of Solitaire and Acrostics, pointless, but mind-sharpening and meditative activities that nurture our linguistic and mathematical intelligences. Now thinking I could easily add jigsaw puzzles, the feeding of the visual-spatial intelligence and exercise in a different part of the brain. 

 

And naturally, my metaphoric mind makes yet more connections. The image that accompanies us at birth—our innate genius, our daimon twin, our Soul’s template, call it what you will— is scattered into a thousand pieces when we’re born and we spend the rest of our lives trying to re-assemble the pieces and figure out precisely where and how they fit in the big picture. Minus the box cover to give us hints (though perhaps such images appearing in our dreams, both the night and day varieties). Every experience offers the possibility of seeing whether this piece fits with that piece and some innate sense of what feels right, what shapes, images, colors clearly belong together and the good sense to put those that don’t fit aside, waiting for their eventual place. For all of them— the successes and failures, the intimacies and betrayals, the people we think we like and the people we think we don’t—all have their necessary place in the puzzle. 

 

As good an image as any and of course, when putting a puzzle together, one thinks nothing about any of this, obsessed as you become by simply finding the next piece. But at the end of the 4-nights of intermittent activity, I did wonder who first had the idea of the jigsaw puzzle and whether it really was made with a jigsaw (the answer to that one was “no.”). Naturally, Google and Wiki were there to scratch my curious itch. Looks like it was John Spilsbury, a London cartographer and engraver, who produced the first commercial versions made from wood around 1760. From wood to cardboard and by the 1900’s, such puzzles became a common pastime.

 

And then come the astounding records:

 

Largest Number of Pieces Commercial Puzzle:Produced by Czech company MartinPuzzle and contains 52,110 pieces showing a collage of animals.

 

Largest Number of Pieces Puzzle: The jigsaw with the greatest number of pieces had 551,232 pieces and measured 14.85 × 23.20 m (48 ft 8.64 in × 76 ft 1.38 in). It was assembled on 25 September 2011 at Phú Tho Indoor Stadium in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam by students from the University of Economics. 

 

Largest Puzzle in Size: The world's largest-sized jigsaw puzzle measured 5,428.8 m² (58,435 sq ft) with 21,600 pieces, each measuring a Guinness World Records maximum size of 50 cm by 50 cm. It was assembled on 3 November 2002 by 777 people at the former Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong. 

Love Actually

… is the name of a good movie for the season that I keep meaning to watch again. But it’s also the perfect title for this piece I found buried in a folder on my desktop. It’s a survey of answers given by 4-8 year old kids to a question posed by a group of psychologists: “What does Love mean?” This is why I love children.

 

"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love."  

Rebecca- age 8

 

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth."        Billy - age 4 

 

"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other."     Karl - age 5

 

"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs."     Chrissy - age 6

 

"Love is what makes you smile when you're tired."Terri - age 4

 

"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him to make sure the taste is OK."   Danny - age 7

 

"Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss".  Emily - age 8

 

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen."

Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)

 

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate."  

Nikka - age 6

 

"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday."

Noelle - age 7

 

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well."  Tommy – age 6

 

"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken."    Elaine-age 5

 

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford."   Chris - age 7

 

"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day."  

Mary Ann - age 4

 

"I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones."  Lauren - age 4

 

"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you."  

Karen - age 7

 

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross."   Mark - age 6

 

"You really shouldn't say 'I love you ' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget."    Jessica - age 8

 

And the final one -- Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife.  Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, "Nothing, I just helped him cry".

 

Anyone have any better definitions?

The Saturn Cycle

 My nephew turned 28 on the 21^st, the day the light began its return journey. 28 is the Saturn cycle, the time it takes Saturn to complete its full cycle and returns to the place it was at your birth. In astrology, it marks the end of an important cycle of your life, which of course, marks the beginning of the next. 28 means the transition to full adulthood and that was certainly true for me. I turned 28 on July 28 on the last day of a year-long trip around the world, an extraordinary year that set the compass for the next Saturn cycle—personally, musically and culturally. Within three months of returning from that trip, I went back to teach music at The San Francisco School, where I taught for another 41 glorious years, got married and pregnant (well, technically, my wife got pregnant), began a family, eventually bought a house—you know the routine. 

The next cycle begins around 56 years old, the first steps into elderhood. And lo and behold, that was the year my Dad died, marking the end of our long life together and inviting me into the next stage where I was the elder in the family (which including taking care of my Mom who needed help). I was in the midst of some 17 years of international Orff teaching, enlarging my life’s purpose far beyond the gates of the school where I was still teaching.  In that period, I gave courses in The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Scotland, Madrid, Barcelona, Vittoria, Canary Islands, Salzburg, France, in Singapore, Hanoi, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, in Australia, in South Africa, in Argentina, in Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver and some 15 states in the U.S.— in short, on every continent except Antarctica! (In this sheltered time, it feels exhausting just to think about it—how did I do it?!). 

 

The third cycle (fates willing) will begin somewhere around 84, suggesting that I’m around the halfway point of summarizing my life’s work and (hopefully), continuing to share it as health and pandemics allow. And then begins the turn into leave-taking, the preparation for the next world and the eventual status of Ancestor. 

 

This the long-winding version of saying to my nephew Damion:

 

“Happy birthday!”

 

Simple Truths

Janus, the God that looks back and forward at the same time, is soon to re-make his annual appearance. Today, on the Winter Solstice, the accent is looking back. Tomorrow, the return of the light suggests a peek forward.

 

Perhaps this is what inspired me to open a folder of old and unfinished articles in search of a particular something I know I once wrote. And the ever-surprising-but-shouldn’t-be revelation— I’ve written a lot! Never at a loss for words and never running out of things to talk about. And sometimes getting it right. 

 

I never did find what I hope to, but came across an introduction to a book I’ve yet to write and may never or just may make my New Year project. The original title was Simple Truths: A Handbook for Music Teachers and Musicians. Some of it definitely made its way into my last Teach Like It’s Music book, but still it might be worth putting in this different format and context. Here’s an introduction I wrote and I kind of like it. Music teachers and musicians out there, any encouragement to put this on my To-Do list?

 

I imagine all teachers have a drawer filled with cards from kids that proclaim: “You are the best teacher ever!!” We keep them to remind us to persevere, to affirm that we made the right choice in our career, to help us remember that we actually have done something worthwhile with our lives. We don’t stop to think that maybe the child has given the same card to every teacher she has had or that maybe she liked us because we let her stay in one day from recess when it was hot outside and we offered to share our chocolate bar. But ours is not to question why. It is enough that she wrote it. 

 

This book is my hope to help you fill your drawer with such cards. Nothing I say here can easily make you a kinder teacher, a more humorous one, a more fun one with a more scintillating personality that your students will adore. But the part of teaching that is changeable, the details that make your lessons more effective, more fluid, more child-friendly and yes, a bit more fun and scintillating, is something within everyone’s reach. 

Part of it is as concrete as following a recipe in a cookbook, part as practical and scientific as pushing this button and getting that result, part as systematic and formulaic as Step 1 leading logically to Step 2 until Voila!, a finished musical work at Step 7 that makes the children happy and the parents pleased at the concert.

 

But far more important are the ideas behind the practice. One idea rightly understood will give birth to effective practices that make sense because the teacher’s vision is intact. When things don’t work as well as imagined, the teacher can adjust accordingly because the understanding is clear. Those merely following steps will be lost. Vision leads the dance, each step of the way.

 

What are the understandings that will feed your vision and fill your drawer with praise from students of all ages, the questions that never can be wholly answered that will guide you to being the best teacher you can be? What is a good first question to get things moving?

  

The Rhythms of Life

I’ve often compared life well-lived to music well-played, but now I’m feeling this as something more specific. As follows: 

 

Teaching—the Jazz Tune: Teaching music at school, each new class in the schedule is a jazz tune, with each individual class a particular song with its own melody and chord changes.  Every day, you improvise through the changes, never playing the same notes twice. 

 

Travel—the Symphony: Your life at home has its opening themes which are then developed. Just before you’re about to travel somewhere, all the themes are re-capitulated, you check them off the list and wrap all themes together in a grand cadence, pack upcoming themes into your suitcase and hit the final chord of the first movement as you close the lid. An interval of silence as you drive or train or fly to the next location, then open the lid and the 2^nd Movement begins. The next stop on your itinerary? The 3^rd Movement. And so on.

 

Sheltering-in-place—the New Age composition. One chord, washy pleasant notes with no tension, just ambient sounds that don’t go anywhere. 

 

Sheltering-in-place with kids—Free Jazz: Listen to Pharoah Sanders' solo on John Coltrane’s Meditations album and you’ll understand immediately. 

Perfect Answer

I had a short Facetime with my 9-year old granddaughter today, who I will soon see if the stars all line up. I asked her to show me with her arms how much I love her, how much I couldn’t wait to see her. Without missing a beat, she said;

 

“My arms don’t stretch that far.”

 

And she was right.

A Little Darkness

My wife’s cousin posted a photo of our annual Christmas Carol party with the heading “The Good Ole Days.” Though my wife is relieved not to prepare the house this year (yes, I offer to help, but she has her own way of doing this), I will miss this tradition that we’ve faithfully kept since 1983. Of course, it’s just one of so much we’ve had to let go and truth be told, I’m okay with most of it for now. But such a contrast to last year!

 

Looking back in my journal, this was the week that my colleagues James, Sofia and I took the Interns who had studied with us for four months to The Christmas Revels, another tradition I have loyally attended each year since 1986. We rehearsed our annual Holiday Plays (each year since 1975) and the 3^rd-4^th-5^thput on a fabulous version of The Phantom Tollbooth, a fitting swan song for this soon-to-be-retired music teacher. With the added perk that with 30 minutes to spare, my daughter Kerala and grandkids Zadie and Malik made it from the airport to see the show! The last day of school, they joined the kids for the traditional ice-skating (also since 1975), watched the 8^thgraders perform St. George and the Dragon (since 1986) and participated in the always stirring final Holiday Sing, ending with the angels descending as voices lift in song in those sequences of Glorias. 

 

The next day, I gave a a workshop with my Pentatonics Band at SF Jazz (since 2014), went to a Posada party at a friend’s house (since 1978), the next day a matinee showing with Zadie of It’s a Wonderful Life at the beloved Castro Theater, followed by the Caroling Party that began (as always) with some 40 people warming up our house and chatting in the kitchen to singing around the piano to taking it to the streets to boarding the N-Judah streetcar (while still singing) and then doing drop-in carols at Yancey’s Bar, the Crepevine Restaurant and Pascuale’s Pizza. Next day, we all got into cars and drove down to Palm Springs. 

 

Quite a contrast! No Revels in Oakland, no Holiday Play at the SF School, a Zoom St. George today, no ice-skating, SF Jazz and Castro Theater closed and a neighborhood caroling party that begins and ends on the street with the 15 or so folks who have been singing together since April. Those hundreds of people I rubbed shoulders with, played music with, sang together with, reduced to 2 or 3 each day. It’s a different world indeed. 

 

But of course, we work with what’s in front of us and if we have the good fortune to be spared the direct assault of soldiers, racist police, landlords with eviction notices and a virus entering our body, we can use the opportunity to keep serving life. As the always-eloquent Mary Oliver says:

 

I know, you never intended to be in this world.

But you’re in it all the same.

 

So why not get started immediately.

 

I mean, belonging to it.

There is so much to admire, to weep over.

 

And to write music or poems about…

 

Do you need a prod?

Do you need a little darkness to get you going? … (From The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac)

 

Well, if so, here we are. Let’s go.