The End of the World: Daughter to Father

When my daughter Kerala was 6, she announced to her friends that she wanted to be an author. One of them asked her, “Do you think you can write that small?”

 

At the end of her college years, she won a writing contest and the prize was publication of her first novel “How Things Break.” My own opinion was that it was an okay starting novel and the world seemed to agree, as it stayed far away from the New York Times bestsellers list. She did co-start a magazine and wrote wonderful editorials, but career, marriage and family steered her away from writing at the center of her life. 

 

But as the kids grew older and more independent, she began writing again and this time, with a lot of life experience to write about— raising kids in a culture unfriendly to families, the trials of her black husband in a white racist society, the hopes and fears for her mixed-race children, her increasing alarm about climate change and such. As she herself describes it: 

 

“I write about motherhood, feminism, race, and the end of the world. Aiming to make you laugh, cry, and want to punch something all at once.”

 

Her style is between David Sedaris and Anne Lamont, but with her own indisputable voice and subject matter. She found the perfect venue in an online publication called Medium.com and her plan is to amass enough followers to convince a publisher to put her growing collection of essays between two covers. 

 

In her latest piece, I make a cameo appearance. 

My father is worried about me. He thinks I’m being fatalistic. Over the summer, we watched a Zoom lecture by Michael Meade called Climate Change and Mythic Imagination. Meade talked about the true meaning of “apocalypse,” how it has come to be understood only as The End, whereas it’s also about restoration and renewal.

I appreciate the message. I also can’t help but think that it’s quite a bit easier for my father and Michael Meade to take comfort in our mythic imagination. They are both over 70 years old.

So in my next post, I want to answer my daughter. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, here’s the whole piece. 

 

 https://keralataylor.medium.com/i-cant-reconcile-laundry-with-the-mass-extinction-of-humankind-3bdac0319da7?sk=4c5efdc080b7d394eb1a802b2691575a

  

Report on 70

Definition of an optimist: Someone who falls off a tall building and when asked halfway down, “How’s it going?” replies, “So far, so good!” 

 

I’m four months into my 70’s and if someone asked me (and no one has) “How’s it going?”, I would give the answer above. With a mixture of great gratitude and disbelief, I can report that in many ways “Better than ever.” Knowing how fast it can change, there’s no danger of arrogance here— believe me, I’m aware. But meanwhile I’m happy to say that I can still sit in half-lotus posture, walk some 5 or 6 miles a day and/or bike some 10 or 12 miles a day, climb up San Francisco hills, sit on the floor during a workshop—and get up again! With a little help from my friends— daily reading, writing, Crostics, skillfull Solitaire, jigsaw puzzles and Bach— my mind is as sharp (if not sharper) as it has ever been. Occasionally I wake up as if someone beat me up in my sleep, but mostly I have no chronic pain and my weight is lower than it has been for most of the last thirty or so years. Piano skills are at their peak, both classical and jazz, and I still can perform an energetic and coordinated Steppin’ body percussion pattern. 

 

When I read a book and find out a character is 70, I still picture the kind of picture I would have when I was 20 or 30, someone much more tottering and creaky, shuffling along slowly. But I’m happy to report to you young folks that though there’s no guarantee— each body/ inherited genes/ life’s accidents is unique— a life of constant physical, mental, emotional and spiritual exercise pays off. 70 cannot only be tolerable, but potentially functioning a peak level. 

 

Of course, I still miss some things that it looks like I’ll never regain. Amongst them:

 

• Being able to run like a 7-year old.

 

• Young women flirting with me. Heck, any women flirting with me.

 

• A more pleasant face looking back at me in the mirror.

 

• Plans to go skydiving or learn how to downhill ski.

 

• A fully functioning libido. 

 

• The distance between life expectancy and my age.

 

But all in all, I can happily report:

 

“So far, so good.”

 

My Week in Review

In the interest of linguistic ecology, I’ll save a thousand words and share my week’s accomplishment like this:

A Day in the Life

 

I began the day gathering with some 50 people rallying to keep a major road in Golden Gate Park car-free. Throughout my time in SF, a portion of JFK Drive has been closed on Sundays to give free reign to walkers, joggers, skaters, bicyclist and more. Once the pandemic started, the road was closed to motorized vehicles every day and has been for a year and a half. Now there is a move to re-open it to cars and a counter-move to keep it car-free. And so a varied crew of elders, parents, kids showed up in their various human powered modes of transport and moved a mile up the road and back again. No big fuss or shouted slogans, just a quiet gathering with a few signs and postcards to fill out to send to SF Supervisors. 

 

The morning mist soon evaporated and the day filled its promise to be sunny, warm and inviting. The park was alive with folks of all ages and persuasions partaking of its varied possibilities. The roller skaters dancing to the disco music, a string quartet playing in the bandshell to an enraptured audience in the Concourse, folks circling up high on the large ferris wheel. There were volleyball games and frisbee throwers and tennis players and the ubiquitous drummers in front of Hippy Hill with a larger-than-usual group of folks dancing. There were groups gathering for picnics, boats paddling around Stowe Lake, a line at the Twirl and Dip ice cream truck which I joined and treated myself to soft-serve vanilla ice cream dipped in rich dark chocolate sauce. 

 

I met a fellow music teacher for lunch at Carl and Cole Street, where we had a choice of crepes, designer tacos, Arabic comfort food, café fare and much more, all in a one-block radius. Each place was bustling, the outdoor parklets full and the buzz of happy diners in the air. The food was delicious, the company congenial, the air fresh. After lunch, I took my bike to the shop to replace the pedals and then biked back into the park. My wife was somewhere further on with a sketching group, I passed someone reading a book under a tree while the ducks were happily paddling in the pond. 

 

The talk about the weather was an appreciation rather than the fearful climate cataclysm hovering about us every day, masks came on and off as needed with no anti-vax hysteria, the topic of race took a back seat while the museum-goers enjoyed the Patrick Kelly exhibit.

It was a day that gently—and wisely—refused to turn on the news, turned away from fear (purposefully manufactured and/or genuinely arising) in favor of savoring life’s bounties, basking in the sun’s tender and soothing warmth, enjoying the pleasurable company of fellow humans who left all their axes-to-grind at home and were reveling in the grass, trees, blue sky, soaring birds, happy dogs. It was a day that we all need and all deserve and the kind we don’t get enough of.

 

But today, in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, we did.

 

Form, Union, Plan

It is an enticing sunny day in San Francisco, the body is hungry for a long-missed bike ride, the spirit suggests sitting under a tree by the ocean and writing in my journal. And yet at 3:20 in the afternoon, I still haven’t left the house. 

 

Yes, some of it is still trying to catch up on a publishing business I created because I was impatient for the World’s slow response. With two recently published books by other authors and more in the chute by me, it keeps growing almost just beyond where I want to reach. But once committed, I’m determined to master the basics of it, the ever-shifting means of advertising, distributing, invoicing, revising contracts, etc. etc. and again etc. 

 

But much of it is was returning to the lure of the jigsaw puzzle after some six weeks away from it. The Sirens of the next piece to fit in keep singing and no one is here to tie me to the mast. And so I follow their call and it is as satisfying, mysterious as before, a means to affirm the presence of the intuition and those unseen forces that guide me to a piece and then find precisely where it’s meant to be. At once a metaphor and a physical exercise and in both cases, satisfying that deepest of human needs, the quest for meaning, the sense that everything makes sense and has its proper place, that in the words of Whitman’s invocation in Leaves of Grass. 

 

“Do you see O my brothers and sisters?

It is not chaos or death—it is form, union, plan— it is eternal life—it is happiness.”

 

And about to be made just a little bit happier by getting out on my bike. After just one more piece……

 

Undisturbed by Ideas

Are people getting worse? Are we devolving into a sub-species that would make apes ashamed to associate with us? Pick a day, any day, and tune into the news, any source, and the answer seems clearly “Duh!” The list is so long it’s exhausting to keep up and why exactly do we have to people our mind with the likes of Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Rudy Guilliani, the unspeakable 45,  Joe Manchin and on and on? My soul feels dirty just writing their names and there isn’t a soap strong enough to entirely wash them out. 

 

Media chooses where to shine its light and it will always choose to shine it on the outrageous, the angry, the mob refusing to move beyond their reptilian brain and dwell in the mire and muck of sex and power and the fight-freeze-flight mentality that pays the bills of the news vultures. The ignorant, cruel, the apathetic, the folks who are shouting in the face of the camera have become the new norm and if you want any attention in the national discourse, it’s required to turn the volume up to 10. Led by the shameless group of despots above, some people demand more and more extreme non-thought and action (Capitol riots) just to make it through the day, addicted to opposition. They are part of a type I call the Conquerors, those who burn and slash and dominate, with strong wills and charisma and determination to amass their personal power, wealth, adoration. 

 

Opposing them are those who use their will and charisma and determination to protect and defend others, the warriors of social justice and earth stewardship, the Caretakers. Many do this work quietly in the classroom or the hospital or at the Farmer’s market, so the news isn’t interested. But those who rise to power and visibility, from the Zen master to the Congressperson, sometimes get caught in the opera of glass-shattering arias and get brought down by the sex scandal or embezzlement charge.

 

The third group are the Consumers, those who can’t be bothered, who live in the bland middle and simply want to have a nice day at the mall. They refuse to engage, thus lending power to the conquerors through their silent complicity and willingness to blindly obey. They choose to remain ignorant of important ideas and issues, like their food un-spiced and pre-packaged, prefer smooth jazz with all the harsh notes taken out. 

 

All three types we have always had with us and probably always will. Witness this passage by Charles Dickens in his book Bleak House (Chapter 12, p. 149 for those who like footnotes), written over 150 years ago, but perfectly describing the Consumers noted above:

 

There are ladies and gentlemen…not so new, but very elegant who have agreed to put a smooth glaze on the world and to keep down all its realities. For whom everything must be languid and pretty. Who are to rejoice at nothing and be sorry for nothing. Who are not to be disturbed by ideas. On whom even the Fine Arts, must array themselves in the milliners’ and tailors’ patterns of past generations, and be particularly careful not to be in earnest, or to receive any impress from the moving age. 

 

Stay tuned for an old article I wrote about “The Three C’s” and let’s see if it holds up as well as Dickens! 

  

Post-Retirement?

 

Three Rules of Advocacy

1. Do good work.

2. Talk about it. 

3. Do and talk as far and wide as you can.

 

Like all worthy thoughts, the above is simply common sense. Yet sometimes people talk about things they haven’t actually done. They’re saying all the right words, but they don’t have the weight of years and years of living them in their work. Or sometimes people do fabulous work, but don’t have the words to explain it or the impulse to find them. And even when 1 and 2 above are in place, they’re not showing it or saying it to the people with the power to protect it, to sustain it, to nurture it, to help it keep growing. 

 

As this Blog testifies, I’ve been big on the talk side of things, relentlessly searching for a thousand ways to describe and illuminate the work that I and others have done. And with those 40,000 classes with kids and thousands more with adults, I’ve also been big on the doing side. As well as the “far and wide” side of things with articles, books, in-services, conferences, keynote speeches, a Tedx talk, courses. Not enough school boards as might be helpful and I’m still waiting for the invitation to testify before Congress, but I’ve worked hard on spreading the good news. 

 

So when a college friend of my daughter’s asked her about good schools in San Francisco and she connected with me, my wife and other daughter and she asked, “What’s so special about your school?” (Yes, though retired, it’s still “my” school), without a moment of forethought, I set this down:

 

I think the center of the character of the school is an unbroken commitment to the dignity and delight of the child at each stage of development by teachers who sincerely love children and are passionate about their teaching. Teachers who are  given the freedom to follow their own genius without ticking off boxes handed down by lock-step curriculums or national standards. Teachers who have joined together in the unspoken (and now more clearly spoken) agreement that justice doesn’t only matter in the way our community members, kids and adults alike, treat each other, but in the way that some narratives (white supremacy, for example) shut down justice while others (our Montessori foundation, the many faces of humanitarianism and civil rights) open them up and children should be aware of these competing narratives as their appropriate developmental level. 

 

The proof of the pudding is in the tasting.* Our alums prove time and time again that they leave school with a character both nutritious and delicious—strong critical thinking skills, a fearless confidence in expressing themselves publicly, a commitment to joining thought with action and a deep caring for the world, aware of what’s broken and determined to help fix it. 

 

We also have a unique ceremonial calendar that gives feet to the wings of our vision— and those feet are dancing through the year, accompanied by the music that the kids make themselves and the songs they sing. The Orff Schulwerk music program that I started in 1975 is internationally known through workshops and courses taught by myself and my two colleagues in some 50 countries over the past 30 years, shared in the 12 books we’ve published and further spread through our kids performing at conferences in Salzburg (Austria), San Diego (twice), San Jose, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Long Beach and Las Vegas. 

 

The Orff approach itself is founded on a wide definition of music that includes body percussion, speech, poetry, song, movement, folk dance, percussion instruments, Orff instruments (xylophones), recorder, strings, band instruments, arts integration and drama. The kids put on one elaborate play each year combining all the art forms and based on a folk tale/ fairy tale/ myth/ children’s literature with scripts that emerge from their improvisations. We are also just about the only school in the country in which the kids sing together every day and come to know a repertoire of some 200 songs. Though I’m retired, my two brilliant colleagues are carrying on this dynamic work in all the above areas.

 

Likewise, my wife Karen started the Art Program in 1974 and the children’s art work constantly displayed on school walls, in special projects like calendars and even once, city billboards, the wide range of artistic media (weaving, pottery, woodworking, collage, drawing, painting, sculpture, etc.) also  play a big part of kids experience and confidence in self-expression.

 

In short, the school was founded all those years back (1966) with the idea “There must be a better way to do this” and grew guided by Gandhi’s invitation to “be the change we wanted to see in the world.” Though the bureaucrats and bean-counters and machine-sellers are daily pounding on the doors—and sometimes granted access— somehow that spirit has remained alive. It always was a special place and still is.”

 

After writing that, the thought occurred, “That sounds like a great place! Maybe I should apply for a job there!” J

* Thanks to faithful blog reader and old friend and colleague Susan Kennedy here. I originally referenced "The proof is in the pudding," a perhaps common misquote of this bit of folk wisdom and she politely corrected me. On her birthday! A gift to the world reminding us to be more careful.