The Three Pillars

When thinking about my next book to write, the question I ask is “What can I write that no one else can?” Nothing to do with talent and style, but looking at the unique configurations of my life that are wholly distinct from others. And I think I can say with some confidence that the  blend of three disciplines—Orff, Jazz and Zen— that has characterized my life is pretty much one-of-a-kind. I haven’t met any Orff teachers that play jazz and practice Zen, no Zen monks that teach Orff and play jazz, no jazz musicians that teach Orff and practice Zen. They may be out there, but even so, each of us would have our own unique blend and our own take on what it means to our life and what it might mean to all lives. 

 

And so the idea of looking at all three as a Venn diagram and seeing how they overlap and how they share certain values, practices, disciplines and ideals that could refresh our troubled world. I set off to write a prologue to a possible book  and though writers concerned about plagiarism would think I’m crazy to make it public so early in the process, I’m not particularly worried. So here is a first-draft beginning, part 1 of a longer story that really kicks off around 1973.

 

If anyone asks me if I had a happy childhood, I surprise them with my answer. “Yes, I believe I did.” Of course, I had my share of skinned knees and bruised elbows, times when I was bullied or (please forgive me) bullied others and I always, always got in trouble at school. I envied my friends whose parents let them drink Coke and eat white bread and wondered if my bi-polar Mom was two different people, either lying in bed for days on end with her migraines or manically embarrassing me by being the over-the-top life of the party. I wished my Dad would play catch with me more and stop telling me I did a lousy job mowing the lawn. 

 

But all in all, I was quite happy inside the house rigging up ways to open doors with ropes, conducting Beethoven played on my folks 78’s record collection from the staircase, mastering Trudy Treble and Bobby Bass on my way to Bach on our Hammond organ. And outside the house, joy of all joys, was a 200 acre park and a parenting ethos (it was the 1950’s and 60’s) that amounted to “Get out of the house and play! Just be home for supper. Alive.” And so my friends and I wandered endlessly, making up hide-and-seek games, playing football and baseball without an adult in sight, skipping stones on the lake, catching Fall leaves whirling down into the field. My experience of the world was one of safety, food, shelter and endless delight as we kids played our way slowly to adulthood. 

 

While the actual landscape of the park lifted me up into some sense of adventure, security and happiness, I also was held in a mythological landscape. While kids halfway around the world in India were growing up with the stories of Rama and Sita and Krishna and more in the great Hindu Epics, kids in Europe walked the storied landscape of the Bible in company with Lazarus and Noah and Moses and a kind and benevolent Jesus (so different from the one who unleashed the Inquisition and beyond), Aboriginal children in Australia learned their ABC’s of the Dreamtime, my mythological countryside was peopled with folks like Beaver Cleaver, Andy Griffith, Donna Reed, Dick Van Dyke and Laura. A homogeneous white-populated land where no ism ever popped up its head— except through the back door of perpetuating the Tonto, Tarzan, Amos and Andy, Jose Jimenez stereotypes. 

 

These images streaming in through our small living room TV set depicted a world  where all problems were bite-size, usually solved by a sincere talk with Aunt Bee, Ward and June or Ozzie and Harriet. Kids went fishing, spit off of bridges, played baseball and respected their school teachers. Chewing gum in class was the big transgression and the meanest kid they might ever meet was Eddie Haskell, so benign by today’s standards. And all of this accompanied by a jazz-influenced soundtrack. Life was sweet. 

 

But then the real world started to leak in. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, when I was 11-years-old, I remember a friend shouting to me down the street, “Hey, World War III is about to start!” The next year, I was in school when someone entered the class and announced, “The President has been shot.” And so it continued, as Walter Cronkite’s calm voice wasn’t quite enough to soothe us as images of the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights, Movement, the Democratic Convention of ’68 and more came into our living rooms. The sense of the world as secure and the future as something to count on was slowly eroding. 

 

How was a 16-year-old to make sense of this all? It turns out that “ a little help from my friends” was just the ticket. But not my buddies Bruce or Billie or Ricky. My friends were the authors of the books—Henry, Claude, Malcolm, Alan and more— that opened my narrow world just a little bit wider to reveal something quite different from the Leave It to Beaver suburbs. Thoreau revealed an alternative to “lives of quiet desperation” and beckoned me to a real landscape (Walden Pond) where one could fall in love with a shrub oak and live in constant awe of a benevolent natural world. My park-wandering intuitions were given a voice and a beckoning invitation to walk further down that path.

 

At the other end of the real world were the ghettoes of Harlem, revealed through Claude Brown’s Manchild in a Promised Landand Malcolm X’s autobiography. After 12 years of never venturing 12 blocks away in my working class New Jersey suburb, a friendship with Bill “Lump” Blackshear founded on basketball got me into the 98% black neighborhood of my town and the beginning of understanding why it existed and, with the help of Claude and Malcolm and later countless more, why it never should have. 

 

Worlds revealed through words brought me into another territory as A.S. Neal, John Holt, Jonathan Kozol and more helped me understand why I never loved school and gave me the beginning tools to re-imagine new ones. And then there was stumbling into D.T. Suzuki, Alan Watts and Phillip Kapleau’s books on Zen Buddhism  giving a home for my spiritual impulse that never felt welcomed in the Christian or Jewish theologies. 

 

Alongside worlds uncovered through reading were yet more made known through music, both the sounds coming from the radio and record players and those my own fingers could make on organs and pianos. Bach, Beethoven and later Debussy were my childhood companions and as the teen years began, there was the Beatles, Beach Boys and James Brown, the Temptations, the Four Seasons, the Coasters. And then Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell and Simon and Garfunkel and Led Zeppelin and… well, it was a rich, rich time in popular music and the list is simply too long. And side-by-side was Dave Brubeck leading me to another long list of extraordinary artists— Louis, Duke, Ella, Billie, Miles, Monk, Trane and on and on. 

 

By the time I entered Antioch College in 1969, my mythological territories continued to expand, spoken through poetry by Walt Whitman, e.e.cummings, Gary Snyder, through music by The Incredible String Band, the Nonesuch Series of Music from Around the World, Scott Joplin and Cecil Taylor (who later taught at Antioch), through the grand literature of the time— Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, Ken Kesey and more. I was ripe for some way to begin to join them into a unified vision and discipline.

 

That time came in 1973, my last year at school and first year of my post-college adult life.

Four (and more) serendipitous events that would echo 50 years into the future— and are still resonating. 

Swimming Together

 

The lake is calm this morning. The house likewise calm and quiet, the horizon lined with fishing boats and the promise of sunshine ahead. One more full day before returning to yet another Fall in San Francisco. The fourth year in a row in which it means something different from putting my shoulder to the wheel of the school year to get it started. Imagine that. How quickly time passes. 

 

Fall in San Francisco. Always one of my favorite times of year, marked by a succession of ritual events. The SF Mime Troupe play in Dolores Park. Opera in the Park (Golden Gate, that is). Comedy in the Park. Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. On it goes up to Halloween and Day of the Dead and the annual National Orff Conference (not in San Francisco), Thanksgiving and then all the Winter Holidays hoopla. The best weather of the year, neither wind nor fog nor rain and usually a few days of a “heat wave,” which for my city means late 80’s and occasionally low 90’s, one of the only times one dares dip into the Pacific Ocean. 

 

Again, for 45 years this included the excitement of starting the school adventure yet again and between 2013 and 2019, the added bonus of sharing both the school and the city with four to six music teacher Interns. All of the above events and more given an extra flavor and shine when shared with fun folks from Canada, Colombia, Brazil, China, Thailand, Iran, Turkey, Germany, Spain, Italy, Finland, Czech Republic, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and throughout the U.S. Wasn’t that a time. 

 

I’ve always said that September 1^st was my true New Year and so like two-headed  Janus, I look back to what has been and forward to what will be. This extraordinary year of re-opened travel and teaching in every continent except South America, the film festival run, the mentoring of Orff teachers and guest teaching of children, a new book in the pipeline, the blessings of good health and much more. This Fall with its promise of another new book, continued work with Orff teachers and kids, an unusual return to this Michigan cottage in September for my nephew’s wedding and yet more. Sometimes I pause and wonder, with all proper gratitude and humility, what did I do to deserve such a life?

 

Not that it has been free of the trials and tribulations any human incarnation guarantees. The usual blend of dancing on the mountaintop and soldiering through the vale of tears. Disappointments (in myself and others), betrayals, small t traumas, loss, grief, sadness, doubt, outrage, peppered throughout the joys and blessed moments. And certainly more to come. 

 

But meanwhile, here I am, a bald eagle soaring past the beckoning lake, the day mine to fill as I wish, probably with walking, biking, swimming. Another 1,972 readers who read yesterday’s post and might be reading these words. Of course, I wonder if the words are worthy of their—your—time and attention and only hope that they help turn you to your own story of grace and redemption, trials and triumphs, the sense the we—none of us— are in this alone and we need each other to both affirm and challenge, to share our stories and to help each other fully embrace it all. May you each find your own refreshing Lake Michigan waters to swim in today and each and every day. The water is delicious and there’s room for us all.

Best Work

I confess that I regularly check the stats on these Posts. If the readership of any one post is 75-100, as it often is, I’m content. If it’s 1 or 5, I smile and am not particularly upset, knowing that it will change. But occasionally, it makes big leaps, like today’s 2,532 (!) and I wonder what the heck is going on. Is this a Bot gathering, a random accidental confluence of readers, a reaction to what I wrote and people quickly spreading the word, “You’ve got to check this out!”

 

Maybe there’s a way to find out, but I have not the skills, time or energy to investigate. But it does make me think, “While the numbers are up, I should write something extra special!! I need to share my best work. Which is a surefire way to shoot myself in the writing foot and limp into the next Post. What to do?

 

Should I use this opportunity to advertise my new book on Jazz and Joy and Justice, due to be printed mid-September? Steer people toward the latest Film Festival showing of The Secret Songfilm? (Aug. 28, in Mt. View). Mention my upcoming Family Jazz Concert at SF Jazz in October? That would be the American way— shamelessly promote while the numbers are high. But of course, I wouldn’t do that. (Even though I just did).

 

I could open to just about any page in the extraordinary The Myth of Normal book I’m reading and marking with the margins with  “YES!!”  “x 1,000!” “You got that right!” “Eloquent summary!” Things like: 

 

“All in all, the system works with cyclic elegance: a culture founded on mistaken beliefs regarding who and what we are creates conditions that frustrate our basic needs, breeding a populace in pain, disconnecting from self, others, and meaning…”

 

That could make for an interesting family dinner conversation. Or staff meeting topic. 

 

Or I could mention someone’s Facebook post about how we create the conditions in schools that don’t serve children, then blame the children (or teachers) for their problems and try to “fix” them with strategies that won’t work because they ignore the very conditions that created the problems. When someone asked, “How?” I responded with:

 

“We addict kids to machines that are purposefully designed for addiction and hyper-speed, then label them with ADHD and drug them. We fail to give them work worthy of their genius, cutting out arts programs that foster needed self-expression and then wonder why they’re bored and not motivated. We fail to model an inclusive and loving community, set kids against each other with grades and then blame them for not being socially attuned to the group. We create high-stakes pressure to “succeed” and fuel anxiety and then try to solve it with paint-by-number SEL programs. Etc, etc, and again, etc.…”

 

Or I can get off the big picture social critique and level down to the writer’s best topics—the details of the here and now. Like the way the fruit flies have suddenly invaded the kitchen and are landing on our food. The way the big lake’s waters have warmed up a bit, but still bring this swimmer’s body alive with its cool caress. Or simply share a photo of my farewell toast to summer. 

Meanwhile, let’s see if whatever I have written attracts another 2,532 readers. Come aboard!

Empty Nest

I love being around my grandchildren. Who else would spend time with me throwing a frisbee or football on the beach, playing paddleball or cornhole or wiffleball if not my grandson Malik? Who else would wrap her arms around me from behind to greet me as I play my morning solitaire and then proceed to beat me soundly in Rummy 500 or King’s Corner if not my granddaughter Zadie? Where else can I feel the active buzz of kids in the house or on the deck or walking to the back lake?

 

But then they fly again out of the nest and there’s a moment of quiet and silence and yes, I miss them, but part of my body and mind relaxes and thinks, “Yeah!” No more having to intervene in their sibling squabbles or entice them to get out of the house to join me at the beach or to feel the overflow of 12-year-old-hormones telling me to “Shh!” if she thinks I’m talking too loud in public and embarrassing her. No more reminding them to clean up or cleaning up after them, and so now, the very space has a quality of order and silence that this old man with thinning nerves can savor and enjoy. 

 

And so the Michigan vacation winds to its end, two more days with just my wife Karen and brother-in-law John and then the drive down to Ann Arbor with the carrot of going to the movie that I keep not getting to see —Barbie! Once because my movie friends chose another one and once because Karen, John and I drove 45 minutes only to find it was sold out! It better be good!

 

And so I’ve managed to write these four paragraphs without the grandkids telling me to “get off the computer!!!” Which is correct, it should be limited in times like this and mostly has been. Even now, the beach is reprimanding me, but in a gentler manner. And so out into the air I go again, back to the sea, sand, sky and silence. 

Morning

My home routine is pretty settled— my little refreshment  routines, followed by writing—these posts, e-mails, whatever’s on my mind, perhaps some piano and such until lunchtime. After lunch is when I finally step out the door, that moment when I feel the welcome contrast between indoors and outdoors. Off for an afternoon walking or biking or doing errands. It works. Makes sense for my energies at different times of day.

 

But sometimes I wonder if I should reverse it. Get out in the early morning first. Like Henry Thoreau or Mary Oliver or Zen monks (well, not quite that early!). Today, I had the good sense to do just that. Not as early as the folks above, but still at 9:00 am, after zazen/breakfast, King’s Crown game with Malik,  the air was charged with that early morning freshness alive with promise. 

 

“Love of the morning is a measure of health,” said Thoreau and I know what he means. Morning is the song of the earth’s daily renewal, carried by the birds and breezes and felt in the scent of the air. When we march into the day or drive on the crowded freeway to begin chipping away at the hours, we carry the burden of our driven selves and miss the moment. Just getting out into the morning air, walking, biking or sitting on the porch, gives us the possibility of awakening with the day, aligning ourselves with the earth’s natural rhythm and letting it carry us slowly out of the dim light and shadows into the full brightness of the day. Morning is the Springtime of the day, all birth and restoration and revitalization. Last night’s sins and errors are washed away in sleep and new promise begins with the dawn. 

Of course, work schedules don’t honor these possibilities and most of us are already rushing before the day barely begins. If we make the mistake of checking the news, our hope for new beginnings is already trampled underfoot. Some have the option of walking or biking to work and believe me, that makes a difference. And of course, many now work at home, hopefully with the good sense to at least stroll around the block before settling in on Zoom. No matter what you’re situation, hey, there’s always the weekend.

 

Hail to morning! 

Windy Weather

 “ Windy weather, windy weather,

When the wind blows, we all come back together!”

 

This little game is part of my story about getting hired as the music teacher at The San Francisco School—but that’s a tale for another time. 

 

Right now, I’m fed up with the wind. It has been so annoyingly present in San Francisco the last five months or so and somehow followed me to Michigan, where it rarely comes to our little beach. My sister is here for the first time in the 48 years I’ve been coming and I wanted to show off the luxury of lying on the beach— reading, talking, jumping in and out of the water, choosing the sun or the shade of the umbrella. You know— relaxing. The way summer is spozed to be. 

 

But that’s my issue with the wind. It’s hard to relax with it blowing in your face— or even at your back. It interrupts the sense of repose, blows the sand around, creates choppy water hard to swim in. Inside the house, the grandkids bouncing around with their energy create their own kind of indoor wind and I find myself just craving the tranquility of still air. 

 

I’m reading The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Society(Gabor Maté), Fearlessly Embracing This Burning World (Barry Lopez) and Leave the World Behind (Rumaan Alam), a passive-aggressive apocalyptic end-of-the-world piece of fiction I don’t recommend. In face of all the above, my discontent with a little bit of wind is hardly cause for complaint. I could rightly be accused of too much privilege, not enough gratitude for simply being alive—and especially in this lovely place, with food, shelter and the company of family. I get it. And yet I still complain.

 

Grant me the patience to accept whatever the weather brings. I know it could be—and according to my source, will be— so much worse. Maybe I should just fly a kite!

 

Do's and Don'ts

I re-posted a version of the “How Do We Begin?” post on Facebook and the comments affirmed what I feared. People needed to hear these words because they weren’t being spoken in their beginning-of-the-year staff meetings. Instead was the barrage of online trainings, Powerpoints and administrative announcements about all the things they can’t do. From both sides of the political spectrum. We can’t tell the truth about slavery, we can’t sing a song that was once used in a minstrel show, we can’t use this word or that word, we can’t include a banned book in their reading list nor suggest a book that might trigger a trauma and on and on with the list of “cant’s.” What are we, five years old? Having to obey the rules others set down, be they hateful, arbitrary or well-intentioned? 

 

The end result is that all of this stops independent thought, stops the needed courageous conversations, erodes the trust in our own values or the possibility to have the needed discussions with kids, parents or fellow teachers when lines invariably get crossed, they way they always do and always will in human relations. Caught in the Web of the “gotcha” culture, we shut up and shut down and tiptoe around worried that we might say or do or think the “wrong” thing. And worry is a kissing-cousin to stress, anxiety and fear and that puts us exactly in the part of the brain that is the anti-thesis of education, that slams the door to higher thought and offers only fight, flight or freeze. 

 

It also robs time from the real questions. What can we do that will unlock our students’ imaginative, intellectual and humanitarian promise? That helps us return to the source of our passion for teaching? That helps teachers remember their shared purpose in a community alive with curiosity, fun and togetherness? Where is the spot on the agenda for these kind of questions? Where is the trust that we are intelligent and caring people who can figure out the kind of world we want to live in for the next 175 days and create that world together with each other and the children?

 

Sold down the river to the politically incorrect andpolitically correct fearmongers. In the ongoing crisis that is today’s world, the proper response is more intelligence, more imagination, more humanitarian promise from both teachers and kids alike. What we certainly don’t need is this atmosphere of distrust, fear and sheer nonsense (the wonderful job skills enslaved people learned/ singing Jingle Bells as supporting vicious racism). And yet be it in “Progressive Schools” or “good old boys” institutions, here we are sitting slack-jawed in front of the screen ticking off the pre-programmed little boxes of do’s and don’ts.

 

I retired not a moment too soon. But still I care.

 

(Below is the re-posted excerpt, along with a photo. By all means, share! Text it to your teachers while you’re sitting bored in the staff meeting!).

 

As the school year begins anew.  I send good wishes to teachers far and wide. As they get together to prepare the year, may the Powerpoints be few, the bureaucracies tucked away in locked drawers, the 55- page staff handbooks lie unopened. May teachers gather in games, songs, dances and the meetings be filled with exciting new ideas for collaborative projects. May discussions include the children and how to give them what they’ve always deeply needed—worthy work, the feeling of welcome, the sense of being seen, known and valued, the permission to play their way into understanding, the deep sense of connection— all of which they need more than ever in a world in short supply of all of the above. May teachers reaffirm their vows to nurture, nourish, protect and tell the children the truth, Republicans be damned, about how the world has been broken over and over again when we refuse to see what has happened and why and how every act of kindness, love, understanding can help heal it. Amidst all the details of how to get a school year up and running again, may they all keep their eyes on the prize and let the children swim out to the waters of their infinite possibilities.