Welcoming Mr. Nobody

Salzburg was a blissful re-connection with old haunts and old friends. Everything not only familiar, but preciously so as I invoked in my imagination the long line of people I’ve shared it with in the past 30 plus years. It was also a chance to teach yet again at the Orff Institut and share something about jazz in a way that few have considered. It was yet another place to share my movie and that was meaningful in both place and people attending. Finally, it was a chance to be the Salzburg tour guide for both my wife Karen and my friend Terry, a role I love. All of which required the ”somebody” half of self— a fellow I deeply appreciate, having spent my whole life cultivating him. 

 

But now’s the time to switch to the “nobody,” a half I equally relish and deeply need. The anonymous traveler just soaking in World through all senses, with no agenda other than to praise and be grateful. That’s the one I hope to greet each of the next nine mornings as we ride our bikes through the exquisite Slovenian landscape. 

 

This Mr. Nobody began to wake up on the four hour train ride through the rolling hills and  mountains between Salzburg and Bled, Slovenia. Like a developing photograph, he appeared a bit more vividly in last night’s dinner at a traditional restaurant serving buckwheat fritters with mushroom sauce, a well-crafted local IPA beer and a delicious walnut ice cream drizzled with pumpkin oil. 

 

This morning, he slept in a bit while Mr. Somebody bought his long-overdue flights for the coming New Orleans Jazz Course and took his bulging laundry bag up the street. Miraculously, he figured out how to negotiate the token system and the machines themselves, lucked into the one open washing machine out of the five there and again, found the one open dryer when the cycle was finished. Those little victories that the traveler celebrates with renewed appreciation. Then to the hotel breakfast with a carnival of different choices— breads, muffins, yogurts, muesli, granola, eggs, fried cheese, fried cauliflower, bowls of nuts and dried fruits, cheeses and sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, six different juices and yet more. 

 

Then off the five of us—Gerry, Terry, Dennis, Doug and Karen (for future reference)—went to walk around the lake in this most picturesque town of Bled. (The actual biking begins tomorrow.) First, we took a stop at a fancy hotel with a pool on the 5^th floor. Not open to the public, but a pretty impressive place to swim laps. 

Then we began the walk in earnest. A sunny, warm day, a castle looking down at us from the mountain, a church from the island in the lake, a friendly path along the water’s edge, sometimes near the road, sometimes in open little fields, sometimes through the woods. 

Halfway across, we took a boat to the island and watched the “gondolier’s” unique rowing technique. My friends paid the 10 Euros to enter the church, but I’ve seen enough of that story to forego it and just waited outside. Sitting there without looking at my phone like my Mr. Nobody used to do when I traveled, re-invoking that sense of being footloose and fancy free, all of life an adventure spread out before me. Realistically, not, but mythologically that sensation available any time. 

Back to the mainland, lunch on a bench (shh! Little sandwiches we made from the breakfast spread and took with us) and then on we went, with tiny sprinkles of rain and distant thunderclaps accompanying us. Past a gathering of people training for water lifesaving and a machine that literally grabbed a car out of the water and hoisted it up. (I believe this was a practice exercise and not a real find.) 

 

With the thunder sounding more ominous, we continued on and started to ascent the path through the woods to arrive at the castle. Another pricey entrance fee which I gave in to, but some interesting exhibits (see the photo of pipes below) about this quite interesting country about which few people know anything! There have been jazz festivals starting in the 1960’s, the town of Bled first became known as a tourist attraction through its Spa resorts, Slovenia as it’s known today was not a country until 1991 and it boasts one of the world’s older languages spoken by one of the fewest number of people living in a nation state (around 3 million). 

We enjoyed the exhibits at the castle, soaked in the views and found a path through the woods that intuitively felt right—and it was. Got back to the hotel late afternoon and thankfully missed the threatening thunderstorm deluge. (Which still hasn’t come).

 

Everyone resting now, me writing and thankful to begin my life anew as Mr. Nobody.  

Made to Help

Eating my muesli breakfast in the old familiar Merkur, this thought struck:

 

We are made to help each other.

 

Surely, not a profound epiphany, but how often do we stop to consider? There was the butcher slicing some meat for the customer so that his body would be nourished and fortified and continue to live. There was another pouring the coffee that would give both pleasure and energy to somebody’s day. Soon we will check out with the hotel employee who helped give us shelter these past seven nights. Outside in the hall are the cleaners waiting to swoop in and make the space available for the next traveler in need. Once checked out, we will board the bus and the driver will take us to the train, a whole other group of humans dedicated to helping us get from one place to another. 

 

If you have the leisure and the interest to think deeper into this, the chain of help goes far and wide— the truckers who brought the meat and coffee, the people who packaged it, the farmers who grew and tended it. Then further back to the people who made the trucks and buses and trains and the mechanics who kept them running and further yet back to the people who made the tools to make the vehicles and further yet back to the steelworkers. Not to mention the bankers and the lawyers and the doctors. Oh yeah, and the teachers.

 

If we stop to consider how deeply necessary we are to each other and how most people’s professions are built around giving needed services so that we might both live and thrive and enjoy life, it’s astounding that we don’t walk around in a state of constant gratitude. Instead, we get all caught up on the different names of God or who was born in the right place speaking the right language and listening to the right music and think we have the luxury to ignore, dislike, put down, marginalize, hurt, oppress and hate “the other.” Even when “the other” has proven to be essential to our existence and we have benefitted enormously from their labor. (Think chattel slavery, for example.)

 

Is anybody teaching these lessons in school? Wouldn’t it be interesting to take any random object—a pencil, for example— and trace it back to the endless chain of people and professions who brought it to our school desk?

 

And so I give thanks to all who brought my muesli to me as I bid farewell to Salzburg and head south to Slovenia.

People and Places

Amongst many blessings of living long is the list of people you know. A list that, thanks to both my international travels and workshops where people come to me, is perhaps a bit larger for me than most people. This means nothing in and of itself, but means everything when I get to meet and re-meet people I know and enjoy as I travel. 

 

In the last five days, I’ve had marvelous reunions with people I enjoy and care about so much. A ten-mile walk through the city with my good friend Rodrigo Fernandez, a lovely lunch and tea-time at her home-on-the-mountain with Barbara Haselbach, a festive lunch with former intern Werner Rohrer, Orff Institut teacher Andrea Ostertag, my wife Karen and old head of school Terry Edeli, a workshop at the Institut with old colleagues and students followed by a viewing of my film, a dinner at my Iranian friend Mandana’s house with the most stellar children one might hope to meet, sitting politely during adult conversation, planning piano pieces at our request (expertly, I might add), joining in on a jam session with two other guests, coming around to shake all our hands and bid us goodnight when the hour came. Poster children for what our own American children could do so much better. 

Then today, my Salzburg Doug-bike-tour with Terry and Karen with perfect weather. Hellbrunner Allee, Hellbrunn Park, the Sound of Music Pavilion, the Steintheater, the Folk Museum, the zoo, the Maibaum in Anif, the churchyard with Herbert Von Karajan’s modest grave, the Anif farmhouse where I stayed many times in previous guest teaching at the Orff Institut, the path along the stream, the surfers, the Leopoldskrone Park (another Sound of Music site),  and yet more. All of it still there, all of it still heartbreakingly beautiful and soul-inspiring. 

 

And all of it peopled with memories of all the other people I’ve shared it with—nine different groups of Special Course students worldwide, the SF School kids who performed here in 2011, the scores of people I’ve taught and come to know in the Summer Courses. I could feel them all riding by my side, hair blowing in the wind and that shared exhilarating sense of freedom and delight. 

 

The weather was pitch-perfect for today’s bike ride and we had some time to spare before having to return the bikes. So we walked a bit in Old Town and suddenly, the skies opened and the iconic Salzburg deluge began. The bike rental man had abandoned his post and left a phone number that didn’t work and it was quite a drama to figure out how to leave the bikes and helmet and keys and lock, all amidst the pouring rain. We finally did, the clothes are drying in the hotel room and a glass of Belgium cherry beer awaits before the search for dinner. 

 

And tomorrow? The train to Slovenia.

Right Speech

“Right Speech” is one of the precepts on Buddha’s Eightfold Path. That means no lying, divisive or abusive speech. (Take away "no" in this little list and there you have the First Precept of the cult religion of Trumpism.) Language, alongside bi-pedalism and opposable thumbs and the capacity to feel exalted emotions, are evolution’s gifts to human beings, a gift we mostly squander, abuse, ignore. Each time we refuse, whether it be a tiny transgression of unimaginative speech (“you’re awesome!”) or an out-and out lie (“you’re awesome!”), we tip the needle from Buddha to the other one. 

 

So putting on my "English Teacher" hat which I never officially earned except from thousands of hours of reading and writing, today's lesson is about the important of Right Speech. Not only in the spiritual sense, but in the articulate, eloquent and poetic sense as well. Related to my “Plain Talk” post, I found this marvelous quote from Bertrand Russell, suggesting we speak more clearly and succinctly. As an example, he asks us to trudge through this over-inflated sentence filled with the rocky pitfalls of technical jargon and try to figure out what it means:

 

‘Human beings are completely exempt from undesirable behaviour-patterns only when certain prerequisites, not satisfied except in a small percentage of actual cases, have, through some fortuitous concourse of favourable circumstances, whether congenital or environmental, chanced to combine in producing an individual in whom many factors deviate from the norm in a socially advantageous manner.’ 

 

How’s it going? Out of compassion for your confusion, he kindly translates it into speakable English.

 

‘All men are scoundrels, or at any rate almost all. The men who are not must have had unusual luck, both in their birth and in their upbringing.’ 

 

Then there’s this lovely passage from writer Ursula Le Guin:

 

“Socrates said, “The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.” He wasn’t talking about grammar. To misuse language is to use it the way politicians and advertisers do, for profit, without taking responsibility for what the words mean. Language used as a means to get power or make money goes wrong: it lies. 

 

Language used as an end in itself, to sing a poem or tell a story, goes right, goes towards the truth. A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.”

 

Praise be to those who chose eloquence and speaking on behalf of love and kindness, truth  and beauty. 

Getting to the Essence

“I counted my years and realized that I have less time to live by, than I have lived so far. I feel like a child who won a pack of candies: at first, he ate them with pleasure but when he realized that there was little left, he began to taste them intensely.

 

I have no time for endless meetings where the statutes, rules, procedures and internal regulations are discussed, knowing that nothing will be done.

 

I no longer have the patience to stand absurd people who, despite their chronological age, have not grown up.

 

My time is too short: I want the essence; my spirit is in a hurry. I do not have much candy in the package anymore….. It is the essentials that make life useful.

 

Yes, I'm in a hurry. I'm in a hurry to live with the intensity that only maturity can give. My goal is to reach the end satisfied and at peace with my loved ones and my conscience. We have two lives and the second begins when you realize you only have one.”

 

~Mário de Andrade (São Paulo 1893-1945) Poet, novelist, essayist and musicologist. One of the founders of Brazilian modernism.

 

I love this so much. I don’t know any of Mario de Andrade’s work, but here he captures the gifts of maturity perfectly. That hard-earned gift of cutting through the bullshit and getting right to the essence. In my own lifetime of trying to find the language to define what’s important in teaching, I keep whittling it down to simpler and simpler essences. Leaving aside the technical terms and long sentences and getting right to it. Things like:

 

• Watch the children.

• How else can we do this?

• Sing what you hear, play what you sing, hear what you play. 

 

And so on. No one has yet suggested that I’m too old to teach or am washed up and hopefully the reason is that those still taking workshops with me feel the power of the way I can get to the essence of the activity and the essence of how to artfully present the activity and remind teachers of the essence of their calling. 

 

Retiring from school has helped. No distractions of staff meetings, report cards, powerpoint presentations. No extra duties or evening events. Now when I teach children—as I have been so happily this year— it’s straight to the center of what we’re here to do. I am tasting the candy of essential intensity and I can testify it is delicious indeed. 

  

Return to Paradise

I am home. Back in the fairy-tale land where I first arrived oh-so-long ago. 34 years, in 1990, to be exact. That yellow-brick road I had been walking on—well, dancing on— for 15 years before that moment, that pathless path that tested and bolstered my heart, brain and courage— landed me on the steps of the Orff Institut in Salzburg, Austria. It was a Sunday and as I entered a mostly empty building, I saw a woman coming down the hall toward me. The moment she recognized me, she threw her arms wide, jubilantly shouted “Doug!” and hugged me exuberantly. That was Verena Maschat, herself an indelible part of the illustrious history of this magnificent institution. A warm welcome to this place that has given me so much. 

 

That summer and in the ensuing years that followed, I met hundreds of beautiful souls who went on to become my teachers, colleagues, students and friends. They came from Iceland, Finland, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Ukraine, Russia, Estonia, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong. Taiwan, China, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Colombia, Ghana, South Africa, Canada, the U.S. and yet more. A veritable United Nations doing the real work of both celebrating differences and commonalities through the ancient vehicles of shared music, dance and song. Because of those gatherings at the Institut, I was often later invited to teach in these countries and the party continued. And continues to this day. 

 

The doors to the Institut continued to open as well, year after year of teaching at Summer Courses, Symposia, Special Courses, Orff Forum gatherings. Three performances (1995, 2000, 2006) with the group Xephyr and one in 2011 with my colleagues Sofia Lopez Ibor, James Harding and 17 middle school kids from The San Francisco School. Also inviting many Orff Institut teachers and adjunct faculty to do Master Classes at our San Francisco International Orff Course, amongst them Barbara Haselbach (twice), Verena Maschat, Christa Coogan, Andrea Ostertag, Wolfgang Hartmann, Polo Vallejo and Soili Perkio. It became a marvelous ping-pong game between San Francisco and Salzburg and everybody won. 

 

And now, five years since my last visit, here I am back in Salzburg. Ah, so many lives lived here and each one so intense, so memorable, so necessary. A paradise indeed, but not naively so—more like 30 years of Shakespearean dramas. This one place the site of Midsummer Night dreaming, Romeo and Juliet illicit trysts, ides of March betrayals, midnight assassinations,  witches brews and magical fairy dancing under the evening moon. The full measure of life’s possibilities, each key on its keyboard played with power, dynamic energy and subtle nuance. 

 

Add to that this extraordinary city that is the most perfect blend of urban and rural, the old and the new, the human and the natural, the traditional (Mozart) and innovative (Carl Orff). Ringed by mountains, endless curved walking and bike paths, the verdant greens of spreading trees and fields, the gurgle of blue waters running through it. The old town with its castle on the hill,  the new town with its chic stores, and a conservative mentality that conserves what was never broken so that decades later, I never worry that the fallow field that gives space and breathing room would be filled with a mall and am never concerned that some giant phallic Sales Force Tower would be built helter-skelter wherever there was room. And it never has been. 

 

We landed to perfect 70-degree sunny weather and in spite of the tired body of a long flight with just a few hours sleep, everything conspired to shout:

 

“Welcome home!”

 

Healing the Unhealable

What do you say to someone to help them bear the unbearable? In the case of an acquaintance of mine, the loss of her beloved son in his 20’s from a motorcycle accident. All the standard “condolences,” “our heart is with you,” “he’ll always be with you” fall so very short, no matter how sincere or well-meaning. Is there anything at all that might be of use? And even if not, is it worth sharing anyway? For better or worse, here's what I came up with:

 

A poet who lost a beloved friend spoke of having to apprentice himself to a new form of relationship. The cliché of the loved one “being always with you” is true on many levels, but it takes some work on our part to create and sustain a new form of relationship. We know that turning away from the grief and sorrow will simply not work, be it drink, distraction or depression. Whatever we do must go toward the pain, must run toward the lion’s roar of rage and lamentation, must actively cultivate a new way of being with and talking with the loved one in their new form and in our own changed form. Here’s my thought:

 

Write a letter every day to the one you can’t bear to be without. Ideally, handwritten in a journal, maybe leaning against a tree, better yet, sitting in a spot associated with them (my pronoun of choice to avoid all the “him” and “hers” or “loved one”). But also fine to write on a computer screen (though the slower process of handwriting sometimes yields deeper connecting thoughts). Think of the letter as “news from Planet Earth” and how very different it is without their three-dimensional presence. Write precisely what you feel. Your grief, sweet memories that have popped up, the stories of the people you knew in common. Whatever comes up. You are now their eyes and ears and also the witness of your own agony and unendurable sorrow. Report it all.

 

Then, at a ritual time of your choosing (each night after dinner?), light a candle on an altar table with photos of the beloved, have some food or drink that was their favorite that you will now enjoy on their behalf. Then read the letter out loud. Feel free to add singing a song or playing a favorite piece of music (ideally, you on guitar or piano or ukulele, what have you, but recordings are fine). A psychic once told me that those in the Other World need to hear things spoken out loud in order to receive them, so just writing or thinking the thoughts is not enough. Who knows if it’s true, but why take chances? And speaking out loud allows you to pass through again all you’ve written.

 

Can you feel how this moves your grief in the right direction, helping you bear your loss by tangibly feeling the presence? And how beautiful for them to hear as well. I’m sure they’re worried about you and don’t want to guess how you’re holding up. Tell them. 

 

As possible, do this ritually every day for a month. If it feels right to lighten, the schedule, then change to once a week, perhaps later, once a month. Time changes everything  but follow its voice as to how much and how often it feels right to continue. 

 

That’s all I have. I will send this to my friend with no expectations, but naturally, would be curious to hear if it helped if she decided to do something like this. And if someone decided to write to me like this one day, I suspect I would be happy to listen.