Sitting on the Stoop

It is late afternoon in Lecce, Italy. I take a chair out the front door and sit on the sidewalk outside our Air B&B.  A neighbor parks a car and nods to me. A woman walks by and we exchange Buona Sera’s. Three cats come down the street and play under the parked cars. A man walks his dog, but the dog doesn’t notice the cats. 

 

I remember my New Jersey childhood and all the summer nights of front-stoop sitting with my cat Zorro on my lap. Greeting the passerbys, noticing the birds and squirrels, sitting doing nothing but soaking in the pleasures of the approaching evening. Minus the posture and conscious attention to breath, this was perhaps my initiation into zazen meditation. Having the cat on the lap helped.

 

I never do this in San Francisco. Partly because it’s usually too cold when dusk falls. Plus I don’t have a cat. But plenty of people walk on our street and indeed, I could be greeting them. Note to self.

 

Let me confess the initial reason for sitting out front today. We got a rental car and on our street, you have to pay for parking until 6:30 pm and we arrived there at 5:30. So to save a Euro, I decided to sit outside until 6:15 and watch out for the meter maid. I saved the Euro and got the extra perk of remembering the power and pleasure of the front stoop. 

 

Speaking of pleasure, it was such a glorious day, waking up in the lovely house with its stone walls and high ceilings and little nooks for lanterns or statues. Sat my first zazen of the trip to the sound of shouts outside and post-meditation, went to the terrace and watched the young men across the street playing a spirited game of soccer. Then a stroll through the town to the rental car place and off we go, me driving a stick shift! It’s been a long time since I have and I loved it! 

 

We decided to find our way to Gallipoli some 40 kilometers away without using either GPS or a map, simply by following signs. And we did it! Even found free parking exactly where we wanted to be, at the tip of the city on the coast. Another beautiful town with the narrow winding alleys and exquisite doorways and plaques celebrating poets who lived there. And then a seaside restaurant with fresh fish, local cheese and a welcome salad. More meandering, that informal walking meditation, stop for a 2 Euro double-scoop gelato with the best coconut ice cream I’ve ever had. 

 

“Home” to the front stoop sit, shopping at the local market and cooking at home, topping off the day with wine and chocolate and Rummy 500 with my wife Karen and her friend Marcia. Three more days together before five more friends from Karen’s bike group meet up with us to begin part two of this trip. 

 

Looking forward to another front stoop sit tomorrow. Maybe one of the cats will come join me. 

 

The Familiar Made New

How extraordinary! The absolute newness of resuming an old familiar life. My first passport stamp (Switzerland) in over two years, mixed languages from the pilot and the passengers, stumbling out from the overnight two flights to the archetypal European train station in Bari, Italy. The cobblestone streets, the churches, the narrow alleys, the hanging laundry, the pedestrian mall in the old Town, the charming restaurant for pizza and oh, the 10% tip! And of course, the gelato! The old-world hotel with the tiny elevator, real keys, a beautiful wood desk, cozy lighting, a bed in a loft that doesn’t have 600 pillows, a bidet, a wood floor. 

 

Remembering how much I love Europe. Its aesthetic, its fusion of past, present and future and the long strand of personal memory stretching all the way back to 1973 and weaving through so many towns, cities, countrysides in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Hungary, Greece, Turkey, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland., England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland. All of which included multiple Orff workshops and people who I still keep in touch with.

 

Walking the night streets of Bari, I feel as if I awoke from a long, strange dream, having been locked down first in San Francisco, then California/Oregon, then the United States over two years. Yes, many (including me) are still wearing masks on the train and showing our vaccination card in the restaurant, but the warmth of the familiar is palpable and oh, so welcome.  And yes, I’m aware that such travel is a luxury and privilege, ecologically-speaking and culturally-speaking, but I refuse to negate the wonder and beauty of it, especially as my time was divided between learning so much of worth and giving back the blessings of humanistic music education. Both of which I hope to continue in my 4 weeks here. 

 

My body in canon with itself, night and day confused in its interior timeclock, keeping up with e-mails and text messages descending low on the list, I am alive on to this day, ready to merge anonymously into the stream of humanity and simply savor the privilege of being a joyful guest on a troubled and wondrous earth. 

The Wedding

As mentioned in the last post, the weekend retreat with poet David Whyte was so rich with thought and insight that there isn’t time to easily condense and summarize. So I’ll rest content with a derivative poem (in his style) I handwrote in my journal, prompted by him walking down the center aisle of a beautiful wooden chapel designed by the remarkable Julia Morgan in Asilomar on the Monterey Coast. He was walking to the podium to begin his recitation and reading of poetry (mostly his) and his commentary on it. That was the spark for this first-draft poem by me:

 

He walks down the center aisle like a groom going to meet his beloved,

the congregation on each side of the aisle hushed 

in anticipation of the mixed joy and gravity of the event. 

He takes her hand and says the first words that open the vows,

Betrothed to the music of the tongue

Given freely to those gathered to witness.

 

This wooden chapel like a wedding tent in the Sahara, those gathered 

as if drinking from the stream in an oasis after

Two lonely years in the desert. 

The words cleansing their bodies and slaking their thirsts.

 

And here we all are, as the lovers at the altar, the one visible, the other unseen, 

Begin to speak out loud their love, a love they can only dimly imagine, wholly innocent

Of all the ways it will change and grow and disappear, both hold up and break their hearts.

 

We who know more dare to reach through the brambled bushes 

grown over our own long-ago vows, half-forgotten or discarded, 

but still possible to remember.

We reach through the thorns,

oblivious of the scratches, to pluck out the hidden golden ring

 and hold it up to the light for all to see. 

To place it on the finger of our beloved, to re-make our vows.

Never mind that they will again be forgotten or refused or changed beyond recognition.

Now they are once-again tangible, real, sincere, wholly ours. 

Here and now, for all to see and witness and blessed by the man who is at once 

the poet-priest, the bride and the groom.

We seal our renewed promises with the wedding kiss and walk joyously out

Down the center aisle to the cheering of the crowds and the showers of rice

To begin our life again.

Writer's Conundrum

I’m still getting to know the writer in my inner community, the one both affirmed by and butt-kicked by the extraordinary eloquence of poet David Whyte, the virtuosic Horowitz of both eloquent language and the human psyche. Many familiar ideas in the weekend poetry retreat I just attended re-expressed to keep penetrating the shield we carry to deflect the Soul’s rigorous demands. Much that I would like to re-express in my own language so they soak in yet deeper. But the writer demands three things:

 

1) Something worth saying. The blank page and writer’s block sometimes team up to stop the flow. But that’s not my problem at the moment.

 

2) Too much to say. Bingo! Wrestling it all down to the mat of coherence and pinning it to the page is another sort of problem altogether from the one above. It needs…

 

3) Time. Here at the airport on my way to Italy will not work. (Not to mention the growing number of key on my computer that refuse to type!).

 

Over n out! 

Graphic Notation

It’s fair to say that a good part of my life has been spent looking for ways to share my thoughts. Not so much that I think them terribly important (though clearly some part of me feels they’re worthy of public consideration), but because writing them down or speaking them out loud helps give them more shape, clarity, design and depth. Alongside all my books and articles and blogposts have been various talks I’ve given, some 20 at least in the Summer Orff Courses that I teach. 

 

Back when I began, I made some graphic charts on butcher paper so I would neither be speaking wholly off the cuff nor reading from a paper. Never very visually artistically inclined, it was a fun challenge and change for me and somewhat intriguing to the audience. 

Naturally, I kept these rolls of butcher paper and recently found them again when cleaning out the cassette tapes in the drawers. I started to recycle some and then took some photos before a final goodbye. Would you like to see some? Of course you would! :-)

Well, here’s a taste of the first. Maybe more to come that are more visually interesting, but these three are from a talk I gave about the shifting culture of the 1920’s, the time when Carl Orff began his work. Enjoy! 

PS Read in order from bottom to top.

 

 

 

Dear Diary

It has not been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon. Sometimes life stretches on undisturbed like an empty road amidst monotonous fields and sometimes, it’s like the old 52^nd Street at night with memorable music flowing out of blocks of jazz clubs amidst the bustling crowds.

Here was my week. 

 

Friday: Meet my daughter, son-in-law and grandkids to watch a rough cut of the film a school parent has been making about my last year at school. Almost three years of non-stop dedicated work and hundreds of hours of footage condensed down to an hour with hopes to bring it to some summer festivals. 

 

Saturday: The long-awaited Retirement Party and when my turn came, 45 minutes to summarize 45 years. Big exhale and lovely dinner at the Park Chalet with the extended family. 

 

Sunday: Frisbee-in-the-park walk with the fam, take them to the airport and finally decide to deal with the four packed drawers of the front room secretary, recycling some 200 obsolete cassette tapes and organizing/saving another 100 just in case I ever can play them again on a machine. Things like my recordings of a trip around the world, talks and concerts I gave, kids when they were young, etc. 

 

Monday: Looked into replacing my 10-year old computer that is starting to break down before the upcoming Europe trip, but too complicated with all the new systems that have to be updated/ installed. So I’ll travel with my heavy i-Mac with its non-functioning disc drive and take the external keyboard because the other keys often don’t work . Meanwhile, set up the last changes on a new phone, having jumped from i-Phone 6 to 13. 

 

Tuesday: Closed out our landline after a couple of years of paying some $600 a year for robots to call saying our car warranty is about to expire. The end of an era, bidding goodbye to our faithful 415-564-1597 number and our answering machine. 

Wednesday: Decided that my Horton faithfulness to a Men’s Group that was often disappointing me had run its course and announced that I would be leaving after 32 years. 

 

Went to CODA movie at a movie theater with my wife and four other people in the theater and had that rare feeling of not wanting to leave my seat at the end, moved by its extraordinary story and beauty. 

 

Today: Pack twice— once for a weekend poetry retreat that starts Friday night and once for the European bike ride/workshop trip that begins with a Sunday night flight. Tie up all the loose ends that such trips insist you do.

 

It has not been a quiet week at Lake Wobegon. But soon I hope to be wandering around old Italian towns and eating pasta outdoors on warm Spring nights, remembering how life can be without the constant lists and feeling like I should be getting something done. Time to breathe a bit deeper, savor a bit wider, attend to a world constantly announcing its marvels if only we would listen. 

 

Letter to My Parents: 1972

I was 21 years old and working at a Quaker Boarding School in the Black Mountains of western North Carolina. It was the work part of the work/study program Antioch College so brilliantly envisioned. I mostly worked at alternative schools and this one, The Arthur Morgan School (still going strong today) was the last of five places where I taught. I stayed there six months, working with some 30 Middle School students and trying out my fledgling music teacher wings. 

 

Those were the days when people still wrote letters and I recently unearthed one I wrote to my parents. I’ve ceased to be surprised that my thoughts about education at the beginning are pretty close to my thoughts at the end, but it’s still always interesting to find tangible proof of it. And so here is that letter:

 

Dear Mom and Dad,

 

It occurred to me that during most of the different work experiences I’ve had the past few years, you haven’t really had a clear idea about what I’m doing. On one hand, I think it’s good that you have enough trust in me to know that I’m doing okay, but I also think it would be helpful for you to understand what kinds of things I’ve been doing and what’s important to me.

 

The kind of schools I’ve been teaching at are nothing like the traditional education of most public and private schools. Besides being much smaller and more personal, they’re the kind of places where learning is fun and people can study and pursue the kind of things that interest them. So much of my time in school was spent memorizing things that were not important to me and that I’ve completely forgotten. Even though everyone supposedly “learned” it in school, how many people remember what a logarithm is or can explain the nitrogen cycle? At schools like this, students pursue their interests while simultaneously being exposed to a great variety of subjects and skills. Most importantly, they learn how to think for themselves and to use their time well. 

These schools are relaxed and informal. Teachers are your friends as well as adults and there is a great deal of love generated in this type of atmosphere. It’s exciting for me to be in places like this, helping and watching kids grow up. 

 

As for this particular job, it has really been excellent. I give two music classes a week in which we sing, play instruments and play musical games. 20 out of 30 students here are in that class and I’m also giving piano lessons to 15 kids. Besides which I’m co-teaching an English class and a Spanish class. I’m also co-directing a version of West Side Story, which is a major project. We will perform it at Thanksgiving when the parents come to visit.

 

As you can see, I’m keeping very busy and really contributing a lot to the school as well as having a good time. In fact, I’m considering coming back here next year after I graduate. The pay is good, the school and facilities excellent and I don’t think I’d have any problem getting the job. But who knows what will happen between now and then. 

 

Hopefully, this has helped you to understand a little better what I’m up to. I love you both very much and as always, appreciate everything you’ve done and are doing for me.

 

                                                                        Your loving son,

                                                                                          Doug

 

PS  What “happened between now and then” was that I joined forces with half the teachers to suggest that the head of school be removed (it later turned out that he had abused some of the boys) and the Board eventually agreed, but was wary of re-hiring such “troublemakers.” So after graduating college, I did not get the job that would have had me living a life in rural North Carolina and instead, went to San Francisco and found my way to the San Francisco School and my life as an urban Californian. Needless to say, no regrets.