Holding Spring

I awoke this morning turning a specific corner on the bike path around Lake Monona.  I was so free, even the sun on the water didn't own me.

It occurred to me later today, as I was doing Tae Kwon Do in my apartment, that I haven't seen my friends by the river in months.  The older gentleman with his dog, the various people that stopped by to say hello and speak half-comprehensible words to me.  Perhaps they think I've left for good, perhaps they think it is only winter.  How long can one hold such a phrase?

Per Square Meter

"Oh no, don't tell me you're also here for a lesson with Maggie at 11?"

"No,"  I said to the woman with a cello in the foyer outside the apartment building, "I'm here for a lesson with Wolfram."

T.H.

Sometimes there are challenges that are easily identifiable and sometimes they are hidden.  I enjoy doing challenging workouts because it makes sense to me that they are challenging.  But there are some things, probably most things that take a little more deciphering.

How much does it change my teaching that I am trying to hold myself to the expectations of the school in which I teach?  Is there a fundamental commonality between our ideal approaches extractable enough to be practicable?  What are we trying to teach?  Is it the same thing?

It must be very hard to live in a system where your right is wrong.  And you are wrong and wrong and wrong again and again.  Your kindnesses are misplaced, undirected.  Maybe eventually you start to erode to the proper place, a misshapen form from your beginnings.

Where do we learn our first language and how well do we learn it?  Can we choose to have another?  What trust does it take for us to replace what we know for something new?  And what if it isn't actually right in the end?

Many statues erode.  Some fail to do so.  They poke through their surroundings, rubbing against the world, abrasive.  Some of them break.  But occasionally there are those, likely the ones that have questioned their own integrity, who are able to erode a small, or maybe even a large, part of the world.

How are we molded?  How are we maintained?  How often do we question the source of our integrity and our right to espouse a way of living?

Sometimes it is hard to answer a simple question.  Sometimes it is easy to see a flaw.  And inspiring to want to mend it that the questioner may grow beyond themselves.

Talking Maps

It seemed so utterly absurd at the time, but I now understand the teacher that moved one of my mischievous classmates to a seat behind the world map in 10th grade.  He continued to talk, so instead of having a quieter more focused class, we instead had a talking map.  Needless to say, it was hilarious for all of us.  Poor teacher.  What does one do?

But I get it now.  I also get that these instances should be times of reflection.  What is the goal of the class?  Is this communicated to everyone there?  Do they understand it?

It is difficult to teach a group class of cello.  It is something that requires individual attention because every person's body needs something specific to do it correctly.  But it also requires that everyone keeps playing, keeps moving forward, train on the tracks.  What is the goal?

I am trying to balance individual attention with the group class needs, but this is a challenge, especially with such diverse abilities and focus needs.  Some are group oriented, some independent, some need to move, others would rather do anything else.  There are only 7 of them, but in a cello class that is 7 individuals.

But we are moving forward.  Slowly but steadily, sometimes a bit forwards sometimes a bit backwards.  My goal, instead of buying a large world map, is to try to communicate the importance and goals of what we are doing a little more clearly.  Maybe we can all get on the same page again.

Visiting

This past weekend we visited L.A. and the surrounding area for a wedding.  I had forgotten that air can be so warm, that sweaters and socks, even shoes, can be superfluous.  There is a different feeling in California, marked by the greying goateed gentlemen in their jeans and jackets, sunglasses, always. In our time there we had to go to Santa Monica for an errand and ended up on the beach and the pier, swinging on the ocean-side swings, eating ice cream under the palm trees.  The wedding was outdoors on a large deck, the dinner on the lawn, and the sky was so clear.  I went for a run one morning up the ridge-like hills surrounding our beautiful hotel villa, and saw the wine veined and complementary shrubbery stretching out over miles of rolling brown hills, the view crammed in the driveways of multi-million dollar homes.  California: dogs, sunglasses, workout clothes, business casual, open air.

Every time I return something is different.  Though something somewhat imperceptible.  Teaching changes, playing changes, the way that I walk changes.  A piece at the bottom has settled or been disturbed, the sacroiliac joint has nudged, something systematic has shifted.

Last night was the ordained night to hang my shodo piece that had been in the exhibit in Japan.  Why then?  Who can say?  This morning I burned some of my Japanese incense and when a quartet-mate walked in the door, saying it smelled like Japan, I found myself reminiscing with her about a discovered common past, streets we both knew well, feelings and generalities forbidden while we were there, but easily breathed and accepted in this new space.

The bride was Chinese.  Her parents came from Inner Mongolia and spoke very little or no English.  What was that like?  A smile, a gift, a "Welcome to China."  Yes, it would be nice to visit you someday, thank you.

I don't know you,  I don't know anything about you but this one thing.

On the Effectiveness of Teaching

I think the sunset must be very beautiful right now.  I can see its colors reflected on the tops of the buildings outside my window.  The pale blue behind is no match for fire of the bricks and the austere, ominous, stark, man-made shadow of the water towers unseen.  Something here is unbending.  But it is hard to determine what, under such conditions.

Transmigration

It's been too long since I've written.  It's not for lack of reflection.  It's for lack of reflection on that reflection.  I think every person reflects.  To reflect.  To take in and give back.  It's must be impossible not to do so in some regard.  But to reflect upon reflection allows for a bouncing of light internally, an amplification of a small source, sometimes obscured by that which reflects it, but powerful when released.

I miss writing.  I miss it in my footsteps, in my hurried sleep where I awaken to reminders of putting stickers on my students' fingerboards and strategize for solutions to problems, problems, problems.  There is an endless list of things that must be put together, must be organized.  We are people trying to be more than what we are.  Growth is endless.

Growth upwards and sideways and in between.  A conniving growth, yet one that is not vacant of love.  But where is it?  We are clinging to the air.