Dalcroze this way, Dalcroze that way

This is an unusual Daclroze conference in that it is one with a more academic focus.  One of the pillars of Dalcroze is to experience first and then explain afterwards, and the balance of words about music and the classroom experience of it is sometimes limping, sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another.  But at this gathering there are engaging explorations from both perspectives.  Thinking about it and feeling it.  It can be hard for one to speak to another, and difficult for those well-practiced in one to feel comfortable and valued when put in the light of the other.   As much as it would be nice to believe that it is possible to examine a topic objectively, people are people, egos are egos, loyalties, hierarchies, boxes and categories and judgments..they all still exist.  But sometimes we can be more pure about the goal and put it above us as people.  Dalcroze in this context seems tricky because it is so many things and has so many purposes that it can be hard to know what is higher and more important to serve than oneself and one's subjective perspective.  

Dalcroze can be educational, or therapeutic, or help performers, or offer something to music theory.  It can offer something to music researchers as well.  And they can also give something to those that practice it, to understanding the theory behind their practice.  There are so many things happening in one place, and tensions and confusions can arise, but in the end, the goal is growth, of oneself and of all the people with which we connect.  

Beyond Language

It is both unsettling and magical to be in a place where I don't speak the primary language.  Communication is turned on its head and gestures, signs, intuition, tones, all become far more salient. We are in Quebec City for the International Conference of Dalcroze Studies, and although there is still a fair amount of English, French is by far the dominant language.  The welcoming ceremony had many wonderful performances and presentations, in both French and English, including a short film and a discussion from its the creators. 

At one point, a teacher from the hosting university was honored and invited to get up to speak.  Preceding him was a grateful former student who told us how he had championed Dalcroze and brought it to the school over 40 years ago.  She spoke very highly of how he had touch so many lives. He said in English that I would not speak in English because it would be better for everyone, and that he would address the audience in French, instead.  And then there was a beautiful silence before he began to speak.  I don't know what he said, and perhaps it would have been disappointing had I understood his words, because his silences were so meaningful to me.  Divorced from the details of the stories and feelings he was sharing, I could read another part of what he was offering and what he had offered to others for years.  In addition to the brilliant improvisation performances, the beautiful visual films and graphics that were a part of them, the interactive singing, and lovely speeches of the ceremony, this will be something I remember.  

We can gain when we let go or lose something that is close or a comfort to us, something that we depend upon.  Sometimes its covers other possibilities of experiencing the world and seeing the people around us clearly.  There are many people with whom I will likely never be able to hold a full conversation, but we can still meaningfully communicate with one another in many other ways.  Another 4 days of enjoying the magic.....

Pacing

I'm wondering and hoping that it is possible to stretch my teaching endurance.  How many hours can one teach in a row?  My schedule seems to get full so quickly and the coming year is looming as a busy one.  I remember reading something written by a psychotherapist that there is such a thing as compassion burnout.  And although I'm not  therapist I can understand.  It takes energy to be with somebody for an hour, and to not only attend to their needs, but to ask oneself what they are and how to bring them to the surface and how best to address them given the person's overall and current disposition.   Regardless of being tired, I usually enjoy the work I do enough that I can keep pulling out more energy if needed, but my body still has certain needs.  At the very least, it's making me more serious about my boundaries and also my expectations for those with whom I'm working.  And maybe I will be forced to find a more peaceful maintenance of myself that I may have longer phrases in general.

Supporting Possibilities

If I had been born with different genes, or had different parents, or been influenced by different role models and teachers, life would probably be different.  It's so easy to compare ourselves with others, and for parents to compare their children with their expectations of what they could be.  Maybe we envision some barometer of success that is outside of what we are realistically given or can give to others.  It seems commendable to try.  Without that, it isn't possible to discover the potential that is there.  But there may be a great deal of value in a flexible goal, in a new direction, somewhere away from where our eyes were initially fixed.

Facebook is wonderful in that it brings others' lives closer to us than they might have been.  I can see friends of mine from the past achieving all sorts of things.  Professorships, jobs in ensembles, families, and travels around the world.  Sometimes I think some of those things might have been me.  Maybe they could have been my life.  But I was given a different set of many things, both inherited and modeled.  I've found myself in this spot in life, a very good one, but different from other trajectories of lives with which I've interacted.

There are many possibilities for children, but of all the things that I think parents and teachers can give them, love will go the furthest.  It will support all the good places that they may find themselves one day.

We are all endowed with a singularly unique perspective.  My recently divorced friends sees weddings and the relationship between a bride and groom in a way I cannot.  And the black woman on the bus, watching the young white boy tourist with his mother avoiding sitting next to her, is able to chuckle at this ignorance in a way I never could.  A mother of one of my students is able to scold her and love her deeply in a way I am not entitled to understand.

Watching the Exchange

Today I had the pleasure and privilege of watching 9 different teaching candidates teach short lessons to a group of students in northern Manhattan.  It's amazing to see how different people become over their lives.  Each one of them contributed and shared in a unique way, likely a result of their genes and the teaching and nurturing they had received over the years.  It also drove home to me that after a certain level of proficiency, it matters less the content, and more the way in which it is delivered.  I watched three teachers hone in on a particular student, each identifying the same issue, and each one speaking with her and interacting with her in a completely different way, all different in their demeanor and the way they framed the task at at hand towards helping her.  Her technical difficulty was even an issue that her primary teacher said he had addressed multiple times.

I also learned something from that girl, as she sat there so calmly, one teacher after another, continuing to try without strain.  As we left after the last candidate she stood in the middle of the room while everyone's attention was elsewhere, and made her most beautiful note of the day ring out.

Listening to Andrew play piano at the end of a tiring day

When life gets a little crammed, music has a wonderful way of opening up the joints, stretching the time, changing the color and timbre of the world.  It can give peace, or energy, or solace.  It brings the mind into focus when it's dancing in too many places at once.  What a wonderful thing it is, and what a wonderful gift to be able to give others.  Teaching or playing, the world is a different place with its presence.

New York Public Library at the Lincoln Center

First time at the New York Public Library's Performance Library at the Lincoln Center.  And I was so nervous.  I didn't know where to go, or that they would have to check my bag in the coat check before I entered the research area, or that I would have to get all my call slips approved and could only get 4 books at a time.  It was worse than a first date (not that I've had many).  But now I've been through it and can play it cool (or a at least a little more so) the next time I come.  A fun finding and a beautiful space.

The Spirit of The Spirit

Another one of my favorite things about New York is The Spirit, a local paper for the Upper West Side.  It's hard to capture what's so special about it, but it probably has something to do with the local interest articles, or the news about no news, or the events near me, or the voices of the people that write the various columns.  

In this last category there is one particular voice that I fell in love with the moment I read her column, "Graying in New York," and I write her name here because I am such a fan and would love to one day meet her, and dare I timidly say, even be her friend: Marcia Epstein.  I'll leave the link to the first-ever article that I read of hers, "The Importance of Friendship," which is about just that, and also the evils of Amazon Prime (I couldn't agree more!).  https://issuu.com/westsidespirit/docs/sp_090116/9

I always enjoy Marcia's balance of unpredictability and germane insight.  The article in this latest edition spoke about the connection of family beyond oneself.  Perhaps like these blog entries, her columns always seem written through, beginning to end, without too much concern about editing.  I always get excited to see that she has written something, and make myself save it until I've read up to it in the paper.  It's a little treat.

Anyway, here's the latest:  http://www.ourtownny.com/columnsop-ed/20170718/family-dynamics/1&template=mobileArticle

Bach

In the quest to figure out another recital program, I've gone through a number of ideas and pieces.  This morning, though, I realized a piece that I deeply love but have never had the audacity to play.  I  guess I have toyed with it here and there, but have never actually committed to the idea of seriously playing it.  And when I realized this, it seemed that must be a part of the answer, or at least a serious goal towards which to work.  I don't have a bucket list.  That seems like a somewhat strange idea to me, but I suppose I could put this on an unwritten one.  It's difficult and beautiful, a bummer of a combination, but a motivating one.  Looking forward to the coming days of practice, and dreading the ones when I can't.

182nd St, Dos Puentes Public School

For today, a picture from yesterday, cooling off....

Playing the Violin

And another thing...

Violin-playing is really fun.  I was dreading being a sub for a violin class today, pulling up memories of having to teach at Success Academy.  Despite many positive teaching experiences and feedback since then, there has always been a part of me that doubted my ability to teach in group settings.  But not only did I learn to play some violin today, I also learned that I can find a balance of love and discipline in the way that I work with kids, even when they are being unruly.  And I got to be an assistant, i.e. "student" in a violin fiddling class.  I realized how boring things can be and how much teachers expect students to just pick up, and how confusing it is when it doesn't make sense, and how teachers can make students feel bad unintentionally.  And kids don't even really know it's going on, just that they feel bad about themselves in some way.  So many valuable lessons in one day.....

On a personal note.....

I love kids.  As I teach, and maybe as I grow a bit older, I love them more and more.  All ages, whether good and bad.  I just think they are really cool.

And at this point in my life, at 33, it's time to make some choices about whether or not I'm going to have my own.  And I think I would like to.  Unfortunately as a woman there is only so much time, and I've enjoyed a lot of it being solo and independent.  But after getting married last month, it seemed like a good idea to perhaps at least start trying, since these things can take awhile.

It's a difficult thing for me, as much as I love children, to be fully ready to give up my body and my life for one.  In the past few weeks, I've started to think that perhaps against all odds, I had become pregnant very easily and quickly.  And admittedly, I'd had mixed feelings about it.  I love eating peaches and apples and sometimes strawberries, and don't normally care about them being organic, but now I'm supposed to because pesticides might effect my child's immune system.  This morning in our Tae Kwon Do workout, I realized I should probably not be doing all the sit-ups and leg-lifts full-kilt, pushing myself to do them as quickly and with as full range of motion as possible, because it would be unsafe.  I should not do all the kicks that require twisting of my torso, or jumping, nor should I engage in free-sparring with contact.  Now would not be the time to explore my personal limits.  Although it's beautiful to have the opportunity to miss that right.  Also, no drinking, or smoking (though those are non-issues), and various other things that I will discover have "pregnancy" warnings on them.  All these little things claim the sovereignty of my body.  And then nursing, and postpartum, rediscovering myself mentally, emotionally, and physically......

So it was a relief to discover this morning that I'm not pregnant.  Yes, I would have been happy to discover that I was if that had been the case, but for now, I get just a little longer to own myself and my body.  I'm still waiting to be ready for the wanting.  I'm just not there yet.  Hopefully even writing this out will help me see the balance of what is given for what can be had, these little luxuries of "freedom" in exchange for a life.  I still have worries and doubts in myself for my altruism.  But I can also trust that things will come in time.

Long-Distance Learning

This morning I had a Skype lesson with a student of mine who returns to her family's home country of Ukraine every summer.  I had not realized that her family had set up cello lessons for her back there, and was very happy with her progress at having been able to have lessons 3 times a week.  From thousands of miles away, she told me the things her teacher had been working on with her, and played some of the songs, all different than ones than I know.

It was a different technical approach, and seemed to be working very well for her.  It's another one of those hidden bonuses of living in New York that I have the pleasure of having a student that goes home to another country, and can have a window into a different way of learning.  Styles of playing are quite different in different regions of the world, just like languages, cultural norms.  I don't speak the cello technique that she was being taught, but definitely understand and appreciate its value and now have a young teacher of my own.  It's fascinating to me to see the passing down of technique within a culture or tradition.  I believe some of my teachers had teachers like the one with whom she is currently studying.  I recognize the vestiges of the approach, even if it is different than the way I currently approach teaching.  It's opening my view of how big the world of possibilities can be, and what's allowed and valid.  And then it becomes a question of breaking it down for younger people.

Later in the day I got an Uber and the driver, when I told him I was a cellist, happily said he played violin when he was growing up in Georgia (the country, as he made clear).  Funny to have had a taste earlier of the Eastern European musical pedagogy, and then to be given a ride by somebody else from that tradition.  He asked where I was from originally, because as he said, "Your accent is a little different and you are much nicer than the people around here."

It is such a resource to have students that can bring gifts from other teachers.  It is one of the great things about the world that we live in, that we can learn from one another.  I admit that in my student in Ukraine, as well as another one I taught this afternoon that had grown from time at a summer music Institute, I wish I could be the teacher of the world.  I feel room to grow as a teacher, room to learn from others, and that can have a conflicted feeling.  But it is overshadowed by the growth that I see in them, and by knowing that I have something to offer and that to judge that is to keep it from them (which is unfair), and that growth often happens when students are exposed to new ideas, new teachers, new environments.  These are all incredibly valuable and important things to keep in mind.  It is not about the teacher, it is about the growth of the student.  And if I can grow a little in the meantime, all the better for myself and them.  

Hot Summer Sleeping

Hot summer nights can be great for over-sleeping.  And everything gets closed in on itself for the rest of the day.  What expectations we might have must sit back behind other priorities.  And those included four very different students to distract from the chaos of squeezing everything in perfectly.  Luckily our lives are bigger than our desired routines and our perceived needs.  And we become bigger when we live past those obsolete realities and serve others.  

All the same, looking forward to another night of summer sleep.....

Practice Habits

What keeps us from practicing as much as we should, or the way that we should?  What keeps us from eating well, and getting enough exercise?  Do we ever fully appreciate the capacities we have, or always wish for others?  What injustices are stopping us from being as fully realized as we might be?

Before watching a documentary on prison injustice, I taught a lesson to an adult.  She among other adults, admitted to not practicing consistently.  I suppose it's different than being convicted for selling crack and spending 15 years in prison, but in some ways, it seems similar.  It's only a difference in magnitude in my relative eyes.  I've had limited exposure to drugs, and over-exposure to bad-practice habits.  What if that exposure were reversed?  They are both easy offenses to commit when the world surrounds us with temptations, even alternate needs.

What tunes our moral compass?  What leads it astray, and how do we find inner fortitude to find our way for the best of ourselves and others?

Blue Sky Day

Philip, our doorman, told me earlier today that his train was delayed last night, so he didn't get home until 2:15 am.  He takes the 1 to 96st, then the 2 or 3 to 14th, then the L to Brooklyn, and then a bus after that.  Long way home after a shift that gets done at midnight.  Wouldn't it be nice if everyone could live where they  work?

I started the day with Tae Kwon Do behind Grant's Tomb.  It's been awhile since an open field of grass, and open hours of time.  A woman asked me about it, said it was a beautiful day, and I agreed.  "Gets me out of the apartment, I don't have a dog, " I said pointing to hers.  Yes, she said, she very much agreed, seemed to be overwhelmed with gratitude for her companion.   I finished my workout, and as I walked home, the bells of Riverside Church were ringing for the end of service.

Later in the day, after sunset, I watched from above, two people on the soccer field in Riverside Park, do some sort of martial art with very sharp hand movements, and a contraction and release of the core.  I watched not only the way that they moved but more intently the way that one taught the other, she shadowing him one move of a form at a time, taking breaks, then starting again, and again.  Just the two of them.  So much love in teaching.

There are many ways to define a community.  Even when going solo, there are others watching, listening, and an exchange is happening.  We can give simply in our presence.  And others are giving to us.  Ringing bells to mark our days, sharing their gratitude, their difficulties, allowing us to enter into those or sheltering them from us, practicing their devotion in an open space for all to see and hear.  Summer in New York, on a blue sky day.

New Ways to Move

There are probably more valuable and awesome reasons to live in New York that I don't know.  People ask if I go to see plays, or concerts, or performances, and the answer is that sometimes I do, but not that often.  It's just expensive, and sometimes it's nice to have downtime.

But it's nice to have that option.  There are famous and fabulous performances happening every week.  But it's also nice to have many other options, all the time.  It's nice to be around such a diversity of people, to take public transit (ok, that's not always nice, but I far prefer it to cars), to have huge, beautiful parks, and lots of interesting people.  And tonight, because I could, I went to a Feldenkrais class for the first time.

I've lived in my body for more than 33 years and it still always amazes me to discover it in new ways.   The simple act of rolling the shoulder, lifting the head, arching the back, or curving it in new configurations opens up the marvel of what is with me all the time.  And to do it slowly opens new possibilities that have been there all along but shoved underneath the pace and necessity of living habitually.  As I do the lessons, often I feel like laughing in amazement.  How different are the sides of my body!  How can they function in remotely the same way?

Another cool thing about New York is something that many people would say is not cool:  no backyards.  The hidden benefit of this was explained to me by a mother and her middle school daughter.  One of the things she loved about having kids in New York City was the playground culture.  Because there are no backyards, kids all go to the playgrounds (and there are TONS of them), and moms are there and everyone plays with whoever else is around.  It's a big mixer and a microcosm of living in the city as an adult and sharing space with others.

It also means that I can sit on a sidewalk across a street or just go for a walk and see tons of kids playing with other kids and parents interacting with them.  After coming home today, it was still really nice outside, so I went to sit in the park for a bit.  There was a father trying to get his 2-year-old to be interested in some older kids doing bike tricks down the banister of the park steps.  I've watched these guys before and it is really cool and totally fun to see them do their tricks, but the kid was not interested at all.  Still, the father tried to entice him, "Come on let's go check it out, take my hand,"  and would take his hand and start leading him that way until the kid would break off and go in another direction.  This happened several times.  I don't know how it ended because I wasn't really trying to infringe on their space, but the opposition struck me.

It seems a life-long pursuit to work in harmony, both with oneself and with others.  New York has a lot of edges, and maybe because of that, it is easy to realize how flexible it asks us to be.  We are constantly pushed up against others and accommodating as we share our space.  But there are so many ways to move.  Another thing to love about this city.

Cleaning Windows on a Cool Rainy Day

This morning I was still trying to clean myself of yesterday.  But it turned out to be a superlative morning, with perfect cool, rainy weather, and no jury duty.  No matter what happened today, it was a bonus round, so no way to lose.

I translated (or rather, used Google Translate to decode) the meaning in a new Italian cello technique book that I bought, and I cleaned the outside of many of our windows.  They flip out in a very convenient way for doing this (no ropes or acrobatics required), but we had never done it before.  The result took practically no time or effort, but resulted in incredible catharsis and visibility.  I've been staring at the windows outside our window, trying to scrutinize the levels of dirt they might have, now that I can see them more clearly.  There's a whole world out there!  We get used to not having a lot of light in our apartment, but there was a pretty decent upgrade available.

And then the rest of the day spent on various chores, nothing special except that it was FREE!  A walk to the library and bookstore and grocery, organizing matters for the coming year, stacking things in their proper places while listening to NPR, classical music, and watching the rain.

Jury Duty (Day 1 of.....1!)

The murals at 60 Centre St., the location of New York's Supreme Court, were intriguing, and once in the juror's waiting room, beautiful.  In the main lobby were the standards of Authority, Justice, Clemency, and Security, depicted by half-clad women; but once in the upstairs holding space, the murals were places in Manhattan:  Riverside Church with a freshly landscaped green knoll in the 1930s, the Woolworth building, the view of the harbor and the Statute of Liberty.  That may have been where the beauty of the day ended, though.

Jury duty was a suspenseful experience to go through, but in the end, I got a taste of the legal system, and don't have to do it again for another 6 years.  And that's fine by me.  I did get called, and had to go into a room with about 30 other people.  We sat there and listened to a story told by one of the lawyers about the two people that were sitting on either side of them, that had broken off a relationship in what seemed an unfortunately ugly manner quite a few years ago that had actually made it to press (I hadn't heard of it, but then I didn't really catch their names, nor did I follow New York local news while I lived in Japan).  I had gone into jury duty not wanting to serve, simply because for me as a self-employed person, it means a huge loss of income (others get paid their normal salary by their employers).  But being in the room with these lawyers and these people opened my eyes in a way that I did not want to see anymore.  People go through some difficult things.  It gets ugly.  I didn't see how I could emotionally handle a trial like this.

Luckily, after questioning all the people in the room to a sometimes intimate degree (are you currently single?  did your father's lawsuits effect you emotionally?  how do you feel about a certain institution?) they determined that basically all of us were jury-able, and so took the first six people (not me!).  I went back to the waiting room and sat for another hour, working on my website before the head clerk announced that there would be no more cases for the rest of the day, or tomorrow, so we were all excused to go.  Such a sigh of relief!

I feel very fortunate to have an extremely simple and idyllic life of music and children (young and old).  Sometimes my wish for my students is for them to stay as young as possible for as long as possible (maybe save toilet-training, etc).  And sometimes I feel that music does this for people, that I am much younger than many of the cross-section of professional New Yorkers that surrounded me in that room, a large percentage of which worked in some sort of financial sector.  Life can be so serious, and sometimes even so dark, but in music, it seems there is always a way to check in with other emotions, to find an inner space of play and beauty, even if it means to interact with those dark emotions in a non-hurtful way.  It gives an outlet for them.  Seeing a small window into the pain that can be thrown back and forth between people (without knowing any of the details) was incredibly exhausting for my child-like brain.  And so luckily tomorrow, I have a jury-free day.

The Power of Children

I got to see my family this morning through the powers of the internet.  It is always exciting to see them, and always exciting to see my young nephew.  But surprising is to find a similar sense of joy when seeing my students after two weeks, to be really thrilled to see their young selves, their witty T-shirts, or shiny belts, or new toe nail polish; and excited to hear about the time they spent away.  Kids are just really wonderful.

Free sparring

Presence is potent.

Passing a Ball

I never tried to excel in team sports.  I can only imagine what it must be to have mastery of any sort of ball and to coordinate it with other team members.  What does it feel like to embody something that moves around and away from you, and to be able to embody the others on the court or the field, to know if they are receptive to your pass or otherwise occupied?

But I like to think that in teaching I can practice something sort of like this-- to feel a student's energy and interact with it with precise intuition, even as it moves to different places, grows and retreats, is effected by a face in the window, or a shift in their parent's weight on the chair.  Perhaps in any field, a person may hope to more fully embody their work and surroundings, to make it like a language that actually gives them meaning through their use of it.  Sometimes I find myself seeking an interplay that is more natural than even some of the most natural things we do.  And just as I hope my students will fall into themselves, I hope to fall into it as well.

Filling the Vessel

We are all vessels serving others.  But you can't serve from an empty vessel.  When the body is just used to serve others, but is not acknowledged for itself, or given time to heal, or reflect, or grow, or regroup, or experience love, it becomes a machine in the middle of many machines, a cog in a meaningless wheel.  It becomes its job, or its relationship, or its perspective, or its value, and not itself.  There is a challenge to seeing oneself removed from all the things that touch us and depend on us.  And sometimes it is comforting to exist in relation to them.  It can feel good to be needed.  But only as long as our vessel has something to give, and only as long as we know how and exercise our ability to refill it.

Larger Phrases

It had been over a month since our last morning Tae Kwon Do meeting as a group.  And it'd been over a month since I saw some of the students I saw this morning.  But some things continue on even without regular meetings.  It's a pleasure to be able to work with a student that continues even if they aren't receiving regular lessons.  And a lot of learning can come with this sort of interaction.  I'm reminded of my high school teacher trying to get all his students "on the path."  And I think that may be an important focus of my teaching ongoing.  I suppose I can become obsolete in that case.  Maybe that's the larger goal....

Hundreds of Windows

The summer has the space and time to work on several projects that I had wanted to do in during the year, but just couldn't organize myself to make happen.  One of them is to do my website.  As I've been working on it, I'm realizing how much organizing the resource that I want it to be for my students is organizing the way that I think about my teaching and my studio.  One of the pages I would like to have is a teaching philosophy.  So that means brainstorming my teaching philosophy and my goals for my students, regardless of age.

Summer also allows for sitting and staring time.  As my dinner cooked, I sat at our dining room table and looked at some of the hundreds of windows that are visible from our own window.  It's a wall of windows.  Most of them were still dark at the dusk hour, but one of them a floor down and a bit to the right was lit and the blinds were open as they usually are with that particular unit.  On the bed, for the first time, I saw a woman playing with a young child, perhaps 12 months old.  She waved a fan over the child and the child reached for it, turned over, crawled around and played with it, stretched its legs and the woman stroked them or played with them.  I got my dinner and they continued to play and interact.

I wondered what that woman's hopes and dreams were for that young body in that moment.  What drove her play, and her touch?  What do we wish for our children or for the children of others?  To see such a young body, so full of potential, stretching and turning as though with limitless possibility, I thought about the ways we train minds and bodies and shape them into societies.  What do we wish for them?  Do we want them to make money, or be sensitive to others, or scholarly, or a good care-giver?   What drives us to engage with them as we do and to shape the world around them as we do?

The blinds to that apartment seem to always be open, maybe they don't even have any.  And while it may seem voyeuristic to look into other people's windows, that's the view from our apartment and the lives that all of us in these buildings live.  If our windows are open we are sharing with others.  I've admittedly even gotten quite lax about what I'm wearing, as do others.  There's the naked man that sometimes appears across the way, and why not?  We're all naked under our clothes.  We all have bodies.  That's the way it is.  We keep them covered or close our windows but sometimes I wonder why.  What a gift it is to see a young child, so undifferentiated, so flexible, so full of everything possible.  Just one of the hundreds of windows outside of mine.

New York Draft Riots of 1863

When I went to Ellis Island last month, I was inspired to buy a simple New York history book, one oriented to probably 5th or 6th graders.  It has activities like making colonial porridge, or doing archeology in your own New York City backyard.....  Haven't tried that yet, but I read it in bits and today I was reminded of the riots that occurred in New York following Abraham Lincoln's draft law which stipulated that people could avoid the draft by paying $300.  The riots were fairly severe, and I recalled reading about them in Dorris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals.  

What struck me about them as I revisited them today, was what this said about the people of the time and what it could teach people of our time.  When authority asks something of us, or tells us something must be a certain way, we can feel very powerless.  There is nothing that can be done in a corrupt world like ours.  We must carry on and just make the best out of our world.  Or maybe we even pretend that our rights are not being violated, or maybe at a certain point, things seem so futile that we don't even notice.

What does it take for a person, or a group of people to believe in their own rights and to voice them?  When these people decided they could and should riot, was it because they had at some point been treated better?  Or were they exposed to ideas that led them to believe they were entitled to something better than a blood tax on the poor?  Something at this time and place made people believe in their voice against such oversight.  And it mattered and they became less powerless for it.

And for us as individuals, we may also have such rights.  If we reflect on our needs as people, and reflect on the obligation of our government, what do we conjure?  What are our rights?  And how are they being violated?  I think of the way our government is representing us in the world, the way people and natural resources are being exploited.

Do we see these things, and do we use our voice, or whatever power we can find, to work against them?  It says something of a period in history when people are awake enough to find their voice in the midst opposition, or worse, unjust status quo.  Are we awake right now?  Are we listening to ourselves, to what can and should be in this world?  Do we believe that it matters?

Frustration

I had several days away from the piano (and cello, too) and have been coming back to them in the past few days.  This morning I had a familiar experience, though not one I've felt recently, of playing something on the piano that I know I can play, but not being able to get my brain and fingers to really do it.  It was frustrating and unproductive.  So I decided it was time to more on to the next piece.

I've worked a lot on Fur Elise, and I've worked through a lot of challenges, but this was a different "brain feeling,"  one that felt like hitting my head against the wall.  It wasn't getting better.  It's been about 2 months, and I have it all but performance ready (or so my nascent inner pianist might believe).  And sometimes, in such a state, quality may come from giving oneself exposure to other things, to learning skills from different angles, to broadening repertoire, in short, to quantity.  It's not something I might have admitted 10 years ago, when I took pleasure in beating myself up over a single shift, but I think there is some value in it.

So it was nice, later in the day, to be able to bring this fresh experience to a conversation with a student that has very acute frustrations with cello practice at times.  It was nice to be able to talk about stepping back, taking a breath, doing something else if needed.

But I think it may have to be a part of growing and becoming stronger.  There will be times when we feel ourselves bigger than we are, and that reminds me of trying to sit still as a 5-year-old in a long orchestra concert.  Sometimes that body just needs to move beyond itself but can't seem to do so, sometimes the mind needs to grow beyond itself, but doesn't know how, even if it can see the goal so clearly.

New York, America! (Fireworks on the East River)

Macy's is a department store and department stores aren't doing so well, thanks to online retail like Amazon.  Somehow, they are still able to sponsor some incredible public events, like tonight's Fourth of July Fireworks on the East River.  There's some irony in Fourth of July being brought to us by capitalism in spite of capitalism.  Anyway.... I'm not a crowds person and it would never have occurred to me to go, but Andrew suggested it and I like spending time with him.

Even the train platform to get to Queens was crowded.  And then we arrived and quickly joined a crowd of people channeling to one viewing spot on the river (we weren't the only ones to think of this place?).  And then we spotted some green and so channeled ourselves out and went to another spot.  We found a small patch between blankets that had been laid 7 and 8 hours before the show and ate our dinner as the sun went down over the Manhattan skyline.  Buildings were sporting their red, white, and blue for the evening, including a very visible Empire State Building.

The time arrived and we kept waiting and waiting a little longer, until the first spark went off and the show started.  Fireworks have grown a lot since I last went to a show and it really was spectacular.  Five barges on the East River shot of the same show at the same time so all the crowds could see.  Around us people held up their smart phones for pictures and spoke Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese.

And the great unfolding of the crowds.  It took us an hour to get to the train station.  The held people from going in to regulate the platform crowding, some of the trains were delayed due to unruly passengers at another stop, and we waited quite awhile on the platform.  When it arrived, it was already crowded, so we got to experience the inertia of desperate people shoving into a train car.  I ended up having plenty of room.

Another hot car on another train and two hours later we are home.  Beautiful fireworks, lovely evening, great company, many languages celebrating our country together, a very New York evening.

Controlling Love

Back to a hot New York City with hot living.  It's still fairly quiet here, and there are no family members to live for, but one another, which is something.  And also students, which is something, too.  I get to play "parent" to people at many ages and stages, today a sixth grader finding himself and pushing away from parents.  This was our second solo lesson (no mom) and I'm finding it interesting to hear the harmless mischief he now confides to me.  I'm not his parent, and don't intend to tattle (unless something seems alarming), but being an adult, it is a lesson on this necessary time and stage in life:  finding ways around one's parents and learning how to claim one's space.  My role right now is tangential and relatively easy compared to his parents.  Perhaps one day I'll be able to think back on the humor of his perspective and laugh at myself from his eyes, trying to control, control, control, someone I love and forgetting that that love is the reason why.

Arriving in New York, Leaving Cincinnati

We are back in New York, welcomed by a descent along a sun-setting horizon filled with fireworks in anticipation of Fourth of July.  I've never seen so many fireworks, first from above as little sparks, and then all around us as we came to their level, probably at their finale.  

It is never easy to say goodbye to my mother so I can only imagine what it must be like for her.  

Baby World

The joy of a children's world, seeing the new Cincinnati waterfront with all the water fountains, slides, large interactive musical toys, climbing walls, life size chess set, and swings looking out over the river.  And then an afternoon walk with a fussy baby to go to the library and children's book store and Goodwill to pick up some used bongos.  The evening is wearing into an event of watching the baby roll around on the floor and observe a common world as a new place.