One Small Step

Running from one thing to another.  Dress rehearsal for our recital tomorrow at the Harlem school to midtown to observe pre-Twinkle Suzuki class.  From controlling my cat herd to watching five calm 5-year-olds with their parents touch the bow to the string for the first time in class.  The look on one girl's was a one of the happiest things I have ever seen.  The magic of doing something impossible.  Does that ever happen again as an adult?  It seems like we are supposed to have a pretty good idea of the possible and the impossible by now.  Apparently she thought the same.  That such possibility exists in this world.  Magic is real.  We can do something we have never been able to do before.

Herd of Cats

There is nothing like a recital to make people want to run away.  It's amazing how impossible a cat becomes to hold when they know it's bath time.  Maybe this is what needs to be taught at this point.  Claims of not being able to be there, of switching pieces last minute, of not realizing what is expected.  Some perhaps just got distracted in all the other academic demands that are being asked of them during this testing time.  I sympathize at the same time that I realize I have to be as demanding. But with love.  Tomorrow to go through their pieces again and give feedback, hopefully getting them closer to trusting that they can do it.

Practicing and Money

Rainy days in New York.  I can't get enough of them.  Especially when they are on a nothing-to-do Sunday.

Yesterday two significant things happened besides going to Roosevelt Island.  I recorded my expenses and income from the past two months and I started serious practice for the upcoming recital that Andrew and I will be doing in two weeks in Cambridge.  In a need to augment the program, we've suddenly added another piece from our repertoire, the Brahms F Major sonata, and suddenly this performance has become a true performance, not such a tack-on to the graduation trip that it originally was.

The connection between these two and the place where I currently am in teaching and such has suggested that it may be time to do more to be a cellist again.  Firstly to make money, but secondly, to acknowledge that this is something that I do, an identity that I have cultivated over my life time.  These past few months have been the first period in my life where I have had the choice of taking a break from being a cellist and oddly enough it wasn't until yesterday, as I was enjoying a earnest practice session, that I realized this about my life so far.

Japan broke apart a lot of the momentum of my life, which was appreciated.  We get going on a path, a way of thinking and doing, and keep going and going without having a chance to step back and see what we are doing.  Japan interrupted a lot that.  But not cello.  There has been little to do this, even these past few months haven't really done it but they have suggested it.

I could be looking at completely different careers right now, but nothing else has seemed appealing and I haven't really thought about it switching or going back to school for another career.  Teaching seems magical to me, something I want to be able to do really well.  And playing is a lot of fun when it is on my own terms.  As I go through this time in New York, I hope to get closer and closer to this balance.

$2.75 On the Town

You don't have to spend money on fancy cocktails to hit the town in New York.  This evening's date was a bus ride to Astoria, Queens and then a walk to Roosevelt Island, one of the eeriest places I've encountered in New York.  We were surprised to see the uniform residence buildings, the streets sparsely dotted with people, the rats along the river walkway.  Who lives here, inconveniently connected to the bustle on the other side of the half rivers on either side, luxurious in solitude and quiet?

At the end of the road on the island was a subway stop.  We entered, still on the transfer fare from our bus ride, and descended and descended to the platform for the underwater jot to Manhattan.  People and more people to get home, from our misty 2.75 excursion.

Marta

In my Dalcroze class there has been a brave attendee, a film artist interested in gesture and therefore curious about the class from a perspective quite different from all the musicians who are enrolled.  Over the past few months we've become class friends.  Despite her complete lack of musical experience, she has been a fun musical friend and I've enjoyed talking to her in the elevator and during the breaks.

But today was her last class and oddly enough, that means the end for us.  There's really no reason to ever see her again.  But somehow in New York this just seems so natural.  People come and go and we essentially said this to one another tonight.  It was good to meet you, best wishes.  Perhaps I'll find her at an art show one day.  Or just happen onto the same subway car.  That would be pretty surprising and also pretty cool.

Return to New York

More and more I'm becoming immersed in New York again.  Aggressively crossing cross walks, responding to last minute requests, walking heavily, and yet not as much as before the break.  In the past two weeks I remembered the importance of family, something that seems too round to fit into the New York box of life.  This is the place of careers, of being all you can be and all that the world around you wants you to be.  It's a fun game to play, but seeing that it is a game lightens my step a little.  At least in these first few days back.  I'm sure it will try to seep in, again.

I'm also remembering how rewarding it is to teach, even as it is also challenging.  I had the opportunity to sub for a Suzuki Pre-Twinkle class which is normally taught by a Suzuki master teacher and in the anticipation and release of this opportunity, grew as a teacher.  And I am having a similar experience at the school.  The accordion opens and closes and breathes more and more easily.  I realized in a moment on the subway train today that I think I can become a great teacher, but also realized how far I have until I get there.  So many hours are needed of looking and listening to a student, and wondering how to communicate a thought or a concept and then connecting the two: potential to actual, being that link.

This is my life in New York right now.  Teaching and walking the streets of large buildings in crowds of people that have important things to do, that care greatly or are forced to care greatly about their world.  And it's wonderful to be back, at least for the time being.

Bidden or Unbidden

It is something of a tradition that we find a cabin in California to spend New Year's with friends.  Only an hour away is Julien, California, a small town in the rolling mountains of ranches and agriculture in the southern part of the state.  This is Steinbeck's land; the brown dry hills cast purple shadows in the setting sun, the wide expanses are home to ranging cattle and horses, orange and grapefruit farms, winding roads with produce stands, and here in Julien, apple pies and cider.  

This last week we have been in San Diego, with another group of family members and dogs.  And yesterday we celebrated New Year's Eve with a short morning Tae Kwon Do before a lunch with extended family and the drive out to the cabin.  In a closing moment of silence, I reflected on the space, the identity, the time that has been covered in this year.  Another language, another currency, another way of interacting with the people I love, a different balance of finding satisfaction in life.  

And now 2016 has begun and it is a time to reflect on what may be coming in the future.  What will this year bring?  It is still yesterday's tomorrow, just like every other day.  The future is a continuation of many things in the past.  It seems that I will be filling in an outline that I have been constructing for many years this year.  There has been so much shifting around for so long; building happens in many different ways.   

The cabin is beautiful.  We watched the sky from the deck to bring in the new year, and I saw a shooting star.  I awoke early in the morning to see a rim of pink light creeping up behind the bare mountains, putting the night sky still filled with stars gently to bed. 

We have celebrated a day like every other day, hidden as another year, royal with friends and the beauty of our natural world.  These things are always here, rising and falling, soft and warm, glowing around us.