High above rivers (Philadelphia Day 1)

We started with a bike ride up Fairmont Park and into Laurel Hill Cemetery, which was beautiful, along the river, and above it.  And then Whole Foods for breakfast/lunch, and a stop in the Eastern State Penitentiary.  We went back into the city center and fumbled around with which patriotic site we should see before settling on the Constitution Center, which was an incredible museum examining the Constitution and the court cases that have interacted with it throughout history.  It was incredible to see the current trends set up in the struggles of the founding fathers.  We walked to Elfreth's Alley, dinner on a pier, and then halfway across the Benjamin Franklin Bridge for a look back to the skyline, high above the Delaware River.  And then back to Market Street to the Franklin Fountain, ice cream.  

Our last night in Philadelphia, a lovely urban break from our own urban jungle...

Philadelphia Day 1

We are in the city of brotherly love.  Cities are wonderful.  It's great to be able to get around on public transportation, to see beautiful art in museums and graffiti on the bricks of bridges.  We came on a slow train that even went backwards are some point, and yet we still got here in time to check out the Independence Hall area, the Philadelphia History Museum, walk by City Hall by way of a lunch at the Reading Terminal Market, stop in our AirBnB, hit the Art Museum, Whole Foods (our go to for a great date), and made it to a baseball game.  Phillies got crushed by the Red Sox....

Cities are wonderful for all these things that are possible in one day (and more), but there are differences between them.  I find myself wondering what it is about New York that I might prefer or what I might find more comfortable in Philadephia.  Certainly it is easier to get a seat here.  

But there is something unsettling that I'm still trying to pinpoint and the closest that I have come to it has to do with diversity.  New York is far more diverse, and the differences in the people here fall to a familiar line from my childhood of black and white.  And that is a much more personal line to be involved with. In New York, it is easier to hide the injustice behind the myriad ways it is dispersed.  There is such a large immigrant class that is working hard to make it, we can look past the idea of have and have not.  Maybe we think that there is some evolution to it through generations or through hard work.  But here, the years of wear are evident.  And when someone asks for money, it feels more personal, something unresolved from a past I never lived, but that my blood did.  New York makes it much easier to look away.  I am not connected to the struggles I hear of there.  They are new and old and ever changing stories.  Here they are stale and familiar.  

I'm sure there are other reasons that I still find myself loving loving New York.  But this one struck me today and I hope will stay with me as I return to the Big Apple.  Perhaps I will be able to see all differences more equally.  Or maybe at the very least, I will see them in a new way.

Singed

Summer lessons. There are still some days that are very full of students and yet somehow it seems so much more free.  Perhaps it's the days off in between them.  But also I think there is a change in the attitude.  Summer lessons are bonus lessons.  They aren't a part of the normal package that families sign up for at the beginning of the year.  There is no true obligation on my or their part to undertake them.  They are being done for the sake of progress, discovery, or at the very minimally explained, commitment.  We are working toward a recital at some point in the future, but for now there are open skies between us and the next lesson.

It makes me wonder about the winter attitude.  It seems to be more one of working, goal-oriented, outcome driven.  There is a feeling of having to keep up with something, of fulfilling an obligation to something or someone, even if it is to oneself.

But what if all life were a bonus round?  We could look upon everyday, success or failure, as something that might not have been, something not felt, something not seen, something unshared.  In all the possibilities of the world, there is one in which we might not be here, either from what brought us here not having been, or a continuation not continuing.  We are here by some grace, whatever we might call or experience it to be.  Not by obligation.  What goal is there to fulfill?  

But just as I forget the miraculous opening of leaves in the spring, or their golden falling, or the solace of solitude, the pruning of winter, I will forget this hot-sunned embrace of non-existence as a source of liberation.  How many ways can we be free of ourselves?  And how many times will I find them again and again, always different?  

If I Could Have a Super Power.....

It had been so long since I put my feet to the sky, one of my favorite moments in an outdoor Tae Kwon Do workout.  The sun is there and usually some leaves from the trees, and there are my feet, inverted of all their normal responsibility, the most carefree they ever are.  There is usually also a back-of-mind thought pertaining to the importance of Tae Kwon Do, the current state of my practice, why I'm doing it sort of thing.  It's not something I've even acknowledged before today's workout, but it was there and common place.  That there should be a moment unhindered by my tracking mind, just enjoying the bliss of such a stretch, would be absurd.  What is this for?  For what good do I do this?

And that's it.  It is for that question, for that opportunity to see that such a moment exists.  To see something upside-down and beautiful and to feel my mind blocking it from me in its hidden and subtle ways.  Tae Kwon Do, like many of the practices that I have found to be the most valuable in my life, can open doors to seeing the world in new ways, to seeing the way that I tend to see it, and offering the opportunity to step back from that, perhaps even trying on a new perspective.  There are likely many people, most certainly the children with whom I interact nearly everyday, that could enjoy such a moment without care.  To see myself in the moment gives me a chance to be something or someone else.  And with that, live many more lives than my own.  

Twinkle Variations (100x)

Both yesterday and today I participated in Suzuki group concerts, watching others play and leading some of my own cello students.  I stayed for the violins today, sitting in the balcony at MSM, seeing the most advanced groups go first, and bit by bit adding more students, so that the initial 10 became perhaps 100 by the end, the youngest probably 3 or 4 years old.

As a musician and a teacher, I have a rough first-hand experience of what it takes to learn to play an instrument, even for a young person.  And yet still, the experience of watching 100 children play a song in unison together is quite moving.  The discipline that it takes to get to this moment, within oneself, in relation to a teacher, and to the others playing along, is noticeable.  For a child to put aside their own drives and needs long enough to develop these skills is beautiful, and for adults to find a way to foster it is inspiring.  It somehow marks an urge and an ability to ask ourselves to be more than we are, and to help our children seek that as well.

Balancing the self with others is a difficult thing, and different cultures have different answers.  And even though I may wish for greater individuality sometimes, the contribution that Japan has made to our early music education has a lot to offer and a lot to teach us.  I wonder when it will cease to be amazing, the things of which we are capable.

Sailing

The bus that was on its way to me disappeared from my tracking app and I had to take a taxi to the train station.

After announcing several students that had been especially hard-working on a musical fundraiser and presenting them with gifts, I was also called to the stage and presented with a card for getting married.  (I suppose that took some work, too.)

I didn't know I had to ask the pianist to play with my groups for the recital.  But they sounded great anyway.

And I was gifted an incredible hand-painted set of plates and goblets by the students in one of my group classes.

Lots of different sorts of things happening today.  But all-in-all, a very nice day, the air warm and the trees seeming to soak it in.

I spoke with a friend about another friend, and ruminated on states on being in life.  Are we anchored, are we sailing?  And are either of these inevitable for a given person, or can we learn to occupy new states?  And how strange to see another in a different state, perhaps permanently so, and to try to make sense of it for oneself, especially if one is deeply committed and connected to that person.

Is it possible to count the different states of being in which we find ourselves, the different situations, and exchanges?  They seem to defy being discrete, seem to blend into one another temporally and categorically.  One day I will be waiting for a bus that never comes, and thinking of a person always sailing.

Open Space (but still busy)

Just married.  Just finishing a vacation.  Just beginning a summer after my first year of lots of teaching.  Things are shifting, they feel different.  Stepping off a cliff into an unknown space, looking for some netting of reason.  I'm clinging to lists and lists of lists of intention.  Maybe I'll catch myself in them and understand where this is all going, and if I need to turn in some direction.  Or if I should allow the ride to happen.