Breaking

I wonder what the current score is.  How many interactions have I won?  How many have I lost?  Who has a strategic edge in any given circumstance?  It shouldn't be like this, but with so many moving particles, just hardly bumping one another, a deeper relationship is hard to foster.  We fall into hierarchies.  Is this a threat, can I allow myself to put down my defenses?  On or off, with shades of curiosity and introspection on long commutes, but rarely significant interaction.  Why should I take offense, why should another be offended?  We rarely have a chance to ask this of ourselves or others, being so caught up in the act of it.  The inertia of a city is hard to to lean into, but at the same time, why not?  We are all quite anonymous here.

Dark Cold Rainy New York City Day

The world is a sacred place on dark rainy winter days.  There is nothing better to help remind how lucky we are to have warm homes and warm arms.

There are so many different people in New York, trying to deal with complicated situations, and it can lead to misunderstandings and defensiveness, something I didn't have to deal with terribly much growing up.  It can be hard to take it, like walking in cold rain, but at the end of the day I have such a warm place to which to return, both around me and within me.  Perhaps I lean on it too much.  Perhaps I should put up fists equally.  But I think it remains true in my life that any suffering I have ever endured has been nothing compared to those that have caused it.  Why should I deflect that pain back?  Storms may continue past their departure, but in the end, the sky is clear behind the clouds.

Uprooted Love

My family has lived in the Ohio River Valley region for generations.  We arrive early for appointments (even if they are at 7am), answer emails and phone calls, listen carefully when others are speaking, and despite our assured demeanor, are afraid to offend others.

It's a novelty to live in New York, where the people are born from uprooted parents, or are themselves that way, transplanted and mobile, fighting and defending in a relatively vulnerable state.  No matter that they arrive late to a meeting, we are lucky to have them there at all.  They may not be able to hear all my words when I say them, but perhaps something sticks for them to replay in the future, and they will acknowledge it.  Survival depends on giving a forthright reading of one's state, even if it means infringing upon another's comfort.

Love can look and feel in many different ways.  The staid midwestern constancy that was ingrained in me for years is only one way.  Parents can love as deeply in a roiled sea of chaos, forcing through practice sessions and commitments, pushing and twisting a character into being as they cling to the water that brought them where they are.  Their child will learn something of that anxiety, most likely.  But they will not be immune from the love that caused their parent to work so hard and stubbornly, despite the loose soil under their feet.

It's a gift to come closer to so many families.  I see their faces change in my eyes and my mind over time, realizing more about their children, about them, and in the process, realizing more about the assumptions I grew up with.

If I could have a super power, it would be to walk in the skin of another person.  I'm sure there are more satisfying ways to live, but I'm happy to have one in which I can see a good number of them.

The Beauty of Boring

This was a very blissfully boring day.  Practice, and organizing, and a walk down Broadway in the fall.  The glow of the yellow ginko on Riverside Dr in the evening street lamps is one of my favorite things to see this time of year.  I remember the ginko trees in Japan along the street I use to bike to work.  I could stand on the pedals to make myself taller as I glided under them, and pretend I was soaring through golden clouds in blue skies.

Strength in the Fall

I remember a reflection from years ago, what makes you strong?  This time of year the sun starts to leave us more and more everyday.  And despite the excitement of glowing leaves in the dark and crisp air and blue skies, the shortened days can have a weakening effect.  Are we strongest during invincible summer, or in the winter when we carry on with doubt and heaviness?  Sometimes we are blinded by the weakness we think we carry.  And also the strength.  And sometimes lifting a little more seems to lighten the load.

Beautiful Evenings

The weather is an easy casual conversation to have.  It's the perfect sort of thing for stepping in from the day and checking in with our doorman to say hello.  However, one of them has also told me that he is having trouble with his eyes, that cataracts surgery did not correct it, and tonight I found him huddled over lots of paper, looking through various doctors' recommendations.  Walking home on nights when I know Phil is working, I see the street a little differently.  The day and evening may be beautiful, but I reach for something that touches another sense, the feeling of the air, the temperature, the sound of the wind, some other way to connect and share with him in the passing moment that we have.

Post-Halloween

Some days are great teaching days and some days are today.  It's the day after Halloween and almost all of my students seemed angry, or frustrated, or grumpy, or non-responsive.  My energy, non-sugar-dependent, wasn't much help.  I couldn't seem to see the cloud to clear it.  It's days like today that stress to me the importance of knowing oneself as a teacher.  Over and over I failed to say the right thing, to find the right words, to open that creative door that would change the perspective to something new and productive.

And it's those words that point to the source of frustration:  "...the right words...," "....productive."  I am beholden to wishing to be a good teacher and it is terribly hard to drop that in the service of doing so.  It's a catch I've yet to grasp.  Perhaps I should try releasing.  Sugar and its aftermath may just have to be stronger than me, and that's ok.  We [children, myself, our interactions] are ever changing should we give ourselves the freedom to be.