Tax Deductible (what a life)

I only ran into somebody once and the teacher is going to let me keep coming back.  So I have a 10-class card to the Martha Graham school for the next 3 months.  It means that even if I'm feeling pressed for time, or not wanting to schlep my cello over to Chelsea and back to midtown, I will make the trip to continue to explore the connection of the hips to the shoulder,the arms to the back and the core, to try to put together new combinations of movement through space.  I've been looking for a new beginning, and even though the class is paced to guide young dancers through a curriculum throughout the year, I am hoping to pick up on some of the spirit of it, to learn a little more about this technique, about how the body is connected and can be an expressive being.  At the very least, even if I cannot grasp all these things,  I learn what it is to be a beginner again.  To see and understand something, and yet be unable to do it.  9 more classes to go, and hopefully more....

Friends and Mothers and Amazon Prime

It is really important to keep in touch with friends.  Maybe I need this tattooed on my forehead.  But also, luckily for me, I have friends that can help.  They help by making sure we stay in touch.  It may be one of the tricky things with being a teacher or a mom, that life is consumed already with other people.  I have no scarcity of people in my life!  And wonderful people, too.  People with whom I feel a great deal of love.  But those are not relationships that will necessarily last forever.  It'd be great if they did, but that is not a part of our mutual understanding.  I would not hold them to that.  And maybe it's a part of a mother's sadness that the people with whom she has been so close, served so diligently, she also cannot hold to her forever.  How many mothers I see, whose children fight them and abuse them, and how different it is when dad is there.  Mothers are wonderful beings.

There was an article in my favorite local paper, about how friends can save your life.  It then broke for the last few paragraphs and the author wrote about how much she disliked Amazon Prime.  I really agree with her, friendship is necessary.  And that Amazon Prime is evil.  And that mothers are wonderful beings.  Thank you Marcia, for letting love be more important than staying on topic.

Two Teachers I've Never Met

I cancelled my home lessons today to go to  CelloFest in Fairfield, CT.  It was something I didn't organize, or have any obligation or even any real reason to attend, except that the teacher organizing seemed from different sources to be a good, caring teacher and I was invited and wanted to learn something about her community and this day she was putting together.  We exchanged several emails, asking one another for favors (I helped lead some things, and she let me use her carbon fiber cello).  One of the favors I agreed to do, to accompany a 13-year-old from NYC to CT, ended up getting returned such that the mother actually gave me a ride both ways.  The girl was a bit shy about making the journey with a stranger and since her mother would be driving her anyway, they offered to take me.

The day was really beautiful.  Over 60 cellists playing together.  There were some short rehearsals, improv sessions, luthier demos, a masterclass, and a final concert and improv demo.  It's just wonderful to bring different cellists from the community together, professionals, amateurs, different teachers, etc.

And the ride up and back home proved to be equally wonderful.  Not only did we share some common interests, but this girl, a student at a very special school in New York, studying with a wonderful teacher, played beautifully in the masterclass.  Several sources have pointed me towards the teacher with whom she works, and now there really is a pull to connect with this person.  It's funny how a person's vibrato, rhythm, phrasing and general approach can say something about the teacher with whom they work.  Already from interacting with them in the car ride, there was a sense of the established trust.  But after hearing her play, even more of a pull and desire.

And in the evening, the last of three Martha Graham programs.  I was very tired due to some late-night guests and an early departure for CT, but Andrew hadn't seen Maple Leaf Rag so we stayed to the end.  And I was so glad that we did.  I had seen it last week, and yet this time, perhaps because we were in the front row, the physicality of the dancers was inescapable.  And that was such a big part of the experience, a piece that quotes many of her works, laughs at herself and the paces through which she put her dancers, and the joy she found refuge in from her dear pianist friend when she felt despairing.  It was the last piece this serious woman choreographed, light-hearted after a very dramatic life.

Small Victories

The glories of finally finding a Goodwill "nearby" and getting a pair of dress pants from the Limited for $8.  This is my kind of shopping.  No excess consumption or support of large corporations.  Saving money.  Putting people to work.  How many other happy options like this exist, surely they must be in New York?  In this city there is so much and yet people are hungry.  I look at the salad bars overflowing with toppings that can't possibly all be calculated to be consumed in a single day, and all the produce lying in the fruit stands, and yet there are so many people begging for money.  It's hard to ride the train without a person soliciting money for one thing or another.  How can we match up these inequalities, some of too much, some of too little?  We are in a lopsided world and this is a city in the middle of it, spinning it around, a revolving door of rich and poor, fueling one another but never meeting.

I suppose the same was true in the midwest.  But somehow it is more pronounced here, and the act of shopping at Goodwill seems far more defiant of the economy of this place, far more radical.  And for that reason, far more pleasing and rewarding.  In some very, very small way I've put a dent in an unbeatable system.

Take My Seat

We can act out of fear or we can act out of love.  Sometimes we don't really have a choice, but maybe we have a choice more often than we think.  And sometimes our actions look the same either way, or may even appear to be the opposite of what they actually are.  A chore can be an injustice or it can be an opportunity give.  

Days Off

What is a day worth?  A certain amount of practice, some chores, rest, reading, free thinking, free movement.  In New York, there are many possibilities, from people watching in the park to seeing the Martha Graham company do an amazing and moving performance to watching the patterns of the people in the apartments across the way.  Letting a day go by and filling it as whim requests....

Date Night at Strand

New York is so wonderfully alive on a thawing Saturday evening.  The subways are full of music, people are tipsy, loud, taking up space, and enjoying themselves.  Union Square, filled with people chatting, playing chess, smoking, eating, and a man rolls by doing a handstand on a skate board.  Of course people notice, but they remain unchanged.  And a huge bookstore filled with people, open until 10:30pm for all those who are still unable to find their perfect book, or just enjoy the lingering.