The Gift of Giving (A.B.)

It's hard to imagine a greater gift than to have someone share with you what you've given.  Maybe the clearest way to receive this is through words.  But sometimes we have to listen more carefully and creatively to hear that this is so.  I imagine that a teacher can receive this in seeing it in their students, in their students' students.  Or parents seeing it in their child's accomplishments, and even just their traits which they pass along because they love them.

So much is possible.  The world is bigger than we imagine.

Remains of the Day

So much time planning and preparing.  When will I get up, to do what things, and in what order that they will all be done?  When, how, what will I eat for the day?  How will we move our things?  Will we travel this summer, where?  What will I do next year?  How should I introduce 3-octave scales?  And vibrato?  What is best for this child?  How are we shaping their future?

And what remains at the end of the day, as we return home, as we say goodbye?

Tired with no more plans for the evening but to get to bed.  Travel gerrymandering takes 3 swipes just to get home, one for an error, completely unplanned.  And yet, it's ok.  It's ok.

The planning and preparing have led us to this point, and now we have nowhere, nowhen, left to plan.  We are spinning in circles, breathing the time, and so often it seems that our fingertips just miss one another as we spin off into another cycle, landing in another world of disorder waiting for us to shed our blind light.

Back and Forth 6 Swipe Day

Swipe #1: 116th to 66th.  For a rehearsal of Mozart g minor piano quartet and Beethoven A Major Cello Sonata.  We meet at the pianist's condo, on the 27th floor of One Lincoln Plaza.  The walls are either bookshelves or sliding door mirrors which gives the effect of the space continuing on forever, out beyond the elevated view.  We are rehearsing for a house concert there, an event which is half celebration of our pianist's birthday (20 years ago she joined the Lyric Chamber Music Society at the age of 58--her hint to us) and half a way for the director of a music program where I teach to meet people, a development evening of sorts.  Our pianist has just written a novel, about a little girl whose magic power is music.  She started playing the piano in earnest in her 40s.  In short, she's another inspiring model of aging well.

Swipe #2:  66th to 116th even though I hadn't planned to go home for lunch, I was dismissed earlier than expected from the Beethoven rehearsal (I was tired, too) and made use of the time to practice piano and half-heartedly answer emails.

Swipe #3:  116th to 66th  Seeing a pattern?  Lessons at Kaufman Center.  4 of them.  Discovering the importance of focus as a thing to teach, of posture, of awareness, of asking questions.  Said goodbye to the last student I had yet to tell.  Two penultimate heartbreaks, brothers with some magical power.

Swipe #4:  M104 Bus where I texted the parents of the student I had just told, scheduled some lessons, and wrote up all the lessons I had just taught, and sat next to.....I don't know how many people.  They come and go and it's easy not to notice if I'm alone or accommodating another's space.

Swipe #5.  116th to 59th, Columbus Circle.  Tonight was one of two nights of Manhattanhenge, and the only one I could get to.  There were a lot of clouds and people, but I read my book in a small "park" on 56th and 7th.

Swipe #6:  59th to 116th.  Home, but really.

Running the Flowers

The flowers this early morning at the garden at 93rd St. in Riverside Park were so miraculous.  I woke up early, way too early for the recoup in sleep that I had hoped to gain, but there they were, waiting.  Roses, irises, peonies, everything so beautiful and glorious on this cloudy day, with no competition.  This is one of the things I love in New York, one of those things that isn't in a tourist guide book, because its beauty extends beyond a few days, a week, or a month.  Every morning that I manage to visit it, it's different.  It's alive and changing, and so is the world around it.

A sense of wonder.  I ran around it once, and then in reverse, and then again, waiting for that sense to fade with all the many angles that a garden can exude.  Fading with multiple journeys around and around.

I'm grateful to have this beautiful, tangible thing to exhaust, even if only for a morning before it must be renewed.  If only there were some way to run laps around years, around people, around music and art, around thoughts that come and go.

Return to New York

And now suddenly back in rainy New York; as though the heat wave never happened, as though I skipped from one cool spring day to the next, no orange moon above a Midwestern city, no empty streets with lonely traffic lights, no gathering of souls to open one another, no dining al fresco with only bikers going by.

Back to this city, still in a haze of living within questions and not answers, of saying excuse me, of being happy despite sitting in the last row of the plane, in a window seat without a window, in a chair that cannot recline.  Where is my entitlement?  How did it dissipate in the flat wide streets of emptiness?  Shouldn't I be demanding something better?  Is it safe to let down my guard?

But here I am, for another month and change.  Piecing together wrapping up. Closing in on the concept of space, and otherwise.

Believing in Change

Regardless of the number of transitions that I experience--seasons, locations, circadian rhythms---I'm always amazed at how things can change so fully.  Being at this conference, meeting and re-meeting old colleagues, opening up new possibilities in the way we think about teaching, and importantly for me, the way that I think about my future, has been reaffirming.  Once again I realize that there are many ways to live, and that can be true across cultures and lives, but also within one life.  To teach is to believe that change is possible.  I'm not sure I can live deeply enough with that idea, for my students, or for myself.

Things of Beauty Everywhere

Back in the Midwest for a Suzuki conference.  Retaining walls, calm wide streets, green interspersed everywhere.  After a run this morning, I noticed more things, perhaps out of want for things to notice.  The puddles, the insignia on certain buildings, the way the walk signs count down in no notable manner, but just the way that they do.  It was an old familiar feeling, of seeing a boring world full of wonder.  Maybe it's something I inherited and love from my mother, who grew up in a small town in Ohio.  Things of beauty everywhere.

And it's something that I think is lacking in New York, but also what makes New York special and wonderful in itself.  Things are never incredible there.  People can do any number of things, look any number of ways, say, act, however they want, and no one will bat an eye.  There is history and beautiful buildings and parks everywhere.  There are celebrities and talented no names playing on the sidewalks for change.  Any night of the week has dozens of options for excellent entertainment, education, dining.  There is no superlative in New York.  It's all dazzling and radiant, and easy to have glazed eyes in the lights.

The Midwest is admittedly boring, but maybe it pulls something out of the beholder that makes it special in a way.  Well, we'll see....