Incredible

A man seated at our table, directly next to the piano:

"My daughter plays basketball, and I'm a musician, and I'm always playing Hiromi's music and they don't get why I like it so much, and I tell her: 'You know how good Michael Jordan and Steph Curry and all those others are at basketball?  Well she's even better at what she does!'"

Tuesday I met an Australian couple in their 60's.  One was an English teacher who taught Japanese students over the internet from her home in Adelaide, and the other hosted a radio program.  She had plenty of tales of hitchhiking and camping back in the 70s.

Wednesday I met a German man and his teenage son.  The man was an architect, and his son is entering his final year of high school.  He'd been playing classical music since he was very young, and had discovered the joys of playing jazz a few years ago.  However, neither of them had actually heard of Hiromi before.  They were visiting New York City for the first time ever, and were thoroughly enjoying themselves.  Sometimes I forget that many of the people I see walking on the street don't live in tiny boxes or depend on the subway to get them from A to B.  Thus, they were very "of course we're having a great time! It's New York!" about their experience up to then.  On top of that, they had planned their final night in the states at the legendary Blue Note Jazz Club.  I promised them they would soon realize how lucky they were to be seeing Hiromi for the climax of their journey in my homeland.  Sure enough, the father asked me to write down the name of just about every song she played so he could find it online afterward.

Tonight I was seated next to a Japanese family of three.  They didn't speak English, so I figured that for one night I wouldn't be getting to know my neighbors, but then a young woman sat down across from me.  It turned out she's from Puebla, Mexico, specifically the city of Cholula, where I once visited the Great Pyramid of Cholula, which has the largest base of any pyramid in the world (I really like pyramids).  Anyway, she's been studying statistics and sociology for 2 years, while also exploring lots of jazz clubs around the city, and I got a lot of new tips for great places to see more performances.  This "visitor" from beyond the border gave me so many new suggestions for musical ways to enjoy my experience in this city I thought I knew somewhat well, whereas all I could do was listen and ask more questions.  That was, until I learned that in a week or so she's going back to Mexico for the first time since she started her grad program two years ago.  As anyone would, she has very mixed emotions about leaving such a magical place where she's seen so many shows and met so many people, but also returning to her friends and family.  We've all been there one way or another.  It just so happens that I began rereading Campbell recently, so the motifs of the hero journey, strangers bringing magical aid and the idea that life is a series of intertwining stories where we all structure and reflect each animated life were all fresh in my mind.  I was able to give her some advice about the transition and how to "bring the treasure back home," so to speak.

Of course, the most magical treasure was the music of Hiromi's piano and Edmar's harp, especially on "Place to Be"!

After all these years of searching, where's mine?

Wherever I am

Especially in New York

I have seen many Hiromi shows, but she still plays songs I've never heard live before, and she plays the ones I have heard a new way each time, and I meet new people, older travelers, 60 somethings, who remember hitchhiking in America and will soon go riding in the great western mountains again, and see new jazz shows in other musical cities, yes

I have once again returned from a vacation.  This one was a long time coming.  51 weeks.  Since I had waited so long, instead of hiking and going on the road, I relaxed with a lake.  On top of that, I am now 32, which is nice.  I think I feel much better than I have after previous vacations, which have usually involved some sort of sinking feeling when I return to the city.  After a week straight at my favorite lake and plenty of time with family, I feel refreshed.

Then again, when I returned to New York, the fire truck wailed and raced by as soon as I parked, the temperature was about 15 degrees higher than when I left the farm this afternoon, and my roommates had predictably filled the sink with several days of dishes... yeah, New York City.  I've equaled my previous living experience here... 33 months.  Last time I made a big deal about an adventure living in New York.  This time around I just moved here because it made sense at the time, and I'm still here, although better off than I was when I got here.  I'm not sure how long I'll stay.  Maybe more years, maybe a few months.

In any case, Hiromi is playing six nights in a row starting 7/26, so I am very happy to be back in the city!

The 1st day of my 33rd year alive, I swam in love and kindness everywhere with canoeing and family... alright, I have to go paddle among liquid reflections of a reflection while I still can...

go outside and look at the sky!

Yes, today was one of those good days where you somehow catch all the trains on time, the weather is perfect, and you get to swim in the ocean with your sister and your cousin (for the first time in a decade) and see your very large team of people who share names with love

6 days of travel, music, dancing, stars, lakes and ponds, a canoe, swimming, forests, fields, fireflies, friends, crazy freaky hippies, art, nature, sunshine, blue skies, fluffy clouds, tornado watches, torrential downpours, stressing over traffic and timetables, delighting over repeatedly making it on time just in time, getting home to New York after visiting many other places I consider home, and somehow, after all that fun, realizing that I could really use a day off.  Ah well, I'll take the fireworks outside my window as I write as a good sign that there will be plenty of time for that

Very thankful for all the people who helped me have such an amazing start to summer.  And very special thanks to the people who stood in line with me while we got passports, the cars that moved on the bridge so that I could see the show, Edmar Castaneda, Hiromi's Trio Project, all the polite Canadian people who truly felt and appreciated the music and gave standing ovation after standing ovation, the friendly border guard who told me I must be very patient after asking me my profession and smiled and laughed a lot and welcomed me back to the United States after my first foreign journey in three years, Lake Champlain, stars, the moon rise, Burlington lights, the motorists that didn't hit me while I was driving in the rain to the show, the rain for going away before the show, Saratoga Performing Arts Center, and Phish, Phish, and then Phish, and all the interesting people who walk around Phish shows, friends who go to Phish shows, and all of their friends, and the enthusiasm, good vibrations, and joyful celebrations as we all tuned into awe from our various stations of appreciation