Journey in Cambridge yields another dose of quality time with amazing people, colossal amounts of sleep, and this Maple Porter growler to be shared with city friends this evening

You got writes

Awe, Lifelong Learning

Dear Soul Miracle, I admit that I really love when most of those I teach happen to be either a little or a lot older than I

Yes, there's a boost in confidence that comes from being able to teach your native language to people with more existential experience, but even more so when you can educate them with knowledge of a vast array of worldly topics which they appear to value.  Of course, their experience helps these "students" to inform my world as well.

That said, the number one reason I love helping older people learn--after so many years of taking in their words of wisdom--is they usually express the most enthusiasm, which is likely the greatest gift of all lives' loving creations

Sometimes it's nice to get to know your colleagues

World Poetry Day is Bach's date of birth in one verse

Spring Grows You

Thankfully, I've got plenty of stories.  I need to get many people interested.  What are people interested in?

I asked students what they wanted to discuss with each other.  I had them write their ideas on pieces of paper.  When complete, papers sporting ink markings of letters joining together as words whose sole purpose is expressing ideas passed from hand to hand until they reached my eyes so I could read them and make sound waves vibrate in their ears so that they imaged such ideas in their minds...

...And the majority wrote a word:  Traveling

Perfect.

We are truly all travelers braving journeys

Just about 10 years have passed since I witnessed my friend Noah playing a guitar, around a campfire in southern India, after seven days traveling with him and another friend we'd met while undertaking individual journeys.

Anyway, I've seen him a few times in the past year, as he moved to New York on a Fulbright Scholarship to study jazz guitar at NYU in 2018.  We went hiking with his girlfriend in September, and I just got to see him playing in front of an audience.  Wow

Spectacular

I'm reading my journal and for some reason I tend to be especially verbose on this date.

In the interests of balance, this one will be very brief.

Spring is around the corner

I was reading something I wrote a long time ago...

I am not sure what will come of those words...

I understand why I composed them.

Such letters, carefully arranged, truly help now.

I guess that's why we make.

Magic keeps winking

View life how you please

Yum

New goals

Well, I am still figuring things out, enjoying the process, a work in progress

Grandpa

 

1st, I ask them to define art.  One guy gives the standard "everything" response, which may be cliche, but is also kinda true.

So I have them write while listening to a variety of musical styles, using stream of consciousness, whatever comes to mind, and also about famous paintings and photographs.  I enjoyed their creative expression on this dreary March day.  During the break I read "Van," which social media had reminded me I'd written on this day six years ago.  When we came back, I put the photo of myself up on the television, that one where I'm sitting under the signpost, looking out at the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, all sepia-toned and subdued, although, in reality, it was a bright and sunny day with blue skies and wispy clouds as far as the eye could see.  That one that was worth thousands and thousands of words.

I got a kick out of their interpretations.  They didn't know it was me, so I laughed really hard when one girl wrote that the boy had two girlfriends, one in London and the other in Tokyo, and was trying to decide which one to go with.  Another said he'd just broken up with his girlfriend and visited all those places around the world with her, and was reflecting on his past.  Another guy said that the signpost was his consciousness and the ocean was his subconscious, and that the way the ocean appeared to be blocking him and limited him was really just his subconscious, that is, his own mind stopping him from doing what he wanted to.  Just like that line from Miller, "There is no boundary line anymore.  It was I who made it."

After I'd heard all the interpretations, I told them the truth, that I was the boy in the photo and that I was in New Zealand, contemplating my future, and that my study abroad department at college had used it as their advertisement for future prospective travelers.  I didn't get into all the details, but I said how the main theme was something along the lines of finding connection with the universe (one poem) amidst the supposed solitude and isolation, and that somehow, art/poetry/music facilitated this positive transformation of perspective.

When the class was dismissed, I was just about to walk outside with all the snowy concrete and pavement when a student asked to show me a painting called "The Tortoise Trainer."  The day before I'd been explaining the story of the tortoise and the hare, and how "slow and steady wins the race."  I recommend.