Some people got new things to say

I love when opportunity's new adventures come this way every day, indeed, naturally, I say

I've

Adventures aplenty will present themselves

When

When is your next East Coast adventure?

Occasionally

A French woman gives us some candy, but we mostly eat healthy treats

Where is your next step in the journey?

Viewing

A creative endeavor

"I am 66 years old.  I have seen EVERYONE.  Even Hendrix.  And THAT... WAS... THE BEST... PERFORMANCE I HAVE... EVER SEEN!"

Sunday was rainy and altogether pretty drab, and I was very hungry and tired from lack of nutrients, having not had anything one could call a "meal" in four days, unless saltines and the occasional banana or gelatin count as meals.  I spent a couple hours writing the previous piece, and then figured I'd just do some laundry and watch television.  Easy Sunday evening, get ready for the work week, try to regain some strength and hope I could eat more, even though my stomach was still giving me a fit.

Once I finished the piece, I thought, "Right, but that show last night was SO GOOD... and it may be another couple years before I get to see Hiromi perform again... alright, I'll see the early show... but I have to do laundry."

Thus, I race to do laun nodry, finish at 7:10 pm, get on the train, arrive at the show five minutes before it starts, and I hear someone taking tickets say, "Alright, tell everyone else it's all just standing room in the back near the bar from now on."

I approach the counter and ask with a smile, "Any random solo seats left?"

She smiles and says, "In fact, there's one left, but shhh!  Don't tell anyone!"  Sometimes there are advantages to going it alone.

They bring me to the third row of tables, right in the center, a perfect view.  I squeeze into my seat, and strike up a conversation with the gentleman nearby.  He's up from Florida, and is heading back the next day, but someone he knew played with Stanley Clarke, and he knew Hiromi from an online video, and figured he'd check it out.  Then his brother comes back and almost falls as he sits next to me, grabs my shoulder to steady himself, and immediately extends his hand to say hello.  I tell them, as I always do, that they are in for a real treat, which is an understatement.

And, as always, it's somehow even better than the night before.  That it, of course it was better than the previous night!  I'd finished a bowl of oatmeal a couple hours before.  I actually had nutrients in my system!  The guy next to me was yipping and howling throughout the show.  A few times I heard him say, "Why isn't it louder in here?" referring to the crowd.

When it finished, he told me that his brother was Larry Graham, the famed bass player of Sly & the Family Stone and Graham Central Station.  He's the one to whom I attribute the quote at the beginning.  He was completely blown away.  He said performances like that convince him there's a God.

So of course, I decided to get a ticket for the next set, and since I was one of the only holdovers from the first show, I had my pick of seats, and got to sit front row center.  That's when I slowly met three more fans I've seen at the Blue Note over the years.  One had even gone to Philadelphia and Princeton to see her recently.  The show was sublime, and I even tried a bowl of mashed potatoes.

My favorite part was that the new guy who sat across the table from me was wearing a "Thundercat" shirt.  They're a band with an incredible bass player, but for me, there was, as usual, added symbolic significance.

I love words.  They're my trade, my craft, my delight.  So my first word was pretty important, right?  Well, when I was learning to speak, there was a television show called Thundercats.  Apparently, according to my mother and sister, one day I came home from the babysitter's and started yelling, "Thundercats, hooooooooooo!" and then smacking things with some kind of stick object.  Of course, in their version, I say, "Fun-da-cats, hooooo!"  And I haven't changed since.

Of course, Hiromi won over the new guy and we all bathed in her musical beams once more.  Until the next visit...

When I got home, it had totally been worth the late night.  Then indigestion kicked in and I got five hours of sleep.  I'd weighed calling in the afternoon before, but had decided that I could do it and should because they were understaffed.  Also, I knew my 6 year anniversary was approaching, and I hadn't come that far because I was made of sugar candy.

After being very uncomfortable in the morning, I ate some gelatin for breakfast, and saltines and vitamin water got me through the day.  Thanks to Hiromi, I had more energy than my students.  The topic was "Inspired Minds."

Ironically, the morning teacher who had replaced me in the most advanced class, TOEFL (I'm the level below right now), called in sick this morning, so they just split his class among other teachers.  Then I just checked my journal, and I started working here (well, the Bronx, but same company) exactly six years ago today.  I thought it was tomorrow or Wednesday.

Alright, that's all I got for now.  I'm gonna focus on this boiled chicken and potatoes, my first real meal in five days.  At this point, I don't even care if I digest well.  Apparently, however I feel, I can draw energy from talking with people

You Should Look Back, Sometimes

A few days ago I wrote that taking bucket baths in a cabin without running water helped me remember the journey in India.  Well, the other part of the journey in India that has made the past few days a trip down memory lane are the old tormentors known as illness and indigestion.  I had been hoping simple recollections would have sufficed, yet here we are.

A family member wasn't feeling well Sunday while I was working with cold water, lifting heavy things, and going on my fourth night without running water.  Then a 5 hour drive became 6 and a half with holiday traffic the next day, and I had to do lots of laundry when I got back.  I had really overtaxed myself.  Then I taught the next day.  Of course, the topic was "Our Most Precious Resource," and it was about water, and all the people who don't have access to clean water, and how they have health problems.

During the first break, my stalker shows up for the first time in three months.  She'd stopped sending angry threats telling me that I would die alone without a girlfriend or wife a couple months ago, and then boom, she's in the lobby, smiling.  Admirers are always welcome, as are well wishers, and anyone sending love.  But if a student explicitly tells everyone I love them out of nowhere, sends harassing emails 35 times a day, and threatens me, I would prefer not to see them.  Luckily, the front desk spots her as soon as I do and tells her she can't come in without an appointment.  I just had to be walking through the lobby at the moment, didn't I?  Of course, she timed it for the break, when she knew it would be filled with students and she'd be harder to spot, just like that last time, when she went into my classroom twice in one day, two days before my birthday and my vacation.  She isn't well, obviously, but I've had enough of that for one school year.

Later that day I read some news articles and get really angry, much angrier than I usually get.  I often sigh or groan when reading the news, but this is different.  It stays with me for hours.  I want super powers so I can save those I deem innocent from the evil deeds of people (or forces?) whom I deem their oppressors, but I'm just a guy in a class, riding the train, walking around, intermittently suffering like all the others.  

Given some grace, I put on a smile and joke with everyone, get through the day, go home, make dinner, wolf it down and race to my friend's house to see the debate, which just has to be on the first day back from a holiday.  And because I want to be an informed yet powerless citizen, I feel I have to watch.  And I haven't seen my friend in three weeks.  As much as I love visiting him and his place, he and his roommate's jobs are very depressing, so they are usually somewhat out of it by the time I get there so they can forget about their days, so he isn't always "there" when I'm there.  There's a lot of vacant "uh-huh" and "yeah" responses.

"Oh man, I think I'm starting to get sick.  I hope I don't miss the first happy hour in a month.  I want to see everybody."

"Uh-huh."

"I'm getting a fever."

"Yeah."

"...you know, sometimes you remind me of Snuffleupagus."

"Yeah."

By the end of it I start to feel achy joints.  I have full on fever, chills and sweats by the time I complete the 20 minute uphill walk home and make it to my bed.  I can't afford to take a day off, as I've just used a sick day to help my parents (our school doesn't honor the holiday and instead holds an optional training session).  So even though I feel the same Wednesday morning, I power through the day.  I can barely walk when I get home.  When I try to open the curtain, it falls off the wall and lands on my head, draping me in a vast spectrum of colors.  I laugh really hard.  It reminds me of India when I was taking the bucket bath and tried to find the light switch after, grabbed the curtain by mistake, pulled the whole rod down to see the neighbor's fire next door, which shed light on the situation for about two seconds before they put it out upon seeing me.  At least, all these years later, I'm not cold, wet and naked.

I am feeling proud of myself for getting through the day and making it to the evening, and imagine I will feel even better the next day.  After all, the fever and chills, while still there, have reduced, and the achy joints are gone.  But then the next morning my stomach starts acting up.  I am both incredibly hungry and nauseated by food.  I had been so happy that I'd avoided that symptom, but fate isn't having it.  Apparently this is a pretty serious reminiscence course.

Midway through Thursday, that is, one minute before my afternoon class to be exact, I run to the lavatory for some requisite regurgitation.  I feel a little better after, but the only person who could take over my class at such short notice has just left early for vacation, so I teach another four hours.  My students are very understanding, and everyone keeps giving me caffeinated tea packets, which I would normally appreciate, but are really the last thing I need.  I don't realize at the time that I wouldn't be able to digest food for several more days.  I even try that old trick from traveling where I would say, "At least this means I'm alive!" but the symptoms persist.  Oh well.

The whole time I'm feeling ill I have this thought in the back of my mind: but Hiromi is Saturday!!!  I haven't seen a show by Hiromi Uehara, my absolute favorite piano player/musician/artist, in TWO YEARS.  She used to do 6 nights a year in NYC, but she finally took a well-deserved long break from her rigorous touring schedule.  I'd bought my tickets in February, without expecting to come down with my longest illness since I'd been in India just four days before the show.

I spend Friday just sitting in a chair, watching television shows, nibbling on saltine crackers and sipping on electrolyte drinks, wishing I have real nutrients in my system.  I can't even focus enough to read.

I've been improving slowly by Saturday afternoon, but when it comes time to go to the show in the evening, I haven't had a meal or decent nutrition in 72 hours.  What's more, Hiromi shows tend to be the classiest, most elegant affairs I attend, and feeling the way I've been feeling physically has me dreading some regression in my digestive system on the way to or in the middle of the show.  Although I'm sure the universe has been chuckling at my expense the past few days, thankfully it isn't that cruel.

There are a 7 pm and a 9:30, and since she usually plays different songs in each set, I figure the double-header is the whole point.

Admittedly, that first show is difficult.  I get to sit right near the front, but everyone around me is ordering all this delicious food with lovely aromas, and I can only order water.  Then the lack of nutrients starts to catch up with me, and I have difficulty keeping my head up.  But I still love the music.

When she plays "Place to Be," my eyes well up with tears, and one makes it down my cheek.  It reminds me that I am still searching for my place to be.  Yeah, I know, it's everywhere, there are no boundaries lines, etc., but still, my apt. has always been stressful, and I've always been ambivalent about NYC.

Then she plays "Rhapsody in Various Shades of Blue," a 20 minute medley that enraptured the crowd.  Even so, I can't keep all these self-deprecating feelings from swirling in my mind.  I am so hungry, and telling myself that it was all just to help me write about India, and then I remember all the children and people in India who aren't just so much hungrier than I've ever been during those brief moments I saw them, but were long before I knew them and have been ever since I left them a decade ago.  I feel guilty I haven't really done anything to affect that besides give some money to charity, and that I've been enjoying a job, and while feeling like I've been going so many places in six years, after all that traveling, I realize I've been going nowhere for six years, and that maybe if I hadn't been so cowardly when it came to publishing my work, if I hadn't been such a hypocrite writing about pursuing one's dreams when I've been so hesitant to pursue my own by finally stepping into the public ring of social media comments and twitter mobs and purity tests and trolls and snooty reviewers and self-guilt for making money by writing about learning to find joy in a world surrounded by the misery of others, maybe I could have changed something that, at least through the Butterfly Effect, might have improved some of those lives somehow.  But instead I'd been telling others to have patience and that it was on its way and it would be worth it and it just wasn't the right time yet, and they'd given up on me... and then my hungry gut told me that I was too old, that life had passed me by, and that all my friends are moving farther away in their paths, and that although I'll always be able to talk to people and find connection, it's just so superficial and fleeting, empty, like my stomach, like those children's stomachs.  Klosterman once wrote that he often thought he hated himself, and then realized that he was just tired and hungry, which is pretty much the same feeling.

Around that time Hiromi seamlessly flows from Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" to The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes."  On Tuesday, a few hours before I'd gotten sick, I mentioned that I'd been reading the news and finding that I was getting angrier than I had been in a very long time.  Someone had mentioned they'd been to Roosevelt Island on Saturday, and I'd explained the Roosevelt presidents to the class, and how, when I was a kid, my formative vision of Teddy was in the movie Newsies (my sister was obsessed) where he reads about exploitation of child workers, pounds the desk, and resolves to enact change immediately.  Henry Adams said he was like God in that he was "pure action."  Whereas all my anger could do was simmer, and simmer, and simmer, while I smiled, and smiled, and smiled.  I think it literally made me sick.

No one bites back this hard on their anger

None of my pain and woe can show through

But my dreams, they aren't as empty

As my conscience seems to be

I have hours only lonely

My love is vengeance that's never free

And if I swallow anything evil, stick your finger down my throat

When I shiver please give me a blanket, keep me warm, let me wear your coat

The feelings are expunged, I remember I am just really hungry and I am not an awful human being, and we are back in Gershwin's vibrant, triumphant Manhattan.  I need that.  I had to go there.  You don't want to revel in it, but you can't ignore your own darkness all the time.  The heavenly notes rescue me and uplift my soul, although I'm not sure if I would be able to sit up for the next set.

Thank God I do.  Everything changes when I go to the bar and ask them if they have any juice because I can't eat anything and just need some sugar.  They give me pineapple juice on the house, and the sugar with Vitamin C works wonders.  That and I recognize another fan I'd met two years before at the Blue Note.  He's the one I wrote about who had compared Hiromi to Michael Jordan and Steph Curry when describing her to his basketball playing daughter, saying that she was even better at what she does than they were at what they did.  We chat about music and travel (and even politics) until the start of the next show, and the human connection works wonders when combined with the minuscule nutrition.  My first table had a bunch of shy people and I didn't want to engage anyone in conversation anyway at that point, but now it really helps to talk to another enthusiastic fan.  Later I also recognize another guy I used to see at the Blue Note.  We may not be as large as others, but we're a loyal base.

Even after using all that energy in the first show (I still don't know how she summons that perfection while traveling so much), Hiromi somehow has even more for the next one.  She rounds out the songs from her new record, Spectrum, with a cover of The Beatles' "Blackbird" before her legendary cover of "I've Got Rhythm" at blinding speed, and completes the show with an encore of one of my top three favorites of hers, "Green Tea Farm."  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I visited my parents' farm two weeks ago, and I finished David McCullough's The Pioneers.  At the end of the book, in the back, is a speech he delivered to the National Book Foundation entitled "Why History?" in 1995.  Here's the excerpt I've been rereading the past few days:

What history teaches it teaches mainly be example.  It inspires courage and tolerance.  It encourages a sense of humor.  It is an aid to navigation in perilous times.  We are now living in an era of momentous change, of huge transitions in all aspects of life--here, nationwide, worldwide--and this creates great pressures and tensions.  But history shows that times of change are the times when we are most likely to learn.  This nation was founded on change.  We should embrace the possibilities of these exciting times and hold to a steady course, because we have a sense of navigation, a sense of what we've been through in times past and who we are.

Think how tough our predecessors were.  Think what they had been through.  There's no one in this room who hasn't an ancestor who went through some form of hell.  Churchill in his great speech in the darkest hours of the Second World War, when he crossed the Atlantic, reminded us, "We haven't journeyed this far because we are made of sugar candy."

Ironically, sugar candy was the only thing I had available to get energy those three days I spent confined to a bed in India, after a month of bucket baths and a week of hiking in the Himalaya, right before Christmas 2009.  But I know what he means.  Sometimes it's good to have a reminder.

Emphasis on "SOMETIMES".  Trust me, universe.  You've jogged my memory.  I am so very lucky.  Now I'd really like to eat something.

Please.

I will do my best to convert my food energy into joy that spreads

I am feeling very inspired right now

After spending four nights (three of them alone) in a heatless cabin without insulation or running water, taking apart a dock, carrying it upstairs and trying to fix a leaking water intake with my dad while standing in waders in a lake, I REALLY REALLY REALLY enjoyed my hot shower after riding all day to the city.

I wish I still had the sunlight/moonlight on the water, peak foliage, a canoe, a kayak, and a fireplace with plenty of chopped firewood, red/yellow/green mountains in the distance and the sound of waves beneath the stars... but I will happily take running water for the next half year!

And at least the bucket baths helped me remember what it was like at the start of the journey in India, almost ten years ago...