I was waiting for the next show and reading this web log to see what I'd written exactly a year before, on June 9th.  It turns out I'd written about a great class with students, at the end of which they wrote about why the world is a good place.  I'd copied some of their responses at the end of it, because they were truly special.  As I read them, I thought of how much I missed that group.  They were a fun one.

Later, before I was seated, one last couple got up from their seats from the first show and made their way past me to the exit.  The woman looked a little familiar, and much more so when she recognized me and made that "whoa" face people make when they see someone unexpectedly.  She had been a student in the very class I'd just been nostalgic for.  She'd written:

"We can talk and express our opinion to each other and we can understand each other.  We create "the answer" for difficult problems together".

After all the hello's and "Oh my God!"'s I told her what I just told you, and showed her the writing on my phone.  She was blown away, and then I took a picture with her and her date.

Then I got the best seat I've ever gotten

I think I have the finest place to see

I'm looking at this piano, which is being played by the greatest musician in the world (ya know, Hiromi Uehara), and I'm realizing just how lucky I am because I'm right next to this piano, touching the stage, and then I notice something kind of funny.  I'm so close to the piano that the spotlight is shining on the top of my head and my silhouette is being reflected in the side of the divine instrument.  The thing is, the light is really illuminating the top of my hair (which is tied back) so that I can see individual strands sticking out from the rest.  If I were feeling especially poetic, I could say it had something to do with non-conformity, but instead I'm thinking it looks strange to have my hair mostly pulled back with noticeable renegade strands vying for the spotlight.  When I look in a mirror, I rarely notice that unless it's especially wild, but with the bright light, it seems obvious.  Luckily, I'm immediately comforted by the fact that A.) nobody in their right mind is looking at the back of my head instead of the pianist and the harpist on stage, and B.) even if I were standing right next to the pianist and you could only see our hair, I don't think anyone would consider mine especially disheveled, relatively speaking.

More importantly, on the way to the show I was thinking about how last night I didn't meet anyone at my table, and maybe that had something to do with going to the early shows on work nights for the first time ever.  Until this year, I'd always had to get permission to get out of work early, or even ask for a vacation from my night shifts for a night or two.  I would always meet interesting people from around the world at my table.  I do that at work, but with the responsibility of needing to teach them.  On top of that, there's a much higher turnout of jazz fans at this club than there is in my classrooms.

Thus, I was very pleased to walk in later than I'd hoped to and find that not only was there an available seat immediately next to the piano, but that I was seated with five interesting people from various walks of life.  When they asked me what I do, I said I write by night, and when they asked what I write about, I said something about memoirs involving travel and noticing the poetry that is the world.  One of the guys was a poet, and he asked me if there was anything I'd taken away from other cultures that I wanted to adopt.  I said I didn't copy any systems, because what works for them systemically wouldn't work for me, but that there were elements of thinking in eastern religions which I found resonated with my own thoughts.  It turned out that three of them knew each other because of a meditation group.  I also mentioned that I generally felt less uptight about things after spending so many nights teaching people from Central and South America.  Of course, there was a couple that lived in South America and had retired after working in education for many years.  When I told the teacher that seeing Hiromi was like being able to say you saw Jimi Hendrix, he smiled and said, "I did see Hendrix!  I wasn't this close though!"

Before I continue, I should mention that a few months ago, for the holidays, I was given a book called Earth Prayers: 365 Prayers, Poems, and Invocations from Around the World edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon.  I've been reading it a lot more in the past couple months as I've been visiting nature more.  A few weeks ago I was hiking my first mountain in the Cambridge Valley (where I grew up...) and read some of these poems at the top, breathing the fresh air.  I also read some in a canoe recently, floating on the water, and on a hill, while sitting by a fire, admiring the Earth beneath my feet.  One of the poems that really caught my attention was by John Seed and Joanna Macy.  It was about the four elements: Water, Earth, Air and Fire.

It begins:

"What are you?  What am I?  Intersecting cycles of water, earth, air and fire, that's what I am, that's what you are."

I encourage you to find this book and read the rest!

Anyway, you can imagine my pleasure when she played a new suite entitled "The Elements: Air, Earth, Water & Fire."

There weren't any words, but the message was clear, dancing in my ears

I am human adventure of true energy

Teacher's Day

A few days ago I had plenty of fun and stimulating conversations with my favorite teachers, my family, including my favorite visitors from across the Atlantic.  Thank you all for making me a better human being, and reminding me I still have much to learn, and being an audience for the knowledge and wisdom I have to share.  Most of all, thank you for being there, and the way you care

Some time last week I had to move my car, and it was the middle of an enormous rain storm.  I had to walk about 20 minutes, because spots are more reliable, and it's nicer over there anyway.  I had a winter coat on, but not a raincoat, and an umbrella wouldn't have made much of a difference anyway because this particular rain was of the windy horizontal variety.

The wind was especially enthusiastic as I crossed this bridge that takes about 10 minutes to get over.  Eventually my left side was getting so plastered with water that I figured I might as well just start sprinting.  By the time I got across the bridge, the wind had chilled out and I found slight refuge near some kind trees.  My car wasn't that far away at this point, and I figured I couldn't get much wetter, so I took a moment to fully take in, assess and appreciate the situation.  As I strained my coat pocket, freeing enough water to fill a mid-sized glass, I couldn't hold back this smile that was spreading from ear to ear.  And then I just started laughing.  Just bawling, really.  It was beautiful.  I really think it was just an "in the moment" type deal, but I couldn't help remembering an episode from five years earlier...

Way back in June 2012 I was in northeast Minnesota, near Lake Superior.  I think it may have even been Superior State Park or something like that.  I'd just returned from two nights in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, and it had begun to rain while I was still on the water.  I'd gotten to my car before it started to pour, but it was just getting warmed up.  By the time I got to the state park, it was raining domesticated animals, as the old saying goes.  I recall taking a shower, putting on the exact same large green winter coat I would wear while crossing the bridge just last week, and then running to my car.  In the intervening ten seconds the rain was powerful enough to soak through my coat and reach my little "mildly intelligent phone" (texting, calls, no internet or touch screen) I'd just purchased upon returning from Japan.  I didn't have any emotional attachment to that gadget, but I was depending on that phone as my connection to the outside world should I become stranded somewhere in America over the next 3 months.  I really was at the beginning of my journey then, and money was tight if I wanted to go everywhere I intended to go at an age that could still handle such endeavors.  When I got inside my car and saw that my phone's screen was disappearing due to adventurous water explorations, I believe I released the loudest and angriest fuselage of swear words I have ever been privileged to shout.  I guess that's one upside of being stuck in what I would learn the next day was the strongest lightning storm in local memory: nobody can hear you yelling as loud as possible.  I know it wasn't just about the phone.  That was the straw that made the camel scream, "What the ******* ****?!?!?"  I was also angry about how rude and wasteful my fellow Americans appeared to me after a year in Japan, and how crowded the highways had been east of the Mississippi, something I hadn't quite imagined while surveying U.S. maps the previous year on the other side of the world, mostly while nestled in a small room in Tokyo.  I just let it all out, all the stress, all the anger, all the disappointment.  Then I called my mom to tell her not to freak out if she tried to contact me and I didn't answer, because my phone was water logged and didn't have much time.  She quickly informed me that I should put it in a bag of dry rice, and then wished me well.  Luckily, I'd been cooking on a portable stove along the way, and I did have a box of rice, so I transferred it to a plastic bag, threw my phone in there, slept in the driver's seat while taking in the magnificent light display, and my phone was working the next day...

As I stood under a tree last Tuesday, taking a breather from the rain storm, I remembered this episode.  I thought of how far I'd come and how much had happened since the beginning of my "America journey," and I laughed and smiled even harder. The fact that my newer, more expensive smart phone was residing in the same pocket that had soaked its predecessor yet emerged unscathed because it had a plastic protective cover on it helped boost my spirits.  I think it was something more than that though.

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A year or so ago, when I was teaching on the Upper West Side, we were having a discussion that must have been centered around solitude, because I mentioned how much I enjoy balancing my daily social interaction with plenty of alone time to enjoy the sheer beauty of existence.  For example, back in 2012, the night before I was swearing in a lightning storm, I'd just discovered how to balance myself stretched out in a canoe, floating under the pristine Minnesota skies with the clearest view of the Milky Way I'd ever attained.  Life is a mixed bag, with more than just rice and phones.  Ironically, I don't recall having my phone with me on the lake.  I know I'd forgotten my iPod headphones in the car.

In response to my extolling the virtues of healthy solitude, a student from Ukraine, a former boxer named Pavlo, noted that when someone is smiling by themselves, one is apt to think they are crazy.  I have certainly experienced such reactions from people.  I am often stopping in the middle of the sidewalk (with due consideration for anyone who may be tailgating, especially while on their phone) to gaze up at a tree where there are birds singing, or to see the sunlight hitting the leaves, or to take in a view of some water, whether it's a river or a fountain or a duck pond, or the smiling moon, and often, someone near me looks at what I'm looking at, and often looks very confused.

In fact, I've got this picture in my enormous screen saver file (17,000 curated photos) that came up earlier.  It shows the moon rising behind Berkeley on the other side of San Francisco Bay, which is where I ended up after that American journey which really got going in Minnesota.  I took it from Bernal Hill, just moments before looking at what would become my long-term residence.  As I took picture after picture of the full moon, a jogger just up the hill asked what I taking pictures of, and I pointed out the moon.  He must have had 15 years on me, but he said, "Ya know what... I don't think I've ever seen a moon rise in my life!  Amazing!"  I'll remind you I had just moved to the city and climbed a very large hill to attain the view and once again was in the inspiring place at the perfect moment in history.  He said he jogged there all the time and had never noticed it once.  After that, there was one more human being who knew about the beauty.

Anyway, the reason I'm writing all of this is I just had more beers than usual with two of my closest friends, one of whom just took his final final exam at law school, something I'd always assumed I would but eventually declined to do.  On the rid home, I read this article:

Why Americans Smile So Much

Apparently, our history of immigration and diversity is why we Americans are known for our smiles.  I've heard from many Russian students that the prevailing attitude over there is sheer puzzlement over just why we look so freaking happy all the damn time.  This article explains why my Ukrainian friend thought it would be so strange to smile by one's self.

Supposedly the reason we smile so much is because we've had generations of practice learning a mostly universal expression of happiness and friendliness.  When you're mixed in with all these other nationalities, it's easier to smile than it is to learn 83 languages (America has 83 "source countries," according to the article).

So if you don't have something to smile about, I suggest you picture me running across a bridge in a rainstorm getting soaked, and have a good laugh at my expense.  Don't worry if you're alone and afraid that others might judge you for smiling at something on your own.  I will share the laugh with you, and hopefully, eventually, you will happily settle into a wondrous enthusiastic smile

I've been up in upstate New York in some way the past three Saturday's.  2 of 3 have been in Cambridge visiting parents and/or my sister and her husband.  One of them involved my 1st Catskill peak with a great friend who will soon be immersed in studying for the bar exam.

Splitting time between the city and the country is a privilege, but it isn't easy psychologically.  I love my country blues and city jazz, and maybe it's just the Sunday night sleep struggle, but today I'm having a hard time with all these crowds and all this concrete.  The good news is that some stellar jazz is on its way right after the month of May...

More on the way in another day (or so).