September 1, 2008

A Full Cup

A woman I know died suddenly last week.  She was a former student of mine, and she wasn't that much older than me, maybe ten years.  I'm saddened by her death, and thoughtful of her life and my own. 

From what I know of Leslie, she had a good marriage, raised wonderful boys, found a fulfilling career, was very involved in her spiritual community, was ever learning and growing, and had a circle of friends that extended outward until the day she died.  I'm sure her memorial service will be packed.  

She once gave me a cup, a coffee mug, which I have always treasured.  It's a beautiful hand-made cup from Mexico, depicting the faces of women - one of those wonderfully artsy gifts you get from cool friends.  I was looking at the cup again last night, thinking of Leslie, and about all that cup means.  There’s the obvious – a cup holds water or liquid, necessary for life.  It’s a vessel that gives and doesn’t take.  It’s a cup of friendship, the symbol of a bond between two women and a time they shared together.

For me, it also symbolizes transitions – I was working on closing the door to teaching, she was coming back in.  I was adopting our second child, she was sending her youngest to college.  I was going back into music, something I’d longed to do for many years, she was going back into the working world full-time, wanting to give back to the community she had learned from.

As women, we have so many facets of our lives, so many faces that we show to the world, and so many we keep hidden.  I was honored to see a few of her faces, and she, mine. I hadn’t seen her in a few years, but I have always thought of her with great warmth and every time we ran into each other it was a delightful surprise. 

So this great coffee mug, which has always sat in a prominent place in my office, full of Chinese money, political pins, pictures of my children, and ticket stubs of long ago concerts, is a cup of memories.  It’s full to the brim and overflowing with everything good.  When I see it, I’ll think of Leslie, and my life, and I’ll smile.  She was a good woman, and she has added to the richness of my journey.

I can only hope that somewhere out there, someone is looking at something I’ve given to them and thinking of me with warmth, with loving memories, and smiling.

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November 20, 2007

Entertaining Angels Unaware

I have been thinking a lot about two phrases for the past three days.

“Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me.”  (Matthew 25:40)
“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares". (Hebrews 13:2)

Yes, they’re both passages from the new testament, but I’m sure that in any texts of religious philosophy about the treatment of others I were to look at, the core message of regarding others with kindness, love, respect and dignity would shine through. 

I experienced this message first-hand last weekend down in Georgia, sharing two days of grief, anger, renewal and hope with almost 25,000 other people in front of the gates of Fort Benning.  For the 18th year, we went to call for the closing of the School of the Americas (now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation – WHINSEC).  Without taking up pages to explain why we were there, the short answer is that these 25,000, and many, many more around the world, believe that the people of Latin America have the right to be treated with kindness, love, respect and dignity.  They believe that the US government shouldn’t be training the military, military police and civilian police of Latin American countries to use torture, rape, kidnapping, murder and massacre as a way to control their people.  That the foreign policy interests of the US should not be upheld by armed soldiers destroying villages, killing men, women and children, and spreading a reign of terror among those peoples around the world who are not in the upper echelon of big business or government, all in the name of national security.  (For more information about last weekend and the work to close the SOA, please go to the School of the Americas Watch website)

My experience, however, wasn’t global.  While I was there to support a change that could affect the world over, the angels I speak of were personal.  Those incredible, in your face, I-love-you-even-if-you-don’t-know-who-I-am type of angels. 

I was on the stage, interpreting, and I started feeling poorly, lightheaded.  I was able to get the attention of my partner who raced back to switch with me so the interpretation could continue.  As I walked off the stage, I mentioned to someone that I didn’t feel well.  That’s all it took.  These phenomenal, loving strangers swept into action.  Lovely Elise brought me over to a chair, cooling my face and neck with water.  A man, whose name I later learned was Jean-Jacques, was immediately at my side with a soothing balm to massage into my arms, my neck, my face.  Another woman whose name I still do not know came to do the same, and to bring me healing energy.  Sandy, Jennie, Peggy and Laurie came to offer food, remedies and encouragement.   John, Pat, Holly, Tor, Anne and I’m sure about ten others came to offer a hug and a kind word.  They stayed with me, rubbed my back, let me sit quietly, sang to me, healed me with their loving kindness.  Me, a stranger.  I sat there being ministered to by those who I can only call angels.

Back out front, the speeches and songs recalled for the 25,000 the horror of atrocities done by a number of the graduates of the SOA.  Survivors of torture spoke out.  Mothers of children who were disappeared spoke out.  Family members of those who were murdered spoke out.  But through it all, there was the message of hope.  The message that if there are this many people in the world who say no to violence, torture, war and killing, that maybe there can be a change on the horizon.

The next day, we all walked together to the gates of Fort Benning and placed white crosses, with the names and ages of the victims of the atrocities, into the closest of the three barbed-wire topped fences that had been erected to keep us out.  All these strangers, carrying the names of strangers, coming together to remember, to memorialize, to mourn, and to carry away a sense of hope and renewal.  Together, we knew we could go forward and work for change.  We walked by each other as we processed to the gates, and all I could see was the goodness of these ordinary people.

And there it was again.  That palpable feeling of loving kindness, spread over a quarter-mile road filled with thousands of people.  This time it wasn’t a love for me, personally.  It was a love for humanity.  That in your face I-love-you-because-you’re-my-brother-and-sister, we’re-all-in-this-together type of thing that has nothing to do with singing “kum by yah” and has more to do with understanding that people are people are people.  We’re one of them, so whatever we do to others, we do to ourselves.

People are people are people, unless they’re angels.

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October 28, 2007

A friend and I were out listening to the Don Stiernberg Trio.  Jazz, Swing, Bluegrass, Folk, Reggae – they played it all.  And more.  We were sitting in the back, being absolutely blown away by their talent.  These three guys on mandolin, upright bass and guitar.  Whenever I hear good music like that, I have to move, have to do something physical with the energy of the music.  Tap my foot, jig my legs, sway, drum out the beat.  Then came a Django Reinhardt tune.  My friend turned to me and said “Do you dance?”  That was it.  We were the only two up, over on the side by the water glasses, dancing to the tune.  He said it best – “There are some tunes you just have to dance to.”  So, here was another person like me, who can’t just sit still and must go where the music takes him.

A few days earlier, I had been giving a lecture on the impact of deafness to parents of deaf children (part of my day job).  Evelyn Glennie, the deaf percussionist from Scotland, came up in the discussion.  That night, on a whim, I Googled her name and found some videos of her work on YouTube.  There she was, giving a lecture on “How to Listen to Music With Your Whole Body.”  Here’s this phenomenal talent who has perfected the art of listening in the way that I have felt was right since I was small, but could never have articulated so beautifully.  Music should be listened to with the body, the whole body, and not just the ears.  Music is meant to felt!

Then, a couple of days ago, a professor of psychology and music, Daniel Levitin, wrote an Op Ed piece for the New York Times.  “Dancing In The Seats” is about how our brains are wired to feel the music, and that sitting passively while listening to music is actually not the ‘norm’ for humans.  In many cultures, music and movement are inextricably tied. We are meant to have a physical reaction to music – we’re meant to move!

So here’s this message repeated to me in three very different ways, all in the span of a week.  The relationship of music and the physical.  

I spent probably a third of my life involved with dance.  Lessons, recitals, dance troupes, musical theatre.  To look at me now you wouldn’t know that, but it still influences my reaction to music.  Dancers get it instinctively.  Of course music is meant to be felt, to be listened to with the whole body, that we’re meant to move.  Of course.  And they look at the rest of us wondering why this is such a difficult concept to grasp.

But now, I’m not a dancer.  I’m a folk singer.  I stand up in front of people, alone with my guitar, and sing my songs.  And people sit quietly, listening politely, often  enthusiastically, laughing, singing, sometimes a tear in their eyes.  And then I’ll see someone moving, swaying along, and I know I’ve spotted a kindred soul.  

So my friend and I, Evelyn Glennie, dancers, and all the other folks I know who can’t sit still, aren’t odd, at least about this.  We let ourselves get transported by the music.  Carried away, literally, to a place of physicality, of movement, expressing outwardly all that the music evokes inwardly.  And it’s what humans are meant to do.

But to those of you who sit quietly in your seats – I see you.  You may not get up and dance, you may not jig around until you’re almost falling out of your chair, but I see you.  Your eyes close.  Your head moves slightly with the beat.  A finger taps lightly on the table in front of you.  You give your partner a squeeze.  I see the music in you.  You smile or frown with what you’re hearing.  It’s affecting you.  And that’s the goal of the music.  Of all music.  To transport you to that place of feeling, instead of just listening.