The Gift of Music at Grace Cathedral

Prayers in the Air at Grace

Last night I noticed that it was warm at Grace Cathedral as I sat for two and half hours listening to the Messiah.  I do this every Christmas time - I go to Grace and listen to the American Bach Soloists sing and play their hearts out in this magnificent gothic structure, surrounded by thousands, music lovers and those bound to tradition, all sitting on hard pews, all dressed up in dark holiday attire, all relaxing and breathing together as Handel's magnificent music washes over them.  The faces of the soloists shone with a pleasure and sense of inhabiting the words of devotion in this oratorio.  The musicians mostly smiled as they stroked their ancient violins and cellos... 

Devotion and trust and good will.   Christ was all about good will, wasn't he?  Treat others as you wish to be treated.  See yourself in others...  He would have been gratified that this country was about to reach out to the heart-ful and suffering people of Cuba, I'm sure of it.  And that our black president had worked hard to make an equitable health system in this country.  And that people were baring their souls about the unjust violence perpetrated against young African American men. And that countless unnamed people give their time and their resources to help the hungry, the dying, the vanishing wildlife on the planet.  There is some goodness in the land.  I don't know whether they are the "10,000 Joys" or not, but we can see our humanity rising to meet trouble.

We were told this performance was being recorded and urged to maintain quiet as best we could throughout, and of course what happened part of the way through was I had to cough.  A hideous tickle bubbling up in me.  Deep breathing didn't help.  A woman dressed beautifully in black and red who sat next to me offered me a little tin of round candies.  And those lovely little morsels did the trick.  As I said, it is about trust and good will.  Christ was a human being - now more alive for me than he ever was when I was younger - who believed in the essential goodness of man, of ALL men.  And he was a humble man, too, who dedicated himself to teaching his fellow human beings and bringing them from the darkness of ignorance into the light.  Much like the Buddha, really.  The music of Handel in his Messiah, of Bach in his Passion of St. Matthew or his Mass in B Minor, offers us a musical canvas that shows what this generosity of heart feels like.  We hear and sense the joy of believing, the sadness of cruel loss, and the hope that we're all capable of having lives of beauty and goodness.  As I think I said in my memoir when I was writing about the influence of JS Bach, he showed me what the love of God felt and sounded like through his music.  And for that I will always be grateful.

I am moving now from an angst-ridden, anxious feeling that I didn't like December and dreaded the enforced togetherness of holiday celebrations where we need everything to be perfect.  No, we know that everything cannot be perfect -- we sweep the floor, wash the dishes, feed the cats, light the candles, and breathe deeply, touching that openness of heart that we're all capable of.  And then everything is fine.

I wish love and peace to all in this fragile and beautiful time...

The Pleasure of a Solitary Movie & Why We Need to Welcome all the Guests

In a beautiful poem by Rumi called "The Guest House," he writes:
                   
                              This being human is a guest house.
                               Every morning a new arrival.

                              A joy, a depression, a meanness,
                            some momentary awareness comes
                                    as an unexpected visitor.


And it goes on, of course.  This poem is framed and hung in the dining room at Zen Hospice Project's beautiful Victorian house which we have always called "the guest house."  I work here every week.   It hangs here to remind us of the ever changing nature of our lives, the temporary character of the human journey, the ineffable preciousness of the ride we're on.  It makes me think that not only is there a "new arrival" every morning, but perhaps every hour of the day, if we are open to it.  And our task if we are to live mindfully and follow the Buddha (or not), is to take what presents itself to us.  Invite it in as we would a guest on our doorstep...
Yesterday evening I went to the movies by myself, enjoying the fact that I've been doing this pretty much all my life.  As a child of 10 or 11, I used to walk to the Palace Theater on Washington Square and buy a movie ticket for 50 cents, and sink into a seat in the dark, leaving behind my angst and my own bad stories.  I just sat myself down in the seat, and opened the door to a new guest.  Yesterday I saw a hugely creative film called "Birdman" which tells a deep story seriously and comedically.  An aging actor loaded with self doubt mounts a huge effort to create a comeback for himself, so the world will again love him and he can see himself as worthwhile, or even wonderful.  The entire film rides on this obsession of his to dig himself out of the hole of self loathing, in a way.  I identified with this, yes I did, because I saw that some choices I've made in my adult life have been to create a self I can get others to notice, then admire, respect, and love.  This is problematic, if not damning.  In our logical mind we understand that creating personas so that others will adore us is false, and we know too that loving ourselves is the most profound goal, and yet we forge ahead trying to make out of ourselves something deeply significant to the world.
While Michael Keaton's heartbreaking rendering of his character in the movie shows someone who has pursued the same path all his life, I have tried more than one "career" as I went along, hungering for a belonging and, yes, approval.  Teaching was a most exciting role that I chose in the eighties, it felt natural, and it made me feel gloriously alive, and I thought I'd do it forever.  I was good at it, and amazingly I understood that.  But personal upheaval in my life and the need to re-group forced a change.  I moved into jewelry design, working for a change with my hands, and it felt exciting in the beginning: to fashion things of surprising beauty without any great master plan. But my struggle came when I tried to become a commercial success.  I wanted to make my mark, because I really thought I had something beautiful and unique to sell.  I failed at this because I was not a good business person, because the market wasn't the right market, and finally I decided that there was something better to do than peddle beads while educating the public about their worth.  I turned in a very interesting new direction, became a volunteer at Zen Hospice Project, and for the last nine years have been attending those who are dying.  An extraordinary "career" that has no room in it for trying to be noticed or adored.  It is service pure and simple, and it allows you to give and receive love every day you show up.  People who are working out the complexities of their last days have no time to become "fans."  Thank god.
My heart went out to the Michael Keaton character in the film yesterday, I actually felt an aching inside my body for the person who drives him/herself so desperately to find relevance.  Because I remembered it in myself...  It still lurks there as I peck away at revising my memoir manuscript, turning the pages, making marks and adding thoughts, erasing thoughts, and trying so hard to create a wonderful book.  I don't want or need to be famous like the guy in the movie, but I really want to see my words in print.  And I also know that if I can't make that happen I will have to wrangle again with the self worth demons who screech at me.
I need to remember that as the hours and days and months unfold, many new guests are going to arrive before me, and I need to keep opening the door.

December -- Where is the gift?

December is dark, and fraught with discomfort and melancholy for me, and I have been trying these past few days to find my equilibrium in the midst of this.

December is the month my mother died over twenty years ago.  A long time ago yes, and also very close in my heart, as though it happened recently:  I can remember the exact feelings I had when her death was announced to me while I stood in the Phoenix airport on December 2nd, trying to get home.  The emptiness, the confusion, the ache that started to bubble up from deep inside.

December is the month I allowed a flirtation of mine to catapult me into a "romance" that ended my 25 year old marriage.  December 10 it was, I remember clearly.  Then the rage and broken heart that followed... And all the chasing after stories of love, and all the dead-ends...

December is the month that we prepare for Christmas holidays with family, and become anxious and off balance in the anticipation of this supposedly happy time.  We remember perhaps the days when we were kids, and we snuggled in bed, smelling the pine of the Christmas tree, and we held our stuffed animal close and dreamed of the beautiful doll with eyelashes and curly hair that we had asked for, imagining it sitting all wrapped under the tree.  The Grandmothers in my life were always hugely generous to me, the first grandchild, and what I unwrapped on Christmas morning invariably exceeded what I had wished for.  And now, sadly, the dance has become a a little tired and burdensome, a laundry list in our brains of what to do for whom and will it be enough?  And will those we love recognize us as special and offer that thoughtful gift?  We become so hungry for love, for belonging.  And then we distract ourselves by going out and shopping up a storm.

December is the month I ponder the multitude of deaths of black men in our cities, and hold fear in my heart that we are a more racist culture than I had ever imagined.  And my mind spins about this suffering and I feel as though I hardly belong to this country anymore.  Looking at these deaths is like looking into a bottomless hole, or through a tunnel where we can't see the light on the other side.  I want to offer prayers, but remember I don't do that much in my life, if at all.  I want to perform a ritual to purify my mind and heart and ultimately everyone else's.  I want to call on the spirits of Gandhi, Mandela, and Martin Luther King, to come and bestow their humane wisdom and show the ignorant the way to compassion.  I want to go into the Tenderloin or walk on Market street and ask forgiveness of the shivering homeless men lying in seedy comforters, men whose skin is most often black.

December is the month when I gave a  large gift to a wildlife rescue organization, in the hopes that they will be able to stop the killing of elephants for their ivory, so I can feel assured that my grandchildren and their children will be able to experience these astonishing animals in their lifetimes.  This single act of generosity feels as though it can heal some of the sadness that has shown up during these dark December days.  Generosity is a beautiful practice, it brings people together, and isn't that what we all need now?

December marks the end of the year, and the inevitability of becoming one year older.  Time is sliding out from under us, especially as we grow older, and it feels as though the years are passing awfully quickly.  So, on December 31, we peer around the corner at the new year, and know that it too will be gone before we know it, and that we must be mindful, and grateful, and generous if we are to live our lives fully.  When we were young we loved this ritual of the new year, didn't we?  We were excited to become another year older, and closer to some desired state of being IN our lives and in control ...  Now we think, oh no, why did it all go by so fast?

It see that what I have offered here is a dirge of sorts, a little wail in the night, and I suspect that this entry won't fill anyone with great excitement or warm feelings.  It also occurs to me that before too long, we will be in January, and the days will start to get longer, and the leaves sprout on the trees, and I will be traveling in New Zealand on a holiday with daughter #1.  A trip planned long ago and much anticipated.  And as I march through the bush or sit by the sea in this different country, the dark of December will have already melted away.  

Tonight I will give myself comfort as I begin again to read one of my most beloved books, Anna Karenina, the dark story of a beautiful outcast who surrendered her life for love.  I will snuggle in my bed and read with relish, and feel glad that I too write stories, attempting to tell my own truth to anyone who will read.  Books offer us worlds where we can dance and play and laugh and cry, and then return to the hard, cold truths that knock at our door.  Books are magic to me.  Not a better thing to do on a December night, I'd say!

Grateful

A soft grey rain has started falling on the Pacific coast this afternoon after Thanksgiving, and I sit in my little beach house with my family and a warm fire, and think about the texture of my life.
Yesterday we feasted on roasted crab - not turkey - and an array of sides that were perfect, including perfect potatoes, and a custom stuffing with leeks and fennel.  We drank champagne, we talked, had pumpkin creme brulee for dessert, and ultimately washed a lot of dishes.  Various chapters of my life were present, including the man (newly married) I lived with for 25 years and who is the father of my beautiful daughters.  We seem to be able to thread ourselves together beautifully, occasionally even talking about the past, laughing often at our unreliable memory! The day was sparkling and sunny with a calm ocean out there in the distance. A small group of us walked on the beach earlier in the day and felt gratitude that we had all this beauty right in front of us.
The conversations ranged from how the perfect scalloped potato dish came out to dealing with the onset of breast cancer in a way that is not invasive.  A granddaughter just home from college showed up in a bright red dress over funky pants, perfectly made up dark eyes, and a bit of a reticence coming from having lived recently in a very different culture.  But it filled our hearts with happiness to have her again in our midst, and soon the edges smoothed out and she eased back into her youthful loving character.  Late that night she and her sister curled up together on a small couch in the living room to sleep the night away together, curved against one another like slim graceful spoons.  This morning I took a picture of the two dead to the world and felt a swelling of gratitude in my heart for my family, even though there are certainly times that I feel on the periphery of their world.  That's what happens when you get older, right?  You must find peace in standing on the fringe.
I want to mention some things I am grateful for:  fresh caught crab, the roaring ocean, the egrets in the creek, my cats, JS Bach and Billie Holliday, my beautiful daughters and grandchildren, Caesar salad, and artichokes and brussels sprouts, my fledgling book project, a warm fireplace, a glass of Pinot Noir, the falling rain, the Buddhas, elephants, and pelicans, and salmon, lavender, olive oil, garlic, and good sour french bread, my friends, a pair of eyes that really sees me, the residents at Zen Hospice, my Buddhist teachers, a great novel like Anna Karenina or  The Goldfinch, my mother's paintings, a brain that is still lively, my writing group, the movie "Casablanca" and "You Can't Take it With You," my Merrell shoes, my curly hair, a good pair of glasses, my two unique little houses, my Mini Cooper, and my open heart.  There :  a small celebration of my good fortune in this fragile life...
I miss my cats, but try not to fret for their happiness.  I simply cannot put into their consciousness the mental complications that live in my own.  They are at my other home alone, but I am sure they are not spending all their hours fretting or missing me.  They move to their very own rhythm, and when you come into view, they might love you, but when you're gone, you're just gone.  Simple as that.  Sometimes I wish my own process was as uncomplicated.  But then, if it were, would I be able to feel this abundance of gratitude and thankfulness for family that I do?  Question for this moment:  do cats feel gratitude?
Never mind - it is enough that I do.  Completely.  I also wish happiness and wellbeing for all creatures far and wide.  It is remarkable this incarnation we find ourselves in, with such wonders as cracked crab, a roaring ocean, and sleeping grandchildren!

Taking What is Given

   I am still filled with that slightly queasy pre-holiday feeling where one moment I'm deeply sad and soft and fragile, and the next I'm pecking energetically away at the keyboard trying to edit my little opus, provisionally titled:  Bowing Camels & Bloody Red Roses; A Witness in the Traveling Life.  When I place my mind on task then the queasiness goes away, I forget that I'm feeling the shortening of days, even of my life, and I simply do the work, staring at words on the page, rearranging ideas, and revisiting the chapters of my life.
   The life of the artist, the creative being, is a wonderful one when he/she works, but in those times when there is a pause, for reflection or just letting ideas settle and percolate, we sometimes find the mind filled with confusing, disturbing notions -- the Monkey Mind returns.  And it says to you when you're making your morning tea, "who are you to dare get a book published?"  or "why would anyone care that you got lost in a lonely childhood?"  I am now learning to acknowledge this overreaching of the mind and say to it, in a way:  "thanks for your opinion ... I see you.... now kindly leave because I have work to do."
   When the old MM says things like:  "You're time is running out, you may die alone, what do you think about that, eh?"  or "You spend too much time alone ... what are you afraid of?"  or "If only you did more good in the world, you'd be happier" ... yes, when those unkind voices come, I don't quite know how to answer them.  Sitting down at my keyboard to whack out some more words on pages doesn't work for this very often, because the deep aloneness inside remains, a sour feeling that sloshes around, as though I'd eaten something I shouldn't have.  So, what to do about this particular conversation?  I guess I could count myself fortunate that I'm not embroiled in a scenario such as I saw in the movie "August : Osage County" where a vastly dysfunctional family spends a lot of their time being deceitful and/or cruel to one another, dumping their own suffering on each other, and I'm not trapped in a dead end relationship with someone who cannot really see or respect me (I have been down that road not once but twice, and I have promised myself:  never again).  No, I have myself fully and completely now.   My choices and dreams and visions are my own and I don't have to justify or explain them.  I am free to take care of those I love when I can, and to take care of myself fully and mindfully.  I am free to give voice to my story which I seem to need to tell the world.  I am surrounded by beauty of all kinds (music, art, cats, the extraordinary city, the beach).  So what's to have angst about?
   We are all going to die, and because I take care of dying people every week I have death on my radar pretty much all the time.  While I think I am more comfortable with the phases of death, and there's no spookiness about it anymore, I am still very resistant to dying.  Am I afraid? Maybe a little.   I don't want to give up this experience of being alive,letting go of all that I cherish, and I know I ultimately have no choice.  And so in this time of the year when everyone hunkers down, looks for a warm fire and a cozy book at the start of night, I feel the sinking inside, and I know the span of my journey is shortening.  And I also feel a tenderness of heart that may be what saves me, saves all of us, during the times of angst.
   I wish I could move toward the Thanksgiving holiday, which I'll spend with part of my lovely family, with a more energetic spirit.  But, this is what I am given now:  feeling the melancholy of wintertime and of everything that will go unfinished.  I have loving wishes for my beautiful young family, my close friends, my cats and my house, and even the beings I meet on Polk Street as I do my afternoon errands, or all those unknown souls I pass as I drive across the Golden Gate Bridge.  We are travelers on the same path, and we all deserve the compassion of our fellow beings.

The Hats I've Worn, or Thoughts on Attachment and Staying True to Oneself

Yesterday I had a chance to revisit a former identity of mine, that of bead merchant.  Yes, I used to peddle beautiful necklaces made from rare beads.  And this morning when I was supposed to be meditating but was in fact reviewing my yesterday, I realized that the life of a merchant did not fulfill me, that I was relieved I had left it behind.  In fact, I never knew how to do it very well.  And so I lost money... and a little confidence.  But no matter, for I wasn't really in the business of owning a gallery in North Beach to make money, was I?  No, that would be silly!
A young merchant came to me to acquire some old treasures, and at the outset I was unsettled by this.  I didn't think I had much to offer, and my worktable piled with every kind of bead imaginable in a scattered array was another testament to my disorganized self, that self I'd rather not own up to.  We pawed through necklaces and beads and he found a stash he wished to buy.  Fine.  Then he fixated on one small agate of really fine quality and his eyes lit up.  He wanted this.  And I didn't want to sell it to him.  Why?  Because all of a sudden I realized I'd make something beautiful from it, or perhaps because he wanted it too much and I was willing to resist him (in other words, play the game of wheeler-dealer).  His energy became heightened, as though he had forgotten about the quite lovely pile he was in fact going to go away with.  And he kept offering, giving concessions, upping the ante.  And I continued to hold back.  I even told him a story of sparring with a customer in my store when she insisted that everything, yes everything was for sale - to which I said, "Absolutely not.  There are limits."
So in my not very meditative state this morning I wondered what this was all about....  First thing that comes to mind is attachment, and the second thing is a fierce reaction to being manipulated.  I have grown pretty independent of late, and every once in a while I actually can appreciate myself for what I have done on my own.  I don't want to lose myself in order to make someone else satisfied, or to calm the waters.    I am also aware of becoming attached to beautiful things.  Beads are just part of this...  I have old beads sitting about in bowls that go back thousands of years, and I love that I can go to the desk and just look at them, touch them, think about where they came from.  I haven't made a necklace in a long time, and am feeling closer to actually sitting down and doing it ... but, you see, I'm also trying to write this book, and that takes a lot of my creative juice.
Most likely I am more "attached" to my book project than almost anything else these days, except maybe a desire to become physically stronger so I can walk 100 miles in Africa next summer.
But, yes, attachment is alive and well in my world.  My cats, my Buddhas, my piano, my colored yarns, a few paintings, my books, good food and very good wine, and the list goes on.  I become attached to people I work with at hospice, and people who are dying right in front of me.  I am attached to my children and of course my grandchildren to whom I play Auntie Mame. I can feel this attachment all the time: the tugging in the heart, that leaning in.
I used to be attached to the idea of being a teacher, but now that is gone.  Like the warm weather, perhaps, or last night's brussels sprouts.  Teaching was another of the "hats" that I wore, a beautiful one, just before I took that plunge into working with my hands to make jewelry.  I figured it was time to switch from exerting the intellect to testing my intuitive creative powers.  It was a lovely detour,  even the three years as a shop keeper (I would have preferred to call myself "gallery owner"), and when the lease was up and I realized that I needed to pull out of doing business because I was no good at it, it was a big relief.  I can still play with my beads, but I don't have to convince anyone to buy them!  The playing was what was important in the first place.  And when I told the young man last night that the money in the end wasn't all that important to me, I had to repeat it several times so he could begin to understand.  I wasn't speaking his language, but that didn't matter; I knew what I had to do.  I wish him well in his dance of bargaining and dealing, and feel thankful that our high energy encounter (they all seem to be with dealers) brought me back to my lovely bead world where I can return to dabble anytime I want.  That is, when I get all my editing done, and am 100% happy with my manuscript!

No .... I will play with beads, and I will play music on my grandmother's piano, because my little hands need to move in this way over the keyboard, and my heart needs to soar with the excitement of creating jewelry or music.  This will soothe my inner critic, I think, and help me keep believing in my book which is a story of my life.

Letting Go of the Birds -- Winter Descends on San Francisco

The fall is descending on San Francisco and there are fewer birds gathering on my roof, certainly fewer hummingbirds.  You see, I once was adamant that I would put up the best hummingbird feeders and they would come  ("build it and they will come" way of thinking!).  So I put up really good ones, and yes, for a while they were zipping and clicking about, pausing to dip their tiny beaks in the nectar, even standing still on the edge of the feeder.  When I saw them jet through the air, I felt a fluttering inside, and a complete, warm happiness.  Hooray, I now have a hummingbird refuge!  But, lately I haven't seen many.  No matter.  It would appear that this darkening time is one where I am going to be asked to let go of a number of things, as the trees shed leaves and the dark pounces on us at five in the afternoon...

I saw two operas this last week:  Tosca and Cinderella.  Enjoyed both, and even surprised that the fluffy fairytale of "Cinderella" entertained and excited me.  I was thinking that I have been going for a long time now to the opera by myself, and for the most part have loved it. I like being with my own mind and not having to measure up to someone else's thoughts and feelings about music or operas or....  BUT, I find myself now sinking into a melancholy place where I long for company, for more love and warmth in my life.  These two women whose stories I watched on the grand stage were driven by love, and one of them died for it.  I have been missing the closeness of friends and family lately, and then I remember to begin letting go of that longing, because the more you long, the sadder you feel, and it doesn't get you anywhere in the end.  But longing also seems to be an expression of the heart which says:  listen to me.  And we must attend to the heart.

I have lived alone for eight years or more, and have built a beautiful life for myself with a cozy house in a quiet alley filled with art, and a beach refuge up north where I can always hear the roar of the Pacific Ocean.  I've had the freedom to travel, to play music, and most recently to sit down and write a book.  Not bad.  But, as I begin to register the frailties in my body -- some of these speaking more clearly to me now than before -- I find I want more companionship.  The companionship of like minds, I suspect.  I experience some of this when I sit at the bedside of terminally ill people in hospice, or on the rare occasion I sink into a long conversation with an old friend.  My friends are few in number but they are deeply attuned people with whom I have history, and they are treasures in my life.  And I'm hungry for more.  Is this greed speaking now (in the Buddhist sense)?  Is it really not possible to be happy now with things the way they are?

Why is this longing bubbling up all about me, I wonder?  Is it because there are fewer birds in my roof garden, and the little maple outside looks naked and sad, and the cat shows his neediness by marching back and forth on my desk as I work, and I falter when trying to speak my needs to others, as though I may have too much to ask??  Is it because there is less light and warmth out there, and I want to draw into myself like the bear entering the cave?

When I write and when I play JS Bach on my piano, I don't feel the emotional wrenching, but when I play Chopin, I see candlelit rooms, and sad beautifully dressed young women standing in windows looking out as the ailing artist plays his beautiful music for them.  And I remember in these moments how familiar melancholy is, how I knew it the very first time I ever played a Nocturne.  When I eat a good meal and drink a great glass of wine, I don't feel the longing, but when I'm finished,  it comes, as I try to remember what the sensual pleasure was all about.

Birds come and go, beauty comes and goes, youthful vigor rises and falls, and in the middle of it all we try our best to feel gratitude for the adventure of being a human being in this confusing, amazing time.  Yes, come back to gratitude, breathe the cold air in, and reach out to the next loved one who crosses your path.  The winter will run its course, and as Pablo Neruda wrote, "you can never stop the Spring."