Ripening Barberries

by Rainer Maria Rilke



Already the ripening barberries are red
And the old asters hardly breathe in their beds.
The man who is not rich now as summer goes
Will wait and wait and never be himself.

The man who cannot quietly close his eyes
certain that there is vision after vision inside,
simply waiting for nighttime
to rise all around him in darkness-
it's all over for him, he's like an old man.

Nothing else will come; no more days will open
and everything that does happen will cheat him.
Even you, my God. And you are like a stone
that draws him daily deeper into the depths.

Destiny's Willing Student

Destiny's Willing Student

This story is personal but I consider you all friends. A little of the back-story: Early in 2006, my wife, Celeste, was in a terrible car accident that broke her pelvis, a bunch of ribs, and caused several other painful things to happen. Celeste had been already working with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for the last couple years, and this car accident greatly complicated her healing.

The yoga community stepped up to the plate and helped us out enormously—in every way imaginable. My little red truck I run around in is a reminder of how generous people can be. Our only car was demolished in the accident. When asked if there was anything in excess that one could spare to help out Celeste and me, some yoga students whom we had never met readily offered to GIVE us their truck that they felt was in excess. Wow.

Though Celeste spent a lot of time in the hospital and had to learn to walk again after two months of lying in bed, she still found the whole process a beautiful experience. Celeste healed wonderfully from the car accident, to the point that it doesn't come up much in conversation only but to offer gratitude for people like you who helped us out so much. Thanks you.

A couple of years ago, I was scanning through Celeste's teacher training notes to calculate the classes she attended so we could log our hours and get our certificate of completion. Celeste's accident came on the last day of the training. I came across the last page she wrote containing the inspiration she was experiencing literally 5 minutes before her car accident. Traveling in different cars, we were on our way to Missy Barron's funeral, an early death, a car accident. Missy was a fellow yoga teacher. On Celeste's last page of notes, she wrote: "When you prepare to die, or get close to death (perhaps someone you know), you might finally get awake enough to realize and experience the part of yourself that doesn't die. You are free in that moment. I am alive in that moment. I am experiencing everything in that moment. And I am grateful and I weep--thank you, Missy Barron for your presence and the reminder. You pass in to that place of the whole. You remind us to experience ourselves as whole and alive more often."

15 minutes later as emergency workers moved in fast-forward around Celeste's unconscious body, no one noticed the notebook, paused open to this last page and half-covered in shattered glass. The tears Celeste had shed on the page, still wet, melted and became one with the quiet snowflakes that drifted through the shattered window onto her page, merging prophecy with present, blurring the ink, blurring the lines between poetry and life.

And this is how Celeste lives her life: brave enough and present enough to move into the revelation of the present moment. Brave because it was as if by so doing, by realizing the stark truth of this moment, the moment of Missy's death, she quickly learned her lessons. She aligned her active life with the active prophecy found all around her, in the snow, the birds on the wire (see her poem, On a Winter Morning, below), the inspiration of our yoga discussion. By seeing the truth of this poetic world she has no choice but to be hurled along poetry's same swift path, pulling her to the depths and space between life and death, not as punishment but as a physical witness of what her spirit already knew. A chance to practice. This car crash wasn't an accident. Destiny had to teach her prepared student that to truly understand you too must bleed. Celeste rode the line between life and poetry until its end cracked like a whip upon her ready flesh. Bones broken, lessons learned, but as a witness to her life and spirit, her heart continued to beat, her lungs continued to breathe. She lived that day, and the next, and the next, and continues to live richly each new day. Each new dawn brings healing in its wings. Celeste walks this day, steadily, and with knowledge far beyond my own about what it means to freely live.


This poem was written the morning of her car accident:


On a Winter Morning

I turn my head up.
Birds on a line above me as I walk.
On 3 black cords, each cutting the same angle in a white morning sky
pregnant with soft snow.
The birds are not moving,
their heads tucked into plump, feathered bodies.
Giant, dark lumps with wispy tails
settled on 3 thin black lines.

I slow my mechanical walking,
feel the body open itself to the cold canyon air,
watch the steam around my face as I exhale.
My movements seem suddenly unnecessary.
They are breaking the silence,
thinning out the fullness.
There's no reason to keep walking.

It's all here, now

In the birds on a line above me
my eyes find contentment,
and for a moment,
maybe two,
I forget me.
I am resting bird bodies,
quiet,
huddled,
hushed.

The great flakes fall now,
pushed by a gentle sigh in the air.
The dark bird tails too are shifting, swishing side to side.
Like a dance.
In time to itself and the movement of the wind.
In time to the breath lifting my chest as I pause there.
In time to the resting blink of my eyes.

What seemed a solid, painted scene shifts and breathes,
swaying to the deeper hum,
the breath that moves tides.

I have stopped

and come alive

In that moment of bird tails and black lines.
I experience everything in them.
I pass into that place of the WHOLE,

as one dying.

And wake up,

For a pause,
a breath,
I remember her.
A freeway, a truck, a body broken.
A voice gone.

I turn my head down in gratitude,
weeping,
and walk home.

She'll never end. And neither will I.

Winter doesn't surprise them.
Birds never forget.

--ck

Celeste still struggles with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but through this experience she sees how she is being taught by the universe that every day is spectacular.

A Holy Moment in Hell

It was my Folsom Prison moment. I stood there on stage with my sax around my neck, stunned like a trapped animal while 200 prison inmates wearing light-blue prison scrubs came walking single-file past guards wielding shotguns into the meeting room. The inmates quietly took their seats and looked up at the four of us with silent anticipation. We stood on the stage and met their stares in a speechless tremble. This group consisted of: April, the 22-year-old bombshell singer whose physical form seemed to embody everything that her velvety, liquid voice promised; Anthony, (16) a wet-behind-the-ears but gifted student of our regular drummer who couldn’t break away from teaching drums to do a free gig at the maximum security Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison; Brig, (or Brother Brigham, as I like to call him) our nonchalant pianist whose full-time gig is tuning pianos for the Lord at various LDS meeting houses in Utah Valley as well as tuning pianos in the musical households of many Mormon abodes, but who, despite his name, can be downright irreverent on the keys; and there was me on tenor saxophone, the leader of this group, 25 years old at the time, and tired of playing garage bands so I’d recently decided to form a jazz group. We could not find a bass player to travel to Gunnison and back to play a free gig to prison inmates.

My sister-in-law had an uncle in the joint doing life without parole. Long since reformed, her uncle spent his time practicing with the prison choir and desperately longed for someone to come and tune their piano. My sister-in-law asked if I knew anyone who would be willing to tune the prison piano. Brig agreed and suggested we bring the band down for a concert. Brilliant! Now in addition to tuning the pianos for the Lord, Brigham was going to tune pianos for the incarcerated souls in the terrestrial cells of the damned.

We made the 2-hour trip to Gunnison, battling the summer heat in Brig’s SUV, equipment and musicians packed in like we were on tour. I guess in a way we were on tour but this tour had only one stop, and we weren’t getting paid, and there would be no drinking at this show, and the audience was all male. Oh, and the bouncers at this show all had shotguns. The plan was that we’d drop off Brig at the prison, he’d work his magic on the prison pianos, and then we’d show up later and play the concert for the inmates.

We dropped Brig off and sat in the car as we watched him walk with his suit-coat in one arm and shouldering his piano tuning tools with the other, laboriously making his way though the several menacing checkpoints leading to the prison entrance. Each sentry scrutinized Brig and fingered through his tools before opening the gate and allowing him to move past impossible layers of metal bars and razor-wire. We knew that in a few hours we’d be doing the same thing.

With a couple of hours to spare we went into downtown Gunnison and ate at a fast-food restaurant called the Naked Chicken. I thought about bringing Brig something but knew that the guards wouldn’t let us bring any food into the prison. We then located a park and desperately tried to find shade. Eventually, we drove back to the prison. Once we made it past no-mans-land and found ourselves inside, the guards checked every piece of our equipment against a list we’d been required to send them weeks earlier. They weren’t about to let us slip a file and garden shovel into one of the inmates. We’d also been subjected to a rigorous background check a month or more prior to coming.

We were ushered into a big meeting room where two guys wearing blue scrubs were very ably setting up a PA system. Who gets to be a roadie in the Big House? I thought that was the job you had right before you went to prison. I met up with Brig and asked if he’d been able to eat anything. He said they’d given him a meal from the cafeteria. Then it dawned on me: Brig was able to honestly say he’s experienced prison food without the commitment of anything more than an afternoon sentence. I seethed with jealousy; I’d have taken prison fries over the Naked Chicken any day.

Up to this point, the idea of playing in prison had seemed pretty nostalgic but I hadn’t realized how proximal I’d be to these guys. . . you know, the criminals. As we were setting up, I kept looking over my shoulder. I couldn’t help but be suspicious. I mean these guys were in here for doing really, really bad things, right? You don’t arrive at a maximum security penitentiary for shoplifting candy from convenience stores. I started to get nervous that something bad would happen--I don’t know, a shiv into the ribs, a prison brawl, or being senselessly brutalized. As the leader of this group, I also felt responsible for all the others, especially young Anthony and April. After all, April was probably the only woman they’d see in who knows how long who wasn’t either: 1) on the wrong side of a pane of glass or 2) wearing something other than Prison Warden Chic and packing heat.

Soon enough we were set up and ready to play. Our hosts opened the doors and all the inmates, the hardened criminals, those who’d done unspeakable things and were capable of doing unspeakable things to me, began to enter the room. I watched as they walked in neat lines and filled up each seat then sat looking straight ahead at us, at ME. Oh, shit.

Once everyone was seated, the crowd turned very quiet and all eyes bored strait into us. The lights dimmed except a spotlight that shone directly into our eyes. I turned and faced the band as much to escape the probing glares of the criminals as to begin the concert. “Alright, everyone,” I said to the band with counterfeit confidence, “Blue Skies,” and began to snap in time, counting off the first tune. I turned back to the audience. The first note out my saxophone sounded like Anthony’s puberty stricken voice, unsure and squawking. Together Brig, Anthony, and I played a chorus and then April came in with her smooth, rich voice: “Blue Skies, smiling at me, nothing but blue skies, do I see.” Her able voice sounded strong and almost gave me a glint of ease. As she was singing, I was punching notes in the background, listening to the words and thinking, “Oh no! The only thing blue in here is the standard issue prison scrubs. People are going to riot, I know it.” We cranked out a couple of choruses, a few solos, and finished the tune with my heart beating twice as fast as before. My mind was racing with: “I don’t know what kind of music these guys like. For all I know they hate this stuff. I’m getting a shiv in the ribs for sure.” After the tune, I expected silence, like the way they came in, and feared possibly worse, a snicker or a boo. And for a second or two there was nothing but silence. Then, almost like someone had cued them, suddenly the room erupted with applause and cheers. I grabbed the mic and acknowledged April, who blushed as she was met with more applause and whistles. Who could blame them?

With only slightly more confidence, we entered the next tune: It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That Swing. We played the melody and then I nodded to Brig to take a solo. He bowed his head in an act that seemed like reverence to the piano and began to play--or maybe he, too, was praying. He got right to work and pounded out a great solo, his fingers rippling along the keyboard like a small blur of falling water. After a couple of choruses, he nodded to me.

My turn. I closed my eyes and put my horn in my mouth. Then something magical happened. The feeling in the room turned completely electric. Even with my eyes closed, I became vividly aware of this impossibly perfect moment. Every eye and ear was riveted on me. I held everyone’s complete and unflinching attention. We were their prison visitors who were bringing them Blue Skies and a chance to swing a little. Suddenly, I relaxed and my playing opened up. Something incredible was channeled inside me as I began to sing out the bell of my horn. Maybe I was channeling my great uncle Lester, who had given me his horns when he died, the horns I was playing on then and still play now, the horns that I believe still hold a portion of him.

I played. And I played, and I played, and I played and let whatever grace my soul held at that moment find some sultry voice out the end of my saxophone. A sound came out that I’d never heard before. Notes like I’d never imagined flew off my fingers and out my horn into the ears and minds and hearts of 200 expectant people. I was in conversation with something inside that I didn’t know, something that had never been tapped. And though I had never driven this thing before, whatever it was, I stomped the pedal to the floor. I’m convinced that I was not the only one that night to feel this pulse, this magic.

Eventually, I finished my solo, we played once more through the melody, and with April’s voice singing and all the other musicians in unison, we stopped together after riffing on “Do wa, do wa, do wa, do wa, do wa, do wa, do WA!” Then, without even a fraction of a pause, out burst deafening cheers and whistles, an applause twice as loud and long as the previous. I couldn’t control myself from laughing; it was a mixture of equal parts self-consciousness and pure amazement at what I’d found in my soul and had somehow translated through my saxophone. It was feeling the excitement and appreciation and somehow even the love of these people in the audience, these prisoners who for a moment were free. Brig leaned over and shouted above the applause, “Scottro! That was the best you have ever played!” It was the single most incredible musical experience I’ve had in my life. And I realized that for a moment we were all the same: we were all in prison and we were all free, groovin’ on jazz and feeling something together.

The band played several more tunes, played a few encores, and then the lights came on. With a rush, I looked happily into the crowd and I saw smiles and happy faces. I didn’t see criminals anymore. I saw people. They hadn’t changed, of course. I had. I saw past the prison ID sewn on the chest down to the heart of these people that held a fundamental identity of goodness. Unlike when they came in, everyone was talking and laughing and commenting. I put my horn down and stepped off the stage and walked into the crowd and was welcomed with handshakes, slaps on the back, and congratulations and thank you's from these new friends, many of whom had an impressive knowledge of jazz music. “Hey, I used to play the trumpet!” one guy said. “My son plays the saxophone,” another one interrupted. These were regular people.

I found my sister-in-law’s uncle, Paul. He gave me a big hug and thanked me for coming. He didn’t look like a killer. He looked like he should be doing somebody’s taxes and playing golf. His gentle manner and endless smile continued to shatter any prejudice I once held.

As we were driving home, completely elated, I realized that if given the chance, I was capable of accessing something beautiful and amazing and unknown inside me. And if that magical part somehow could be liberated and expressed in me, then such was true for each person, even those doing time in prison, despite whatever sour notes they may have played in the past.

This is the essence of yoga. This is oneness.

Listen to the Band

Alive on Jazz and Chocolate

Hope you're nice and comfortable for this entry, for I've got a story to tell...

John Coltrane was chronically quirky. One of his more definably "chronic" quirks was his strict diet: chocolate. In my opinion, this fact alone elevates John Coltrane to the status of a saint. No wonder there is a church devoted to him in San Francisco. Saint Coltrain would eat about 12 candy bars a day. He hated dentists, so his mouth was undoubtedly falling apart-- perhaps not the best way to build your chops. To cope with his oral pain, he consumed alcohol like it was his job. He kept this up for years until his liver finally gave out. Eventually, this is what killed him.

Another one of JC's quirks was his addiction to playing his horn--indeed THE best way to build your chops. Sometimes guests would come over to JC's apartment to visit him. JC would fidget through 30 or 40 minutes of polite conversation and then when he'd reached his limit, he would suddenly excuse himself to a back room, shut the door, and resume playing his saxophone. He played for as long as he felt necessary, sometimes the rest of the day, and eventually his guests just found their own way out.

I had fidgeted through weeks of visit from the uninvited guest of Celeste's illness. Like JC, I needed to excuse myself and go play my horn--I needed to sing for a while. Celeste, a very perceptible person, sensed my uneasiness and suggested I go out and play even before I could bring it up to her. She may well have read my mind. I couldn't refuse.

It was Friday night, I hadn't eaten since lunch, but I couldn't wait. So at 8:30, right after my last class of the night, I hit the street. I grabbed my horn, my music, and my beret (people expect me to dress foreign, why not dress French? Besides, it works so well with jazz). I stopped by the school on my way out and caught Ms. Sau, one of the Korean teachers, and asked her to write me a note in Korean that basically says, "This kid wants to play in your club tonight. What do you say?"

I caught a bus downtown, got off at my stop, and walked the remaining blocks to the jazz club I played at a few weeks ago (see entry He Looks After My Jazz 11-24-02). It had been dark for hours. I breathed in the fresh night air, clean after a day of raining. I was calm.

As I walked, a mental something, but very external, was shouting in my face, "What in the HELL are you doing? You don't know how to go about playing music in clubs in Asia! You don't even speak Korean. You're going to fall on your face!" But something very internal wasn't worried at all. Besides, I had my written note. If they said no, I'd try somewhere else. That wasn't important. Just being out there was. Still, I was confident it would work out. Opportunities are made the way a jazz tune is: put yourself in place, count off the tune, and see what kind of music you can make, what kind of art. When you count off a tune, if you're playing with your heart, intuitively, you know how the last note will sound. I could tell this night's last note would be sweet.

I found the club, mounted the stairs, and entered the swinging doors as if I were on a mission, like a rogue sheriff entering a saloon in the Old West. I chose a table close to the stage, my horn hugging my side like a deputy. I settled in my seat and began to listen to the music. An electric guitar player was on stage. He played well and grooved as much as one can to an invisible karaoke band. As I sat there, I had no idea how I was going to get on that stage. At the end of each song I clapped loud and long--almost obnoxiously so--in an attempt to build some sort of rapport with this guy. I realized that if I was going to get the chance to play, I'd be taking guitar man's stage time and I needed his blessing. It's always much harder to refuse someone who applauds your music.

After a few numbers, a man came over and patted my shoulder. It was Mr. Kim, the same keyboard player who ushered me on stage last time I was in the club. This time Mr. Kim was wearing a plush, velvet, zebra-striped shirt--obviously ready for a night of rockin'. Mr. Kim must be pushing 55, and his outfit made him look like a clueless undercover cop failing at incognito at a RAVE party. Mr. Kim was nice to me and thumbed through my folder of music, then disappeared again.

After a few more tunes, the guitar player was done with his set. Mr. Kim rushed over and motioned for ME to hit the stage. Calmly, I grabbed my horn and music and walked over to the stage, looking like I did this every day of my life. Despite my cool demeanor, however, I was ready to pee my pants with excitement.

Before I knew it, the notes to "Yesterday" by the Beatles were buzzing by, measure by measure, on a laptop screen mounted on a stand in front of me. Those Koreans! I followed the bouncing ball as Mr. Kim accompanied me on the keys. Together we played about a half-hour set. After "Yesterday," we played some dramatic Barry-Manilow-style Korean numbers for which I played impromptu harmony. Mr. Kim bled from the Manilow-esque Korean tunes directly into a Christmas medley. Talk about being grateful for my ability to hear a tune and play it in practically any key--try Oh Holy Night, Deck The Halls, and O Little Town of Bethlehem in C#, F#, and A, respectively. It didn't bother me to play Christmas tunes. I'd be willing to play Mexican polkas all night as long as there were a stage and real people in the audience.

Our finale was "Summertime." We played the head tune and I took a few choruses solo. Then it came time for Mr. Kim to solo. He had literally thousands of cool sounds to choose from: the Hammond B-3, electric organ, electric piano sounds, etc. But no, his jam sound of choice was a stately church pipe organ. Standing there, my sax around my neck, I suddenly felt reverent, like I was at church and being watched by the bishop. Or maybe St. Coltrane, who knows.

We ended our set together, and Mr. Kim announced something into the mic in Korean, most of which I didn't understand. I did understand "American" and "saxophone" and figured that the resounding applause was for me. I was touched that Mr. Kim gave me not only the opportunity to play but then all the credit for it. I thanked him. He told me to stick around because another saxophone friend of his was going to play a set in about 20 minutes.

I took a seat at the bar, and an orange juice appeared magically before me. Two businessmen were sitting a few seats away from me at the bar and doing a nice job at knocking off a couple bottles of whiskey and an enormous platter of fried squid. I could tell that the one closest to me was anxious to tell me something. After another half bottle of whiskey, he got up the nerve to make his way over to me.

I was stewing in the joy of just having played when he tapped me on the shoulder. By his gestures, I could tell me appreciated my playing, and I thanked him in Korean. He then offered to buy me a drink. I drew a martini on a pad of paper and circled it with a line through it, indicating that I didn't drink. He looked at me like I was absolutely knocked about the head. I couldn't quite figure out how to let him know that I didn't drink as a religious choice. I ended up drawing a cross on the pad and then pointing it to the "no drink" sign I'd made. He still looked at me. I guess I panicked because I the next thing I knew, I was crossing myself then pointing at the "no drink" sign. He sort of understood this and slunk back to his seats muttering something impolite about Catholics. Sorry Catholics.

Unfortunately, this wasn't the end of drunk guy, for he had something very pressing on his mind that he had to tell me. His three-word English vocabulary helped communication very little. The bottle of whiskey in his head helped communication even less. I spent the next half hour trying to figure out what in the HELL was so pressing on his mind regarding me by playing pictionary and charades with him. He was certifiably terrible at both. I've decided that drunk people are rarely fun to play with--unless it is at their expense.

In the meantime, the other sax player had begun his set and was playing to the karaoke. He followed the tunes well and had a decent, though rough, tone. He wasn't bad. Hearing the Korean sax player confirmed what I understood of the Korean musicians standard: sappier than Canadian maples in the fall. Good to know if I want to land a gig in K-town. Make it sweet and gooey.

Drunk guy still hadn't given up and had called one of his friends on his cell phone and was shoving it in my face. I took the phone and after one word, "yobosayeo," I had exhausted my entire repertoire of Korean phone vocabulary and etiquette. I was relieved to hear the voice on the other end speak English. I ended up having a delightful conversation in English with his friend (actually his subordinate in a large corporation that sells agricultural equipment, I found out).

Well, drunk guy's friend couldn't care less about the urgent message drunk guy asked him to transcribe to me, but rather was unquenchably curious about my first impressions of Korea. Though he spoke little of drunk guy, his boss, the man on the phone did apologize obsequiously for drunk guy's offer to buy me a drink. I assured him that I was flattered, despite my refusal. Eventually I hung up the phone and made motions to leave.

After another ten minutes of gestures, drunk guy finally communicated to me that he thinks George Bush is an ignoramous and that he was very involved with the SOFA conflict between the U.S. and Korea. Drunk guy was very pleased when I told him that my opinion of George Bush was probably even less favorable than his. He offered me one of his business cards, I guess just in case I ever needed some farm equipment in the future. I took the opportunity of this cheery accord to shake his hand and leave. I grabbed my horn, waved good-bye to Mr. Kim, and headed out of the door, happy to leave drunk guy, charades, plush velvet zebra shirts, pipe organs, karaoke, and Sidney Bechet reincarnate. What a circus! What an amazing, exhilarating circus!

Regardless of the chaos, I realize that it was the price for pleasure in this case.

I descended the stairs and walked giddy down the street. Again, I had put myself into the situation I was hoping for, and God just let it happen for me. I set it up and he just pushed go. Wow, he's good to me.

The night was still young, and I was feeling lucky, so I decided to try another bar. I had seen a live music bar a few weeks earlier in the same area. It was only a block away and I found it without a problem. After sharing the sixth-floor elevator ride with a particularly happy couple, I walked through the doors of MOTOWN. I hadn't used the written note yet, so I thought I'd give that a try. I wasted no time and walked directly to the bar and handed my note to a bar tender. She took it, glanced over it, and then skittered away to a corner. As I stood there alone with my horn in hand, I took a moment to look around. There was a good-sized, half-circle stage front and center with a long bar wrapped around it. On the stage was band equipment, although the PA was playing recorded pop music. People filled several tables and booths hidden in the dark, smokey corners.

Soon, a woman who looked like she was in charge appeared almost mysteriously out of the dark holding my note. She walked straight to me and in decent English made certain that she understood my note and then said, "Sure. You can play." I thanked her with a polite, little bow and then walked around the bar to put my sax together.

I laid my case down on the stage, clicked open the latches, and then began to fit my sax together. My reed was still wet and my horn still warm from the last bar. I couldn't believe this was happening. A few guys about my age appeared on stage and helped me situate a stand and a mic. Everything seemed hot and ready to go. The pop music stopped and I was on.

"All of Me" (it's the first tune in my book) floated out of my horn. I played the head and then enough choruses for a solo. I didn't think about the changes. I just felt them come and go. I played my feelings--the night, my contentment, my joy, my bewilderment in this club, this town, and this country as a whole. I played my frustration and concern about Celeste's illness. I played for the need to play. I played to feel the reed vibrate, like my own vocal chords and sing in a way my throat never could. I played the serendipity of it all. I closed my eyes and watched my emotions flow past the back of my eyelids in splotches of color--through me and over the chords. I felt like I was skipping lightly on stepping stones over a river of form called "All of Me." Appropriately named.

Just naked sax--mo accompaniment. This was a rare concert for the people in MOTOWN. I finished the tune and opened my eyes to the applause of the entire bar. People previously hiding in the smoke-filled corners had all come out and were standing at the bar, their complete attention glued on me.

Blue Skies. A Nightingale Sang in Barkley Square. Chestnuts Roasting over an Open Fire (hey, they were mad about Christmas tunes at the last bar). Then Autumn Leaves. As I was finishing the first time through the head, I half-heard some rustling of instruments and equipment behind me. Seconds later, to my complete amazement, I began the second chorus to the accompaniment of a full band. With my eyes still shut, I thought I was dreaming. Truly, this couldn't be happening. Drums, bass, and piano all playing in the right key with me and Autumn Leaves. I easily settled into their groove and let my horn ring. "The falling leaves drift by the window. The autumn leaves of red and gold." I played another chorus, solo, gave a solo to the piano, snapping along to the rhythm. I finished the tune with another chorus and a tag. I joined in applause with the bar for the pinch-hitter band that had appeared on stage. I felt myself laughing with delight.

After a round of blues, it was clear that the mysterious accompanying band was the hired music for the night and that they happened to be taking a break when I came in the door. I realized that not only was the owner of the club nice enough to let me play but the band members themselves were kind enough to let me squeeze into the middle of their sets. As I was breaking down my horn, the bass player and I swapped email addresses and telephone numbers. Then I was invited to come over and sit with the band.

I sat down to another orange juice, again magically appearing on the spot. The band members were all about my age. They were a cover band on a merciless crusade to rip off the hits, but the singers (one man, one woman) both had great pipes, and hey, why not play what people want to get paid for a gig? The band and I chatted for a moment. The guitarist told me that I sounded like Coltrane. Was I really like John Coltrane? I was flattered. Lucky for me, everyone spoke pretty good English. Then they hit the stage for their final set.

Meanwhile, the owner, the woman who allowed me to play in the first place, sat with me at the table and encouraged me in my playing and then offered me a drink. I was good at refusing booze by then and so told her I was content with the orange juice. She was cool and told me I could come back and play whenever I wanted. She asked me the usual gamut of questions: Why I was in South Korea, did I like teaching, did I like Korea, how long had I been playing the sax, etc. I told her that I was married and that Celeste and I came to Korea for an adventure, that I love Korea, and that playing the sax is in my blood. She just smiled at that.

By now it was 'round midnight and I was sure that Celeste was worried about me being out so late. The band on stage finished their last song and were packing up. I thanked the club owner and the lead singer for letting me play as they both led me to the door and politely waited with me until my elevator came. The doors to the elevator shut and I realized that I was sharing the elevator with the same happy couple that rode up with me. Strange.

I hit the street and breathed in several lungs full of fresh, rainy night air. I was livid with excitement about the entire evening. My tongue licked the inside of my bottom lip, sore after a few short sets of playing. It confirmed to me that tonight wasn't just a dream.

I was easily the most lucid person on the street at 12:15 am on a weekend night downtown. My heart was that of a happy drunk, but my brain was stiletto sharp, recalling with exactness not only the nuts and bolts events of the evening but most importantly the abstract emotions and internal experience of playing. It was recording the mental motion of floating through chords, bouncing off notes, of touching each note and sending it outward, inward, upward, or downward. Sculpting. Feeling. Breathing. . . Singing.

I hadn't eaten since lunch, more than twelve hours earlier, yet I wasn't really hungry; something else filled me. I wasn't hungry, but I did crave chocolate. I bounced into a convenient store and bought the only thing close to good chocolate in Korea--an imported Kinder bar. I paid, left the store, and walked a block to get out of the buzz of club land. I walked along a sidewalk for a while and then stopped, set my horn down, and leaned up against a tree. A street lamp light filtered through the tree's branches and landed softly on my shoulder. I unwrapped my chocolate and began to eat it deliberately while musing over my unbelievable evening.

Maybe I WAS like John Coltrane--I was alive on jazz and chocolate.

Mmmmm

The most glorious thing just occurred. I was dipping my last chocolate, peanut butter-filled Newman Os into a steamy cup of Teeccino. I crossed the line, that fickle amount of time that one can hold such a cookie in a warm beverage and not have it break from your fingers. So, to rescue my treasure, I was forced to drink the rest of my mug of 'chino. It went down warm and smooth, one of the gulps that you wish would never end. I kept the mug turned up, my mouth open like a baby bird. Slowly, the now perfectly saturated cookie slid down the mug and landed with a quiet splat on my expecting tongue. Damn! life is good. Did I mention that Miles Davis' Blue and Green is filtering through the warm light of this cozy livingroom?

Cultures and Yellow Roses

I woke up a little late this morning and took the worlds shortest shower, probably less than sixty seconds. Enough to wake me up fully and make me clean. I zipped out the door, my hair still wet into the freezing and dark morning.

I taught my 7:30 am Yoga for Stiffer Bodies class. I guess it's not so surprising that those who come, those who know that they are tight, acknowledge it and perhaps even identify with it, also acknowledge their rigidity in other aspects of living, like their undying commitment to attend yoga early on Saturday morning. I love that crowd because mostly the same group comes. It's great to get to know a group.

We talked about community today. The group happily gave each other shoulder massages. In fact, they were so into it, I had a hard time commandeering the class back into my control. People really got what I was shooting for--community. The Economics of Human Capital. They were chatting and laughing with each other and making each other feel good.

After yoga, I drove to Whole Foods and decided to do something radical: buy food to put AT my house so that if I ever became hungry (funny, happens every day, it seems) I could eat food that is already here. . . at home. I decided to put it in this heretofore forlornly box that people call a "refrigerator," which up to this point has been harboring various mold and bacteria cultures.

While at the store I bought two dozen yellow roses, and some of the most aromatic lilies. I bought stuff for a green drink (see recipe below).

While I was shopping, a happy song from Girls Just Want to Have Fun, came on, "Dancing in heaven, I never thought I'd get my feet this far . . ." The early morning Whole Foods crowd seemed to be in a good mood. This was confirmed when Depeche Mode's Just Can't Get Enough came on and people from all over the store were singing out the words (just like I was doing in my head) loudly and pleasantly obnoxious.

I came home and made my green drink because, dammit, I deserve it.

Green Drink:

Handful of baby spinach
Several glubs of coconut water
Small handful of blueberries
a peeled lime
a couple of shakes of shredded coconut
three dates, pitted.
a cucumber
half an avacado

stick all of it in a blender and blend it . . . then keep blending . . . and then blend it more . . . keep going. . .

Then drink. Yummie and uber nutritious.

Today I'm going to study and plan for my upcoming retreat next Thursday. Around two I'll go teach a group of young yoga teachers how to communicate non-verbally through body language and what not. I'm planning on spending a good portion of my day in this chair.



Scott

This Place Has Secrets

This place has secrets. I could feel it the moment I saw it.
“Attention: Chien Bizarre,” the sign warned, or bizarre only to those who don’t know deep, unyielding love when they see it. The new upholstery on the chair doesn’t hide the years of love stained into it, the chair hat Brandi is sitting in as she talks to Tim about belonging and the second chakra—energy.
That first night we stood on the dock, in the dark quiet of the New England night, staring at the ocean of starts expecting North, looking South. The house was lit up like a Jack-O-Lantern, each window glowed with an offering of warmth. Jenn and Brandi, mothers both, drew a bath, and put a sick Craig in it. We waved to him in the 2nd story window. “You’ve got to stick your foot out the window.” We turned off the flashlights and walked into the inviting darkness. Just then the coyotes began to wail and plead like lunatics locked up in the wide, dark asylum of night.
On the way back to the house, the one with one side yellow and three others cedar shake, our shoes crunched and rolled over fallen apples, sweetly fermenting under our feet.

I’d never been in a graveyard after dark. Wescott. Kate, a baby I think. Isaiah Wescott, Lost At Sea. October 1, 1867. 25 Years, five months old. Monty. Good Boy, Good Boy, 2008, buried close to the hallowed mausoleum which house those ancients that Alex loves the most: Lincoln 1956, and Dodge 1929.
In the brightness of the morning, I followed the sun outside. I moved and prayed as the sun hit me in the face. I wondered across fields, cleared centuries ago. Stones creep out of the ground, they can’t hold their secrets forever, another stone to place on the fence, probably for the third or fourth time, each 100 years or so it dissolves back into the ground only to crawl back out, be discovered by rough hands which place it upon yet another fence.

Alex and Jeryl live in the smaller house at the top of the drive, the once across from the pink house, and not the new big one with one side yellow and three others cedar shake, the one that looks over the landscape. Gratitude. No, they live in the small one because it has secrets, history and ghosts. Because it belongs. It is where Nancy used to live and some part of her still does. It’s the one across from the pink house, the pink house that is the same color of the underside-pink leaves of the crab-apple tree in the field, the leaves that lay on the October grass, bright and playful in their dying.

Bah’s for lunch. They don’t have to tell you that their main ingredient is love. You can practically smell it when you walk into the door. The Reverend with her holy jeans, her righteous ass, held me with those smoky-blue eyes and talked to me about work, spirit, embodiment and people. She’s someone who is so solidly herself that it gives me amazing confidence to be very real with her. I could tell her anything and not expect even a smile. It wouldn’t matter. She could hold anything.
We visited Craig in Bluebell where we checked up on him and watched some bad TV. It was bad, I guess, simply because it was TV. Bad because it’s canned and planned and boring but completely consuming, like a dungeon with moving pictures on the walls, furry hand-cuffs with fuzzy dice hanging from them.
Craig whose heart almost hurts worse than his inflamed scrotum because he doesn’t want to let us down for being sick. I can see amazing tenderness and understanding and kindness and other mysteries in his eyes. I can see some hurt too but there is also resolve.

This place has secrets. Who cleared these fields? Who erected these stone walls that have fallen and have grown over with thickets and lichen and moss? Wescotts? Names: Wescott. Pentagoët, Penobscot. Huppé. Necrotizing Fascia Cellulitus. Alex says that we’re living in Wescott houses. We are walking in their fields. We are looking at their ocean, the one that reclaimed Isaiah. Did I tell you that he was lost at sea, 141 years and 24 days ago?
Alders. Those damned alders who wrap their arms around the road and lovingly claim their own, just like Betsy’s ghost, Captain Guile, just like Alex’s family of ghosts, just like the embrace of this new family. The embrace of Brandi that lifts me off the ground with her laugh, a backward embrace for Tim, a backbend into the sun, and an embrace to and from Jenn, who shared Gratitude, chased away tears and when she realized she couldn’t, they chased her into the other room. Then she hugged me again but without the beads this time—just people.
Just people.