I heard the advice and sifted it. I kept the best.
I gave it all I had. I pursued my dreams with head and heart, my wisdom and experience guiding me.
I fully believe that every hand is a winner and every hand a loser. I played my hand. I played well and I played with gusto. I can truly say, I went for broke.
Anniversary Waltz I finished Tennessee Waltz with a flourish and segued into Moon River as she turned from the cash register to follow her husband out the door. But instead, she came to the piano and said, “will you play it again, please, that song you just finished?” She stepped out the door and grabbed him, pulling him back into the French bakery lobby and into dance hold. She was radiant in a beribboned straw hat, capris and a pressed blouse. She held him close, her cheek resting on his chest. At the end of the reprised refrain she placed a tip in the jar and thanked me again and again – all smiles, saying it was their 50th anniversary this very day! – And what a wonderful time they were having!
Secular anointing I was raised in church and I was raised to be a camp-meeting pianist. It is still somewhat of a surprise to me how many customs cross over from the church world to the secular performance world. Giving, for example. What child among us didn’t first learn the idea of giving when the offering plate was passed? We held out our hand to mom or dad or grandma or grandpa and received in our hot little palm a tuppence or a quarter or a dime. Immediately we placed the change in the plate, feeling very grownup that we had been allowed to participate in the act of giving. I see it happen weekend after weekend at the French Bakery and it never ceases to warm my heart. Jean-Pierre, the French, French Baker makes the croissants and macarons and exquisite pastries and I play the restored grand piano. Families come in. Their ears perk up the minute they hear the sound of live music. Those who were thinking of checking out a restaurant further down the street are lured inside. I smile and nod. The children start clamoring for something to put in the jar. And parents oblige. They are teaching their children at a young age to give, to share, to tip those who render a service to make our lives better. Some of them are intentionally teaching their children that you can make money in music – that regular practice pays!
There are a couple dozen one dollar bills in my tip jar, a few fives, one ten. Oh, and there are two pennies. There is a story here, I am sure, and I bet it involves a child. Two children put tips in my jar today. I wonder which it was?
When the previous piano man retired and I took on the job at the keyboard, I asked what were the most requested song titles? Requests? Said the retiring piano man. Requests? Said the proprietor with surprise. Probably just Happy Birthday to You. I had six requests in the first four mornings I played. My repertoire has increased accordingly. I made a playlist so I don’t draw a blank and fumble around, but sometimes I play on the inspiration of the moment. Such was the time a Texan sort of woman came in sporting a gold tone Hobby Lobbyesque T-shirt with the first verse of It Is Well With My Soul printed on the front. That’s pretty irresistible to a piano player with my background. Last Saturday I was letting my mind wander for a few moments. My fingers were sort of noodling about some familiar melodies and I ended up playing Waltzing Matilda. The woman at the counter paid for her pastry and turned to me. “I’m from Australia. How did you know? I’m tearing up!”
Veterans and people who just flat out love America stand a little taller when I play an armed forces tribute or America the Beautiful. Tourists love La vie en rose, tenors and vacationers like to try their voices at show tunes prompting my daughter to ask, “what do they think it is, a piano karaoke bar?”
One Sunday a couple saw me head to the restroom at the end of my four-hour set. They waited, waited just to say how much the music meant to them. Actually, that happens frequently. A thumbs up, a mouthed thank you, someone gushing that they haven’t heard that tune for years, someone else mentioning that I have a rather wide repertoire.
I am a glutton for praise. I fear I have long been addicted to affirmation. Praise is often payment in the music world. But man – or woman – cannot live on praise alone. You can’t pay the rent with praise. But just as time is money; tips are praise and affirmation. I’m not going to complain, no siree; I don’t have one complaint about earning my daily bread with music. The people watching is unbeatable. I especially love it when they dance.
Already she had been from her western Colorado hometown as far to the northwest as Olympia and Seattle and even on into British Columbia. She had travelled down Highway 1 to visit relatives in L.A. and Fresno and San Diego and flown all the way to Guam and Tokyo in one direction and New York and Frankfurt in the other. She had lived in San Antonio and Chicago and Oklahoma, but always returned to Colorado. And then she climbed on the backseat of a motorcycle and spent 21 days traveling to other places. She slept in a wheatfield in Kansas and saw the fabled Poconos and the outskirts of Philadelphia and the inskirts of Manhattan and almost ran out of gas in the lower tip of Michigan. She camped on a beach in Massachusetts and felt guilty; not merely because the sign said it was illegal to camp on the beach overnight, but because she had traveled far and wide from the western most boundary of Colorado all the way to New England and had not yet done the State of Colorado justice – did not yet know her own home state like the back of her hand. So, over the decades that followed, she attempted to remedy that. She saw the Colorado side of Dinosaur National Monument, she hiked all the trails at Colorado National Monument, she visited Rocky Mountain National Park and hiked to the headwaters of the Colorado River, she rode the train from Denver to Grand Junction and down Ruby Canyon into Utah. She camped in State Parks and saw the Royal Gorge and almost burned her feet at the Sand Dunes. She lost herself for awhile and drifted all the way down the Colorado River through Arches and Moab and Canyonlands and straight on into Arizona and saw the new London Bridge way out in the desert and dipped her feet in the Colorado River anywhere she could until it finally died somewhere out in California. And then she came back, determined to hike every trail, and climb every mountain, and paddle every stream that she could before she met her final goal of dying in a beautiful place. Nowadays her adventures are peppered with descriptive sounding places like Silverton, Ice Lakes, Highland Mary, Treasure Falls, Weminuche Wilderness, Lake City, Animas River, Cataract Gorge, Alpine Loop, Red Mountain, Grand Mesa. And you know what? She still doesn’t know her home state like the back of her hand, but what she does know is beauty.
Say yes to bliss. But what exactly is bliss? Perfect weather? A perfect temperature? A breath-taking scene? The best of company? A perfectly tuned and resolved Picardy third playing on eardrums and heartstrings? Once one knows what bliss feels like, one wants to experience it again and again. The challenge for each individual who desires a perfect day is to find what activities have in them the potential for bliss.
***
She rose at 5:45 am, which was not to early and not too late in the total scheme of things. This allowed a little time for thinking and the nourishment of a small, wholesome, bowl of oatmeal well-endowed with nuts and dates and raisins. This provided time for washing her face and popping in her contacts and pulling on shorts and a tank and still making it out for a morning walk before the summer heat of the day. The morning world was glorious. A hearty rain had fallen overnight to refresh all the living things and wash off the inanimate concrete and pavement and walls. It was not quite time for sunglasses for the sun was still on the other side of the mountain. She hiked half a mile or so up the nature trail, and even though she was the uphill traffic, she stepped aside quickly into a sagebrush when she heard steps thundering down the trail. It was either a puppy on the loose or a novice bicyclist. But, no, it was a doe, startled also to see a two-legged creature, polite, inquisitive. She and the deer observed the COVID rules of etiquette, stepping aside, leaving inquiring distance between. The doe was more curious than the human. The human merely wanted to protect herself in the bush in case the deer startled and charged. They passed without incident. But there wasn’t a lama between them – it was probably more like 4 feet. Just like two humans who cannot judge distance. She reached the top of the hill. She gazed across the valley and the vista and headed back down. At a particularly lovely juncture in the trail she thought: You know what would be pure bliss? To take the Purple Mohawk off Silver Girl and put her in the water. The kayak has been drydocked atop the automobile more than a month. It is a lovely day. My toe and my bruised rib are feeling no pain. Yes. I will choose bliss. I will take the kayak out on the river.
But first, a new piano student at 10:00 am. And second, a practice session at the keyboard. A bit of lunch whilst walking about the kitchen and filling the water reservoir. A two and a half mile drive to the put-in and finally, boat on the water. She prefers to climb aboard from the left side, probably a residual habit from riding a horse as a youngster – or maybe mounting a bicycle. Turns out this is not such a good idea when the river is running high and muddy. There is a first time for everything and it was the first time – and hopefully the last – she swamped the purple mohawk, and had to drag her out of the water and pull the plug and drain her – before even taking a stroke with the paddle. As a consequence, she was now soaked to her armpits. But it was a warm day and the water felt good. She paddled a few bends upstream. She floated all the way back downstream. She replaced the Purple Mohawk on top Silver Girl and returned home. After cleaning up nicely, she ascended the Sky Steps (all 500 of them) to the college once more and attended an end of music camp concert, something she saw on Instagram. The type of concert where the instructors and pros play with the students and it warms the cockles of your heart and gives you goosebumps. And when she got home at 5:30 and fixed herself a hot meal she thought, Now that was a perfect day!
***
How to have a perfect day? Say yes to bliss. Do you know what the potential for bliss looks like for you? If not, you can begin by saying yes to opportunity – to as many invitations and experiences as possible. Just say yes. Eventually you’ll get it figured out.
There were moments when she felt no pain. No pain from recent bodily injuries. No pain from heartbreaks of the past. No pressure and throb from stress. No emotional upheaval. No bereft of loss. No memory of embarrassment. No lingering thought of failures behind to threaten the brilliance of future success. Yes, there were moments when she felt no pain. Most frequently those moments came when she was surrounded by beauty. Because beauty heals.
A slippery slope is rarely what you think it is. Rarely a place where you stop and dither and over-think and chose your path knowing that it is or is not a slippery slope. No. A slippery slope is just any ordinary trail like every other ordinary trail you have ever hiked that suddenly, without warning causes you to lose your footing and stumble. The last time I had a memorable fall on a hiking trail was coming down Gold Star at Colorado National Monument. That time, on a very innocuous portion of the trail, my feet rolled on pebbles and my arm landed on teeny tiny cactus. The year before that, I was on a presumed dry portion of Clunker and I slipped and my entire backside got plastered with bentonite mud. I am pretty sure these are not the kinds of falls and stumbles the public health interviewer is asking about when she says to someone over sixty, “How many times have you fallen in the last year?”
*****
I was hiking on Monday – something I do as often as possible – maybe 6 or 7 days a week – sometimes twice in one day. It was hot – hotter than I would have liked – but then, it is summer and even though I was at 8,000 feet in elevation we were enduring a heat wave. It was not a new trail nor was it new to me. I clipped along at my usual pace seeing no one until two runners passed me beside the wetlands. I continued through a mini alpine jungle and began the descent that would take me through a run-off, seasonably dry. Still nothing unusual except the heat of the day – although it should be noted as the heat increases, dirt and scree seems to become looser, more apt to be volatile. Mid-stride my foot skated on a small piece of rock. I went down, not to my face or to my butt but folded up like an accordion. My toes curled so tight as my balance reflex kicked in that I felt a sudden, bright pain in my big toe – a pain I haven’t felt since I lost a toenail in childhood. At the same time the elastic to the left and under my breastbone snapped. Wait! Elastic? Do I have a tendon running horizontal under my lowest rib? Whatever it is, I heard it and felt it. I felt it right in the same place where I sometimes feel a niggling little flutter as I try to drift off to sleep at night after planking for 10 seconds extra – and it’s not my heart. Well, I was certainly able to continue my hike and enjoy lunch in a beautiful place and make my return hike, but I walked a little slower and somewhat gingerly as I went out to the Opera House that night because my left toes – three of them – were starting to exhibit pain. I enjoyed an 8 mile walk along the river on Wednesday without pain. Sleeping at night has not been a problem. I prop my legs so the sheet does not rest on my injured toenail. I wake in leisurely fashion in the predawn light and stretch and wiggle my digits and appendages gently. Like a good chiropractic or masseuse apprentice, I explore the most worn discs and tender ligaments and muscles of my body before rising to greet the day. The area under my rib cage is definitely more tender than it ought to be. I spent some time online researching organs and ribs and rest and recovery. It’s time to go to the grocery for healthful food.
When I want to go to town, I walk in. Being the busy tourist season, employees that work on Main Street have to park up by my place anyway so I probably can’t park any closer. I live on 9th Street, but I usually walk a block or two out of my way to cross Third Avenue at a 4 way stop. It is safer that way. Not many drivers know the speed limit on Third Avenue is 25 miles per hour. Oh, I know, pedestrians have the right-of-way. But what good does it do if the car in the first lane stops considerately for you thereby luring you into the path of the second lane where the driver has no intention of stopping?
So today I walked into town. I crossed at the 4 way stop on 8th and made it safely to Main where I choose always to cross at a traffic light. I know from experience, barring any impatient left-hand turners, I can make it safely across the street once the countdown starts – even if the number is already on six. But not today. Not even setting out on 10. There will be no running today. Also no lifting, which is why I didn’t take my kayak out in the middle of the week. I slipped on a slippery slope on Monday and I need to recoup. Anyway, I walked to the store and got carrots and beets because those are supposed to be good spleen food and just plain healthy. But I didn’t get red beets – I got yellow – because even though I am not a worrywart, I don’t want to have a heart attack thinking I have internal bleeding. Self-diagnosis can also be a slippery slope.
She spent a lifetime raising young musicians. And when I say a lifetime, I mean all her adult years. I guess you could say for the 21 years previous to adulthood she was only raising one young musician – herself – but that would not accurately account for her parents’ hand in the business. Anyway, she raised three – musicians that is – three to whom she gave birth (this story is not about the hundreds of students whom she raised to love music) and she watched them fledge and fly away and continue forward with the music business because each of them, at the approximate age of 16 began to play with bands; marching bands, rock bands, punk bands, reggae bands, celtic bands, worship bands; every kind of music one could imagine. Likewise, these young musicians began to be independent, to learn more from the big wide world of music, less from the mom who gave them birth and especially they learned from the School of Hard Knocks and paying your dues. So it happened, after they were grown from home, that whenever she passed a street musician – which was usually when traveling to San Francisco or Pike Place or other colorful and cultural locations, she was careful to tip the musician – a little change here, a dollar bill there because she was never flush with money. And each time she dropped the money in the hat, she thought of her kids; wished them well. She hoped that someone, somewhere that day was dropping some money in the hat or jar or fishbowl for her children who were making a way for themselves with music.
***
He was born three weeks early and came out using his lungs and with the ability to grasp and grip objects. His parents sang a cappella harmonies while his mother nursed him. A few days later he could roll over. Before the age of five weeks he was pushing himself up to a standing position in his mother’s lap. This in itself seemed precocious. But the amazing thing was, he was pushing himself up, bouncing, keeping accurate time to the rhythmic crooning of a traveling black music evangelist. Six months later she boarded a city bus in San Antonio with this little man child held securely in her arms. She was only 19 and a little skittish of the big city, strange surroundings, people and customs different from hers. An old woman with a large and worn shopping bag occupied the seat behind causing her to think of all sorts of fairy tales with old hags. Across the aisle sat a young Puerto Rican looking desperate and hungry, she knew too much about Westside Story. She tried to make herself as inconspicuous as possible, to melt into the bus interior. But Baby would have none of that. He squirmed until he was turned to face the Puerto Rican. He stuck out his little cherub face and coughed politely. No result. Determined, Baby coughed again. The young Puerto Rican man finally looked up, whereupon Baby beamed at him and then turned his attention to the weathered woman behind to begin the social process of introduction again. Working the crowd. That was 47 years ago. To her certain knowledge, that child has been a consummate showman and performer ever since. He loves people. He reads the crowd.
Child number two had to be rocked to sleep standing up, the one who watched the patterns of the LED music readout on the stereo over her shoulder to make sure the music was not stopping, only advancing to the next song. This made sense. This child was born to parents who worked in radio and had a mortal fear of dead air time. She was the dancer who moved her arms gracefully to the music before she could walk, the toddler who sat at a piano keyboard and attempted delicate arpeggios instead of pounding. As a young adult she was the drummer, the mandolin player, the songwriter and the one woman show.
Child number three was born using his lungs and never stopped. Always self-contained, mindful and confident, he knew what was expected of him and delivered on stage by the age of five. His pitch was as sure and accurate as that of his older siblings. He was able to engage adults in meaningful conversation at a young age. He toured the world with a children’s chorale, sang for weddings, and soloed on the concert hall stage before entering high school. As a young adult he knew his path and located himself in music hubs, playing concurrently with as many bands as possible.
***
So now, when she plays the Saturday and Sunday morning gig at the French Bakery, she thinks of her kids. She thinks how encouraging they are – all three of them- how excited for her that she has this unencumbered opportunity to play live music, enter this world they have survived in and loved for decades. She thinks of her oldest child when she makes eye-contact, smiles and acknowledges each guest that comes through the door while she continues to play. She is pretty sure she learned that habit from her son. She thinks of her daughter and a one-woman show as she keeps the music humming without benefit of drum or guitar fills for a few solid hours. When happy guests tip her handsomely – and when they don’t, she thinks of the seasons her kids were busking on the streets to survive. She recalls the street musicians she has tipped over the years. And she wishes, she wishes she had tipped more – tipped it a little further forward!
While it is true she was thinking too much again – as was her habit. It was also true she kept putting one foot in front of the other – plodding but steady – continually moving forward. Today she was taking a hike, breathing deep; strong snuff breaths taken in through the nostrils, exhaled through the mouth, exercising her lungs. The focus was on using her lungs, not depending on her heart to do all the hard work. But still, she couldn’t help thinking about her heart. Inevitably, when she hiked in the great outdoors, her heart got involved. Today was no exception. Was it the sheer beauty, the majestic mountains, the crystal-clear creek, that stirred her passions, made her long for more, piqued her desire to open her whole being and consume and be consumed by loveliness – or was it love she desired?
What she wanted, more than anything, was a relationship like this trail. It was rocky. It was stony. It was anything but smooth. It was uphill and downhill and uphill again. It was sunny. It was stormy. It was sometimes difficult and other times a breeze. There were bridges to cross and mountains to climb – real mountains, not molehills. There were mosquitos, pesky, annoying nuisances, and gnats – but not all the time – and not if she kept moving. There were bears of which to beware and other reasons to sing and announce one’s presence. Her heart was singing and longing for ever more beauty. Miraculously, the trail delivered! She crossed streams and got her feet wet. She balanced on logs with the aid of hiking poles. It was not without challenge. It was tough – but beautiful. And she found herself asking, pleading, petitioning for a relationship just like this trail. A Trail Relationship, not a Trial Relationship. A relationship where no matter what difficulties one encountered, the relationship was always beautiful. Rugged. But beautiful at every step, the entire length of the journey.
A trail like a marriage, or a marriage like a trail – beautiful from the get-go – keeps getting better, ups, downs, rocky places, no regrets, always beauty.
I was re-reading Patti Hill’s book “The San Clemente Bait Shop and Tellephony” the other day. If you must know, I was perusing it to see what format she used and who did her graphic design and layout. Anyway, I got lost in the story again and I remembered Patti saying it was a story about love – unconditional love.
I was re-reading Bonnie Grove’s book “Time and Again,” as I dropped off to sleep the other night. I pulled it out on my Kindle reader the night before to see how she denoted her chapters and timeline of the story. I got lost in the story again and read to the end of the book. I pondered what Bonnie had to say – through Morris – about love—real love.
I took a nice long hike yesterday and mulled over Patti’s take on unconditional love and Bonnie’s take on unconditional and enduring love and my thoughts ran something like this:
It must be true. Too many authors write about it for it to be false. Even Charlotte Brontë wrote about it. I wonder if those authors experienced it? One thing is for certain, I was never able to get anyone to love me that way. I was never able to inspire unconditional, enduring love. Yet something is wrong with that thought right there. It smacks of control. Can you MAKE someone love you? It is one thing to admit that you have never received unconditional or enduring love. It is quite another to think you are a failure because you were never able to inspire or draw out that kind of love from another toward yourself.
***
There is, in each of us, a little trigger that if not competitive, is at least jealous.
While competition is healthy, uplifting and encouraging in its place, here are some things for which a person should never be required to compete:
The fidelity of a significant other,
The love of a mother,
The support and protection of a father,
Fidelity, Love, Support, Protection – Not out of pity or need or awarded as a trophy, but just because. Because it makes us better humans to give and receive.
Judging by my quantity of birthday cards and greetings received this year, and all the good wishes therein, I’ve a prosperous 365 days to look forward to in the immediate future.
“If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride,” I take this sell-worn saying and phrase to mean that one must take action of some sort to make wishes, dreams, plans or goals, come true. Yes, wishes are all well and good, but they come to naught unless the recipient makes choices to facilitate the wishes. Several friends wished me a beautiful day out in Nature. I took steps in the right direction. I took a drive to the mountains. I spent time outside. I put my kayak into the lake. I did my best to make those wishes for a beautiful day out in Nature come true.
My mother used to say that children should only have as many birthday guests as they were years old. Though we are at the widening end of a pandemic, I had no birthday gathering. Yet, thanks to Facebook, my birthday wishes equaled my age.
The number of actual birthday cards received via snail mail has remained static over the years;
A prompt card – always the first to arrive – from my parents; faithfully sent this year by my dad in the absence of my mom; a card from my cousin-my quasi sister; and a card enclosed in the birthday gift from my brother and sister-in-law. I have always known if you want to score the perfect birthday gift, you need a brother like mine. Now I didn’t take a single action or make a single wish to request a brother when I was three years old, but he has always had a knack for choosing just the right gift for me, be it birthday or Christmas. Thirty years ago I acquired a sister-in-law. Once again, I had no hand in this acquisition, but my sister-in-law has a knack for finding superb, artistic, one-of-a-kind greeting cards. They are lovers of everything Nature, everything out of doors, things artistic and things scientific. Together these two are expert at gift-giving. Just like wishes, cards and gifts may not arrive on your birthday. They may arrive early when someone discovers a perfect card – or they may arrive late if a proper gift cannot be found on time – or delayed due to traditional mail delivery bottlenecks. In fact, perfect presents or cards may arrive anytime during the year. But this year, this year the gift and card arrived precisely in time for my birthday – and what a winner it was! The gift was a book (which, more often than not, it is from my brother and SIL) – a debut novel by one Andrew J. Graff, and I loved it! I didn’t know they published books like this anymore. I wanted Mr. Graff’s next book. As a writer, I wanted his agent. I wanted his publisher. He writes well, and he writes about things he knows. He treats his characters with respect and understanding, he writes about things I know and have learned.
***
But, before I got to the book, I read my birthday card and the card was awesome! It had a kayak on the front and … well here, just let me show you:
The back of the card informed me that friluftsliv is the new hygge. Remember hygge? It’s that Danish word for coziness and comfortable conviviality; feelings of wellness and contentment.
Friluftslive reportedly is a Norwegian word meaning a way of life that involves spending time in and appreciating nature. My heritage is one half Scandinavian, so these words resonate with me.
Inside the card, my sister wished me much friluftsliv. My brother wished me happy paddling and many adventures to come and solitude… astonishing beauty of Nature. Those were great wishes. I acted on the wishes immediately. I sallied forth to commit friluftsliv. Because, if you want to experience hygge or you want to enjoy friluftsliv, you have to make the right choices – choices that support your wishes. Otherwise, it’s just a house of cards!
Putting One Foot in Front of the Other, Hiking for Life!
