A Bit of Excellence

Dale Clevenger, former principal hornist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1966 to 2013, is playing with us this week.  During our lunch break, I took advantage of an empty hall to practice and as I was working on the Dvorak Cello Concerto he came over to me and asked, "Do you like Jacqueline DuPre's recording?"  I told him I did. "I recorded that with her.  And played the piece many, many times with Rostropovich."  We chatted a bit and as he walked away, I felt the presence of DuPre and Rostropovich trailing him, remaining in his wake, inspiring me.

And last night I had a lesson at 11pm with Brian Thornton, a cellist in the Cleveland Orchestra, who had played with us last month and offered to do a Skype lesson sometime.  I tried calling his mobile phone through Skype as we were trying to connect, and he answered very excitedly.  "Hi!"  I said hello and there was a pause, so I clarified who I was.  "Oh, you know it's funny for some reason my caller ID said it was Lynn Harrell."  Oh no, it's me–that must have been a surprise to hear my voice instead.  He worked with Lynn Harrell and his teaching and sound carry the influence.  As he demonstrated the excerpts and concerto last night from thousands of miles away, I took in his sound, his vibrato, his phrasing, a voice and musicality passed on to him through time and care.

Such a powerful thing, these traces of people that linger in others.  What a gift that in some form these people can be passed along to us, somehow embodied beyond their physical presence, embodied in another.  Perhaps one is aware that they carry another within them, perhaps they transmit their essence simply from their ardor for that person's artistry.  Or perhaps we bring it into ourselves from the love of it, and it becomes what we share in our own being with the world.  What do we love?  What do we make a part of us?

Waiting

I am sitting awake later than usual on this rainy night, waiting for the hour when I may try something new.  It's not often that I'm waiting for a late night hour, passing the time in the evening, filling it slowly.  Waiting for an hour to bring a new experience, and in the midst of my waiting, already living one.  As the time passes and approaches what is coming, it is all too possible that the hour will not bring what it is expected to bring and in its trace will be only the waiting, and the way in which it was waited.    Every moment new.

The Stars' Necessity

When we are tired it can be hard to see what it is that we need.  But sometimes if we simply go to the practice room, walk into the doe-chang, open the blank page, we can give ourselves the opportunity to unfold.  Inspiration is not something that we can control.  Becoming would not be so miraculous if it we could schedule its arrival.  But if we do not ask, it certainly will not be emerge from us.  It is a pulling out from within.  Something new from the person to which we think we are closest:  ourselves.

How do we know that we have done enough for the day?  Sometimes, when we are tired, it seems that what is best is to go home, to rest.  But sometimes devotion can dissolve the feeling of being tired.  After a day of orchestra rehearsals, our quartet thought it was too much to have another.  But we decided to stick to the schedule and read the second movement of a Beethoven quartet.  And in that extra pocket of curiosity and loyalty, we found something really beautiful.  A new way to interact with one another and the chance to touch the genius of Beethoven with our own voices and imagination.  A pulling out at the end of a long day.

What more exists within us?  What more can we discover if we ask a little further?  What may come to us with a little more effort, with a little more sacrifice of comfort?  It can be terrifying to imagine what we may be capable of doing.

And even in this endeavor, the path of discovering the extent to which we are capable, we can only bring ourselves to the door and keep asking ourselves to ask.  Asking ourselves to give.  We are only human, but we are capable of trying–for ourselves and for the sake of others.

Invisible

What a gift, the sound of rain

Sleep Trains

Sometimes on trains, people fall asleep on your shoulder.  It's just a part of riding the train in Japan.  Today my neighbor leaned against me and dozed off and I looked out the window at the beautiful weather in Japan.  I daydreamed through my stop and rolled over the bridges of the wide river to Osaka.  A crow glided over the water, over the banks, and when I returned to the train, she was still sleeping, leaning against me.

When we came to the final stop, she awoke and looked at me with wide eyes.  "Sssorry," she said, slowly conjuring English for my benefit.  I smiled and laughed and said, "Eeeeeee," the Japanese way to say, "It's all good, no problem."  The old man across from us smiled and laughed, too, recently awakened from his own slumber.

And then we slowly got up, and got off our Sunday afternoon train to greet the world awaiting us.

Target

One of the things about this world that seems to become more apparent as I get older is that few things are black and white.  The future is uncertain, no matter how much planning one does, and hard work cannot necessarily promise a given outcome.  There are ways of living, chosen ways of living, and whether they are right or wrong is simply a preference of the one who lives them.  Where is the jury awarding points?  We can strive towards goals, work towards ambitions, but what are the terms of the compass we follow?

Sometimes it feels like swimming in a pool of no up or down.  But today I received something in the mail that I had ordered a few days ago:  a martial arts target.  After two years of kicking into the air, I may have something towards which to aim.  And that has a comforting feeling.

Doing Nothing

I read recently about a man that would occasionally take a day and devote it to doing nothing.  When  asked to join a friend for lunch he said,  "I can't today.  Today is the day that I do nothing."

What does it take to be able to spend a whole day doing nothing?  And what would it give?  In these slower days, I start to hear more, to see more.  I wonder if I might ever notice the daily schedule of the planes to and from the nearby airport, the routines of my neighbors, the patterns in my breath.  Surely one is always doing something, to some degree.

What courage and calm would it take to relinquish the act of doing?  What would one learn?  What would one practice?