Return to the Land Of Autumn

I love taking the train, especially in New England and most especially in Autumn.

I become a voyeur of Nature. The trees gently discard their leaves which fall to the ground with a silky whisper of promise and rich, evocative feelings.

Winter is coming. Bare of leafy constraints the outline of the land is there to take in and there is no denial of either fault or beauty - or the rich melding of both.

So as we race through the bunched suburbs North of Boston the trees alternatively crowd and release the train; a frayed gold curtain opens and closes.

Under every tree, along each curbside, around every building Nature has taken it's sable brush to outline each in gold.

In time, I know, this trim will vanish, covered in snow or digested into the soil as a painter does who covers a perfectly good oil painting in white in order to begin again, hoping for a better result.

Unlike I, who blanks a score that isn't working for a new start that has no gaurentee of success, Nature knows that what she does is perfect now - and that what she does next will be the same.

In my life I have no such gaurentee - so I try, very hard, to love the process of living, to bring myself to laugh, even when I am most misunderstood or face my greatest loss.

Even in my moment of death, when my leaves finally fall and leave the beauty or faults of my life bare - even then I hope I will laugh as well as mourn, feeling the full measure of joy and sorrow, the same way I struggle to feel them both now.

I love Autumn.




-- Post From My iPad

A Road I've travelled before

Traveling by train, from Portland to Washington.

I'm going to the Rally To Restore Sanity, tomorrow, in DC. There isplenty I could say about the politics of the moment and, at some point, I'll do just that

But, right at the moment, my mind is taken with the journey, watching the late Autumn trees of New England, seeing the show they've put on for a thousand, thousand years.

I love travelling by train, especially on this trip. Typing on my iPad, listening to Pandora radio on my iPhone (my Piazzola channel, which, for some joyous reason, is playing McCoy Tyner ...)

The Sun sets, the train is full, almost everyone heading to a Celtics game ocurring directly over the train station at the Boston Garden.

The landscape changes to an urban quilt, inlaid with trees, all new, all grown in the last hundred years. Few of the giants from a century or more are present, I am looking at the gentrification of the remains of a third Industrial Revolution.

Look with an inquisitive eye at the stonework of bridges and embankments .... you see where old paralell tracks lay when commuter trains carried the commercial lifeblood of Boston.

I suppose it still does, but these are fingertip capillaries compared to the femoral pulse of earlier days.

The light has changed. We are now running paralell to the Charles, making our approach to North Station. Rich, late afternoon light against the elevated highways of Boston.

Time for the next stage.

-- Post From My iPad

Location:Main St,Wilmington,United States

More Than I Deserve

Very often no good deed goes unpunished. This is a rule I've seen at work in all sorts of contexts - though, strangely, not at the Orchard.

With that said, I'm always kind of tickled when I'm proven a liar.

So now, at twilight at the end of a fairly busy day I'm pleased to be enjoying a glass of Chianti, courtesy of the owner of Enzo, the pizza/wine bar that is the scene of so many of the blog posts I've written over the last few months.

The Sun is just getting done with setting - people wander by on Congress Street in couples, stopping to look in and watch me as I look out.

Recursive observation.

I helped the owner with a new device today and am pleased to report that I figured out a fairly esoteric mail problem for him.

So it was interesting to stop by and chat about their continuing router problem. Hopefully I helped and the result, for good or ill, is that I got a piece of pizza, salad, San Pellegrino water and the Chianti for free.

Sometimes just being a part of the mix - as opposed to observing from my usual catalytic point of view - is a lot of fun and worth the effort it takes.

Sometimes.


-- Post From My iPad

Transition States and Activation Energy

I helped someone set up a blog today - it was really fun to see that person see their work - even only a few words and a blurry pic shot with the iSight camera on board the iMac.

Like several people I know I spend a lot of time as a catalyst, allowing events and actions to happen but not being changed myself.

Well, maybe not totally - you can't stand around happy people too long without having your soul expanded in some way.

Strangely, the opposite is not always true - hanging around sad people won't always shrink your spirit - our natural drive is to be happy in some way and we'll find a way to do it.

I think that's why there were survivors of the Jonestown Massacre.

There are times when my sadness gets to be so great that if I had a gun and thought I could stand the noise I'd blow my brains out. But since guns are generally a very noisy proposition and I don't have any brains anyway I usually just bull my way through to the other side.

Besides which catalysts are an important part of the world and fulfill themselves by being the cause but not being a part of.

I guess that's just how it is.


-- Post From My iPad

Location:Congress St,Portland,United States

It Takes a Lot of Brass

Celebratory mood - just watched, live online, the annnouncing of scores at the Drum Corps International World Championships, from Lucas Oil Stadium in Indiannapolis. My old corps, the Blue Devils of Concord, California won their 14th world title with a convinving score of 98.90.

So here I am at Boda, having a real drink (and some peanuts) to celebrate.

From far back in my school career, high school in the 70's, actually, drum corps has been one of my measures of excellence in the performing arts.

Not in terms of content - I love to listen to a good jazz quartet (or a tango one), a symphony, a string quartet playing one of the Bartoks, modern dance by Wideman or Graham - any creative endeavor that leaves the soulnjust a little (or a lot) bigger than before.

But drum corps?

Like Cirque du Soleil (my other exemplar) it uses sound and movement to connect with the audience at a gut level, a breatheless "Oh My GOD" evocation of surprise, emotion and joy.

My biggest moment came at the end of my finals performance in August of 1977 (there's a PBS closeup of me to prove it). We finished the last note of "Rocky" - this WAS 1977, after all - and my horn came down, my eyes snapped up to see almost 40,000 people jump up to applaud.

Actually, they were screaming their fool heads off.

... and that rush, that sense of pride and connection - or affect - was what I wanted my students to feel in my public school teaching - that kind of performance and drive.

Christ, no wonder I got fired.

So tonight is a strange night, a kind of musical-magical demarcator that marks the line between Summer and Autumn. A cool, moist wind is blowing down Congress Street. I feel the end of one adventure, the start of another, rebirth by means of a quiet death.

When I was Equipment Manager during the 80's this was the day I packed everything up, checked in uniforms and horns, flags and drums, secured and locked the truck for the last time, handed my keys over to Mike Moxley, our manager, and got dropped at the airport to fly East to Maine, while the busses, now full of just kids wanting to get home to work or college or just a soft bed and home-cooked food, they all headed West.

And so this strange magic returns to my life again thanks to a short broadcast on a website. I'm connected and I'm seperated and I'm a very, very proud and lucky person tonight.

Perhaps every night.



-- Post From My iPad

Location:State St,Portland,United States

Dancing With Lawrence the Eagle

Spent most of my afternoon at the Gray Animal Refuge Pow Wow - Honor the Animals.

Haven't been out to a pow wow in well over a year. My ribbon shirt and belt, which is most all the regalia I wear, were still on their hangers from the move to my current apartment, my dance staff still leaning on the wall behind the bathroom door.

The tech staff had a meeting at the Orchard today, mostly policy updates and best practices. I learned a lot. Oh, and donuts too.

So I headed up directly after, a 30-minute or so drive.

Unlike other pow wows I've been to this one did not let dancers in for free. It was being held in the animal park and so admission was controlled by the staff. I got the impression that a lot of events were held there and that we were just part of a continuing marketing stream rather than a unique happening.

I'll have to go back when it's just a park; I'm sure it's a really great facility - there just was not time to enjoy it for it's own merits.

There were three drums in the arbor, one local, another from Northern Maine and the third from out of state. I immediately started running into friends I'd not seen in a year and felt welcome immediately.

I never really learned fancy dancing when I was living back home - mostly I'm what's known as a men's straight dancer, tall with a dignified step, an elder by bearing, and now, by years.

Or so I thought - seems I was the only really middle-aged man in the Grand Entrance. All the others were much older.

So I wonder where all the young bucks were. Imteresting.

Our most interesting participant was the resident Bald Eagle, one Lawrence, by name.

I'd only seen pictures. Today I got a chance to see an eagle up close and very, VERY personal as I was standing in the entryway when he was brought in.

Instructions were specific. We stayed still and did not move, especially dancers with bustles and large feathered tops since those could be mistaken for small animals.

There have been incidents of dancers being mistaken for small animals and the bird, eagle-eyed though he was, had an aspect that made you think he was thinking how you would go with ketchup.

A very large bird, a top-of-the-food-chain raptor, a descendant of velociraptor, a killing machine who could perch on the end of my outstretched arm and easily, gracefully take my nose cleanly off my face in one lightening lunge.

For those sensitive to such things it was clear we were NOT at the top of the food chain.

For those not so sensitive, Lawrence was just something to photograph, a thing that was there to be observed and delighted over, respected even - but something not part of the immediate world.

Watching people watch the world, not as active participants but behind emotional glass, looking at it, snapping pics and then going on their way back to their own insulated pocket universe - it was maddening

I'm surprised at the vehemance of my reaction, but it's a very real thing.

For example, you should not take pics during the first three dances of a pow wow - the Grand Entrance, the Flag Song and the Veteran's Honor Song. These are considered real ceremonies and not just excuses to show off the singing talent of the local high school junior All-State soprano.

Still, today despite numerous announcements, there were still people taking pics as we went around. I had to walk up to the rope and tell them - we were past asking - to not take them.

I hate to admit how satisfying it was to do it. But it was satisfying.

Respect. Connection. Not nessecarily in that order.




-- Post From My iPad

Tango de Nuestro Adios

I have no words for "goodbye".

There is no way to admit

That you no longer will

Be part of me.

Just by you

Being you

I will be more myself.

Just to keep you

In my heart

When you're a continent away

Will shake the snowy globe

Of memory.

The old dance of magic,

Of joy,

And love,

Will call me to the music,

Spin my tired soul across the floor,

School me, once again,

In listening with my soul unfettered,

Free to sing and dance

The music others often hear better than I,

The lovely, graceful song of my own heart.

-- Post From My iPad