Collaboration

Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring, by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan, illustrated by Brian Floca, Roaring Brook Press, 2010

Not only do I get to play “Appalachian Spring” next weekend, I stumbled across a picture book about it at our local library. Then, thanks to YouTube, I watched Martha Graham perform the ballet. What a treat.

To be honest, I’ve played a lot of music without knowing the story behind it. For one thing, I haven’t always been interested in doing the research on top of practicing my part. Besides, it is perfectly possible to play a piece well without digging deeply into its historical or theoretical context. But I can’t think of a single time that knowing more has detracted from a work, either.

This book details the collaboration between dancer and choreographer Martha Graham, composer Aaron Copland, and artist Isamu Noguchi in creating the ballet “Appalachian Spring.” From struggling with the script and characters, to going back and forth about the set design, to finding the right notes, the best order of scenes, and the most expressive steps and movements, the authors guide readers through the complete creation of this ballet, from the barest bones of an idea to the first performance. It strikes me as a very good example of the creative process, and I like how both the text and illustrations capture the feel and mood of both the music and the dancing.

My favorite part of the book, though, is the final sentence. After taking readers through the premiere performance, the authors say,

…the life of Appalachian Spring goes on after that great night to become an American favorite, to be danced year after year. New dancers will take their turns to move to Aaron Copland’s music, to interpret Martha Graham’s steps, to dance through Isamu Noguchi’s set. And the collaboration will be created anew.

It would be easy to glide past those last seven words without much thought, but there’s so much packed into them. And the collaboration will be created anew. Classical musicians are not creators in quite the same sense that composers, artists, and writers are. They play a special role, taking something that has been created by someone else and bringing it to life in performance. Their role as interpreter means they are bound to somebody else’s creation, and they walk a line between being faithful to that other person’s intent and making it their own, “creating it anew” every time they play it. Then, too, there is the relationship between conductor and orchestra, and even between individuals in the orchestra, as they work together and respond off of one another. It becomes a living collaboration on all sorts of levels.

Beyond all that, too, there is the play between a piece of music, or a work of art, and its context. Now that I know some of the story behind “Appalachian Spring,” now that I have seen a video of Martha Graham dancing to the music, I will be playing with new understanding. Chances are there won’t be any noticeable changes in what I do, but I will get to interact with the music in a new way, with new understanding. I will step deeper into the collaboration myself, and keep company with some amazing people.

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10 Bits of Magic

Remembering that grace and wonder abound if I’m willing to see it:

1. Stepping out of routine
2. Making myself say yes when they ask to help
3. Popping fruit from papery husks
4. Busy hands
5. Color
6. Surveying the pile
7. Work chatter
8. Creative mess
9. Bubbling juices
10. Sweet warm kitchen

What bits of magic have you seen or experienced recently?

I would love to have you join in! List your own "10 Bits of Magic" on your blog with a link back to me, and use Mister Linky to leave your own link below. (Or, if you prefer, just list a few bits you've seen recently in the comments below. It is a joy to hear from you, either way.)

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Slow and Steady

I’m working on my tortoise side these days. Trying to remind myself that daily work is something that can be trusted. I know from violin that carefully and steadily working through an etude book does amazing things, even if I am unable to accurately judge my progress along the way. Even if I feel like I’m spinning my wheels. So why in real life do I go into a panic every few weeks and try to sprint for long distances?

My dad brought Myrtle the turtle home from a pet store when I was five or six years old. My parents had promised me a puppy after our Old English sheepdog died, but I suddenly got a lot healthier after he was gone, and allergy testing confirmed that I was very, asthmatically, allergic to both dogs and cats. And so, Myrtle entered our lives. She is decidedly un-cuddly, but she's got character.

She is still going strong after 30-some years, and I’ve had many occasions to watch her in action. She has her own strong, stalwart beauty. She is mostly shell of course, but her skin, besides being scaled and wrinkly, is also a deep red-brown color, and her throat is speckled all over with orange. Her legs and neck are incredibly muscular. If you pick her up mid-stride, her legs will keep moving, trying to find the ground, and her neck strains ferociously. It is surprising to feel how much power those limbs have. You might not think a turtle could wiggle out of your hands, but Myrtle has been dropped a number of times through the years, and it isn’t always the result of clumsy handling.

When all is said and done, she is faster than you might expect a turtle to be. During warm weather, when she is let out of her aquarium to roam my parents’ house, she disappears quickly. And when she really gets going—when she is in full stride, all muscle and will—she extends her neck all the way out of its shy folds, revealing all those wonderful orange speckles. It turns out her throat is her most beautiful feature.

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10 Bits of Magic

Remembering that grace and wonder abound if I’m willing to see it:

1. Apple season
2. Spray of tiny yellow flowers
3. Fat toad hiding in plain sight
4. Spider web jeweled with rain
5. Cool nights
6. Slumber party
7. Outdoor art fair
8. A cake baking in the oven
9. Warm sweatshirt
10. Stack of books, waiting to be read


What bits of magic have you seen or experienced recently?

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Nature Walk

Glory be to God for dappled things—
    For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
       For rose-moles in all stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut falls; finches’ wings;
    Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
       And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.


All things counter, original, spare, strange;
    Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
       With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
                                    Praise him.


                                                   “Pied Beauty”
                                                   By Gerard Manley Hopkins


I took the kids for a hike in the woods on Friday—it was our third time on that particular trail in two weeks, and something I hope to keep up throughout the school year. Everybody had a notebook and pencil, along with instructions to write down whatever they noticed. We could have stayed out there for hours. Unfortunately there wasn’t enough time (when is there?) and we had to get home to host a slumber party, but while we were there they couldn’t stop observing. It turns out I couldn’t, either.

I’m not sure it ever struck me quite the same way before, but it seemed like everything I saw was spotted, dotted or striated, everything all about variation. Striped acorns, speckled leaves, layers of sound (wind over birds over crickets and frogs.) Everything was intricate detail, nothing solid, nothing repeated quite the same way twice.

When I was a grad student and playing with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago we had regular coaching sessions with the principal players of the Chicago Symphony. One session that particularly stands out was when one of them addressed the fact that there are a lot of unhappy orchestral musicians out there—bored, unsatisfied people who have been playing the same standard repertoire for years. He, on the other hand, told us he loved his job. There’s no excuse, he told us. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve played a piece; if you don’t discover something new each time, it’s because you aren’t paying attention.

What a thought—that there’s always more there to discover. That there are layers and layers of detail waiting to be noticed, whether I am engaging with a work of art, or a forest, or a person. If I’m looking, there’s always something new.

10 Bits of Magic

Remembering that grace and wonder abound if I’m willing to see it:

1. First yellow leaves, gold coins hanging
2. Squirrel spiraling up a tree
3. Playing Copland
4. Fat, green acorn
5. Favorite cinnamon roll, brought from afar
6. A trail through the woods
7. Moss-covered rocks
8. Birthday cake
9. Blowing out every candle on the first try
10. A weekend that ends too soon

What bits of magic have you seen or experienced recently?

I would love to have you join in! List your own "10 Bits of Magic" on your blog with a link back to me, and use Mister Linky to leave your own link below. (Or, if you prefer, just list a few bits you've seen recently in the comments below. It is a joy to hear from you, either way.)

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Overwhelmed

Dear friends, I hope you’ll forgive my barely-edited ramblings tonight—

I’m overwhelmed right now by your comments. Some of you leave comments on Facebook, where I post links to this blog, others leave comments here. Some of you tell me in person that you have been reading, and some of you send emails. And I don’t know how to respond, exactly, except to say a very heartfelt thank you. I’m listening. I’m paying attention to what you comment on, and I’m trying to learn from it how to be a better writer and a better person. I often feel that I could do a better job responding to what you say, and I can only plead old shy-girl habits, feelings of not having the social grace to respond “correctly.” But thank you for coming back here and reading and responding. You are a blessing, and I do believe you are changing my life. I have no idea how to repay that kind of generosity.

I’m overwhelmed, too, by this day. I feel this urge to say something, to remember, to be wise and serious and hopeful. But I feel like anything I personally have to add is a little cheap. I wasn’t in New York City, or Pennsylvania, or Washington D.C., and while the events of September 11, 2001 affected me deeply, my share of the story is nothing compared to that of those who were more directly involved. Suffice it to say, I remember thinking that it was quite possible the world as I knew it was falling apart right in front of my eyes. It was also the day that Oldest took his first steps alone. And until ten years ago, the significance of September 11th in my life was that it is the day between my mom’s birthday and mine. Now personal joy is forever mixed with communal horror and grief, and there is no denying the darkness, even while I try to keep my focus on the light.

How do you respond to feeling overwhelmed? I tend to get very quiet and withdrawn, to cut myself off from the people around me. After a time I hit a point where I need to talk, write, make things, play music; in essence, to communicate. And coming back out of myself to find other people again—that in itself can be an overwhelming experience. But oh, finding the light, basking in it naked and blinking in the company of friends—that is a beautiful thing. Thank you for letting me know you’re all around me.

White

Purity. Light. White. I remember when I learned that white was not the absence of color, but the presence of all colors—as if you could take white and tilt it a little to make blue appear, or shake it so that red or green or yellow float to the surface for a while. That white is actually a swirl of colors just waiting to be released. How odd it seems, then, that white can appear so blank sometimes. Were you, like me, tricked somehow into thinking that white was calm, serene, boring even? But how could it be, with all that color going on beneath the surface? I like to imagine white as something teeming and alive. What other color is both searing hot and freezing cold? Life and death? Empty space and Holy Presence?

There is something to the fact that pure white light, illuminating and life-giving, contains all the colors of the spectrum.

There is something, too, about the process by which different colors rise to the surface at different times. Headed into fall, I always look forward to the leaves changing color. I think often of that one fall six years ago, when it struck me so strongly that trees would greet winter—and what looks like death—not quietly but in blazing red, orange, and gold. But especially red. I’m captivated by the thought that all those hues are inside each leaf all along, that the vibrancy is merely hidden by all the green, and only revealed when the chlorophyll leaks away.

Color hidden within color. Waiting. Things hidden and illuminated, seen only when you tilt an object, shake it, let something beautiful bleed out. It seems cruel sometimes, the way new colors rise up, and yet the new can be as beautiful as the old. And all of it is hidden within something as still and clear as white.

Many years ago, in a high school English class, the other students and I were assigned one of my favorite projects ever—to create and present to the class a symbol of ourselves. I made a folded paper box, plain and white on the outside, small enough to fit in my palm. On the inside, the box was full of color, every wall completely decorated. Suspended from the top was a tiny paper crane. From the outside the box didn’t really invite much attention, but if you took the time and effort there was a whole lot to see on the inside. Even then, though, you couldn’t get the whole picture. When the box was open the crane was no longer in its element, flying through the middle of all that color and life. You could imagine the complete picture, but you couldn’t actually see it.

It strikes me that most people in this world would see a little white box and not give a second thought to what might be inside. Even fewer would be tempted to open it. They may be perfectly nice, friendly people: “Nice box. I bet it’s cool inside. I’ve seen that kind of thing before.” But they will never peek inside. I don’t know why this is. Personally, I sometimes feel like I could spend the rest of my life just opening boxes and exploring their contents. Most, I’m convinced, want to be opened, whether they are beckoning or just sitting there.

I kept my little box for years, but after years of storage and being moved from place to place, I think it was eventually crushed and discarded. I’ve lost track of it, anyway. Here, in writing, I find it taking on a new form. To those of you reading—thank you for looking inside.

10 Bits of Magic

Remembering that grace and wonder abound if I’m willing to see it:

1. Running downhill
2. Singing harmony
3. Melted butter
4. Birthday wish lists
5. Library book sale--new books, cheap
6. "Scary" pictures planted all over the house
7. Mexican food
8. A handmade bowl
9. Creaky floors
10. Barred owls calling, 3 am

What bits of magic have you seen or experienced recently?

I would love to have you join in! List your own "10 Bits of Magic" on your blog with a link back to me, and use Mister Linky to leave your own link below. (Or, if you prefer, just list a few bits you've run across recently in the comments below. It is a joy to hear from you, either way.)

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Notes from the First Week of School

•Hearing Oldest talk about “My new friend _____,” “The boy next to me in math, who’s starting to be my friend,” is pretty darn awesome.

• I absolutely must keep exercising daily. Letting it drop when I get too sick/exhausted/stressed-out cannot be an option this year. Somebody remind me of this in October. Or next week.

•  It struck me a few weeks ago, after seeing Youngest in action at family camp, that what I’m missing is a full-time staff. She is extremely happy and manageable when surrounded by handsome camp counselors.

• Big picture. Big picture. Big picture. Big picture. Big picture.

• Middle broke my heart this week when she announced, “I hate the way I look. I’m ugly.” I, on the other hand, am in awe of her beauty. I can hear the teen years rumbling in the distance.

• You know those targeted ads you get on the right-hand side of the screen on Facebook? I had to laugh at the one that suggested I consider becoming a Professional Organizer. I’m pretty sure nobody who knows me well would ever pay me to organize their lives. Everything I do seems to involve making a big mess.

• Re: Facebook completely misjudging me: I’m rather pleased that there are ways in which I am un-pin-down-able.

• The week, warts and all, didn’t go too badly. My biggest question right now: can I keep up the pace?

• All three kids like school. This alone is huge. A miracle. I’m clinging to that and trying to take everything else in stride. (Have I given away my idealist/perfectionist tendencies yet?)

• Hope is a really, really powerful thing. And right now I’m feeling extremely hopeful about the school year ahead. Remind me of this in October. Or next week.

Black

Halfway through my first year of graduate school, my grandpa died. It was sudden; we had all been at my parents’ house for Christmas and had a lovely time. New Years’ Day he had a massive heart attack. He was unconscious for several days before he died. My mom flew to Nebraska during that time, my sister went along for support. I wanted to go, too, but everybody thought it was important that I head back to school in order to start the semester on time. So I flew back to Chicago and waited.

When I got to Nebraska a few days later for the funeral, it seemed as if everybody had already settled into their roles, everybody knew when and where to pitch in. I wanted to help in some concrete way, but there were a lot of people around, and it was hard to know where exactly to step in. My one job was to play 3 minutes of music for the funeral, and that felt like a meager thing to offer.

I played in a haze. My hands were cold, I felt numb all over, but I kept myself together because that’s what I know how to do when I’m performing. I spent a few days with family, remembering, crying, even laughing a little. And then I tried to return to life as usual.

The loneliness hit hard when I went back to school. I spent hours every day in a practice room, and all I could think about was how insane it felt to be alone in my tiny room, surrounded by other human beings alone in their tiny rooms, all honing our craft, learning how to communicate, and all very much alone. I felt like I was doing anything but communicating. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what I was working towards any more. After years of trying to make music my entire life, in the face of death it suddenly looked like nothing.

I started violin lessons when I was 2 ½, but with two free-lance musicians/music teachers for parents, I was surrounded by it from the beginning. Music has been a part of me since before I can even remember; a part of my family, an essential to growing up. For years, though, it was one thing among many. Through high school there were always books to read, stories and poems to write, languages to learn, pictures to draw. Things that drew me in, absorbed my time, my energy, my passion. Then I decided to make music my career, and I went from taking it for granted to thinking it was the only thing I had room for in my life.

I have a tendency to take an all-or-nothing approach to life. Choose one thing and black out all the rest. Put on blinders. I knew music was a tough field, and I convinced myself I had to give up everything else in order to “make it.” After my grandpa died I realized I didn’t want to—I couldn’t, in fact—give up everything for music. I wanted relationship. Family. I couldn’t let music get in the way. I didn’t want to feel the pull between family and career, and I figured if I let go of all my aspirations for one, the other would be all I needed. And so I traded one pair of blinders for another.

My life has not been wasted. Neither has my education or skill. But I’m old enough to see that my story isn’t going to go the way I think it is, either, and music never faded completely into the background the way I thought it would. I both tried to make music my life, and tried to walk away from it. Neither, it turns out, is possible. Somehow it is deeply a part of me in a way I do not understand, nor do I always know how to handle. I’ve learned since my grandpa’s funeral that sometimes just speaking from the heart—gathering up the pain, the love, the hope, and everything else, and offering it up in a piece of music that goes beyond words and deeds—sometimes that is the thing that is needed. It is not such a meager role to play, after all, and it’s what I have to offer.

“You who see, tell the others,” my English teacher wrote in my yearbook at the end of my senior year of high school. Over the last few years I have started to think of that as a call-to-arms for the artist, the musician, the writer. It is a tall order, a high calling. And here I am, a mom and (very) part-time violin teacher living in a small town in the Midwest that’s awfully short on gigs. These days the opportunities that come are precious. They are also few and far between. Maybe that will change, and maybe it won't. But maybe I have a small part to play. Hopefully there are things I can see, things that I can share from this precise point. I'm finding strength in discovering this is still something I can do. That I can be a mom, a wife, a teacher, maybe even a writer, but I have a voice as a violinist, too, and I can once again embrace it. I want to be done with trying to black out certain parts of myself. Somehow they fit together.