How to Unlock Your Teacher's Super Powers

Yes, your teacher has super powers. They are hidden, and you the student hold the key.

I am thrilled to have this article included in the latest edition of the American Suzuki Journal, and they have seen fit to put it up on their website this week. It is a special message for students and their parents, and absolutely just as much for those outside the Suzuki world as for those within.

If you want, you can tag your favorite superhero teacher on the Suzuki Association of the Americas Facebook page, here.

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"Imprint" at Rock and Sling

It is an honor to have my piece, "Imprint," up on the Rock and Sling blog this week. It pulls together some things I have been mulling over for months (sparked by the baby mouse and its siblings pictured below) and I am so pleased to be able to finally have it out in the world. You can read it here.

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Update: May/June

I am honored to have had two pieces published recently: an article in the American Suzuki Journal, and a poem in Rock & Sling (Issue 12.1.) 

It was a special treat to see my article in the ASJ featured on the mailing label that came with the journal--I am rather proud of that. The article, "Walk the Hills, Crawl if Necessary" was something I worked on for months this past year. The basic point was that as parents we run into times when we have to loosen our grip on our expectations, that sometimes what looks like stagnation is still a moving-forward, just maybe hidden, or very slow. It ended up being very, very close to home, and depending on the day (week/month) it was sometimes nearly impossible to write about.

The poem in Rock & Sling was also difficult to write. "The Beatitudes" by Vladimir Martynov, Rescored for Kronos Quartet was a piece I nearly gave up on. It began as an assignment at a poetry workshop I attended in 2015, the last assignment at the end of an incredibly full, intense week. I hated what I had written so much I decided not to turn it in. In the end I could not leave it alone, either, but it took many months to shift into its current form.

Today's theme? Never give up. Time is kind of a magical thing, and I keep forgetting to factor it in. 

I have been working on several projects while away from this blog. Day-to-day what I see around me is Mess, but over the course of time I can see that I am making progress. In time I hope to share about those here. In the meantime you can find me a little more frequently on Instagram.

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Rock & Sling 11.2 link, plus a picture

The current issue of Rock & Sling is now for sale on their website. It is an honor to have my poem, "Elision," included in it. "Elision" is a spring poem, about a chamber music concert I played in a few years ago. There were birds nesting up in the ceiling above the stage, and those of us waiting backstage could hear them singing their hearts out while our colleagues played onstage. The sound was magical and is something I carry with me still, but what also lingers is the momentary dissolving of walls. It is not often that I have felt like such an active participant in the ushering-in of spring. If you are interested, you may buy a copy here.

I had the briefest moment earlier this week, waiting in the car for Youngest to come out from a lesson (You don't have to come in anymore, Mom, it's okay) when the walls dissolved again, rain and trees and windshield melting into something new and beautiful. I even had enough space in my phone to get a picture. Happy spring to you, friends. May you turn and catch the walls dissolving every once in a while.

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"That Hard Passage," ASJ

Last fall my friend Sarah asked me to share what I had carried with me into adulthood from my childhood Suzuki training. There are many things--part of what I love about teaching is that it keeps showing me more about not only my own musical training, but my whole upbringing, deeply informed as it was by Shinichi Suzuki's teachings and philosophies. But this answer, what I am starting to think of as the discipline of beauty, is the one closest to my heart. I think it transcends the Suzuki philosophy, actually, to all of music and art, but this is where I encountered it in my own life. I am thankful to the American Suzuki Journal for giving me the chance to share my essay, "That Hard Passage," with a larger audience, both in their most recent volume (44.3) and here on their website.

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Recently--Spring 2016

Music and dance and field trips and State Solo and Ensemble contest and recitals and concerts! And plans for the summer and plans for next year. It is hard to even think straight, this time of year, but somehow we always make it to summer. In between, especially as the kids get older, are conversations about music and art and justice and politics and kindness. Oldest shares what he is listening to. Middle, even if she is sleeping over at a friend's house and her phone is dead, will make sure I know the moon is rising outside, full and magical. Youngest shares her art and her passion and her compassion. Husband brings home mystery snails and we delight in them, some of us maybe wishing we could move through the world the way they do. And there are small treasures to find outside as the world warms and greens: seeds and sprouts, fireflies, the sound of frogs, the scent of lilacs and honeysuckle.

Found, 2/13/16

The plan is to spend the season of Lent looking for signs of the Divine in the world around me, and to share what I find.

Re: music, and what finds its way in, and what finds its way out:

It does not matter what else happened that day, or is going to happen, or did not happen. If Tchaikovsky wrote a symphony 150 years ago, and wrote triumph into the final pages of the final movement, it is possible for an orchestra to play those final pages and create triumph right there on the stage. Not a ghost-triumph, but the real thing, living and breathing. I use the word magic a lot, but I think this is one of the reasons why. It is possible to become that thing written into the music for a time, whatever else you are. 

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Found, 2/12/16

The plan is to spend the season of Lent looking for signs of the Divine in the world around me, and to share what I find.

It is a special kind of finding, catching soft strains of Mozart coming from his room late at night. He first heard this music when he was four, on a story CD borrowed from the public library. We listened over and over, and I plan to never forget how long it always took for him to put his socks on in the morning, busy as he was singing "Der Holle Rache." For months now, he has gone to bed with this music playing softly in the background. I imagine how the notes work into head and heart, how rich it is to sleep with these phrases braiding through the body, vining along muscles, nerves, synapses. Bird man and prince, music and silence, the Temple of Ordeals. All of it finding its way in. Something new finding its way out.

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Light, 12/20/15:

Today's light: sparks, flashes, warmth. 

Got lost in music, in making things, in the people around me. 

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Light, 12/3/15:

Today's light: what these kids can do.

Light, 12/2/15:

Today's light: honestly, today was dark. I caught the news in between private students and Violin Project, and all I could think on my way to the school was, I am going to go spread light now, because it is the only thing I can do. And I saw Oldest walking through the park on his way home, and I got to class and saw the faces of my students and the volunteers who help me and friends who teach at the school and Middle and Youngest because they wait for me after school and Oh, this work drains me but all those faces connected to all those souls--they were the real light.





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Thankful, 11/13/15:

For when words fail but you still have a voice.

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Thankful, 11/6/15:

For the fact that at night often people gather together to sing and make music. For the image in my head of the satellite picture that could capture the glow of this in a dark world. For the chance to be in one of those glowing places tonight.

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Learning to Speak

1. Yes, I am convinced by now that God speaks—all day, all night—in a stream of beauty and oddities, in kindness, in the words of friends and strangers, and also in pain, in shake-up, in freak occurrence—anything that cracks the veneer we seem so fond of. There was a time I could not pray words, at all. Had nothing but some kind of silent reaching, and looking, and listening, hoped that what I had could be enough. If I could see one beautiful thing, or enter into a phrase of music that reached for heaven, or hear words from a friend or a book that touched the rawest, hurt places, I could take that personally. Maybe God was not silent. Maybe I could listen more carefully. Maybe I could learn better the language I was hearing the most. It is a delicate, difficult language—

2. We visited Oldest at music camp and after four weeks finally got to hear him talk and talk. It was the most comforting wonderful sound. I took pictures of him, even though he did not want me to—couldn't help it. Mostly I took them from the side or behind, but in one picture he is looking straight at me, part pained, part perplexed. Why, Mom? When we hugged him goodbye (two more weeks) and left I was not crushed—only because he told us things. At the parent meeting on the first day of camp, we were given advice: You are not doing anything interesting. There is nothing going on at home, you are not having an amazing vacation without your child. You do not need to encourage homesickness, and your sons and daughters need to focus fully on what they are doing here. I am trying to follow this advice, remembering that “We miss you” gets boring, anyway. I send texts and pictures: oddities, funny happenings, shared memories. Translation: I love you. I am here, always. Recently it dawned on me what language I am speaking.

3. It is a tricky one, this language. Delicate, difficult—language of giraffe’s eye, seed fluff, spark—language of lifted veils and torn curtains. Language of accumulation: snowflake-upon-snowflake, word-upon-word, phrase-upon-phrase. Tear-upon-tear and kindness-upon-kindness. The stars speak it fluently, also the very old, and the very young. And trees, their arms forever lifted. I am only learning, the syllables clumsy on my tongue but also round, smooth. Phrases catch in my head, circle softly, carve deep. I hear them in dreams, they fall at my feet. Listen, and listen. Finally venture a word here and there, cringing at my own accent: beads of honey, hints of salt. 

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Found, Day 28

I play sometimes with a not-quite-local community orchestra. On scattered Tuesday nights throughout the year I join Husband for a 180-mile round trip plus 2 ½ hours of rehearsal. It has become part of our routine over the last few years, even though the first year we lived in this Midwestern town I did not play violin at all. That first year I thought I had left music behind me.

That first rehearsal—after such a long break, after thinking my life as a violinist was over—it was like finding a piece of myself I hadn't known was missing. I won't say that reincorporating that piece has been easy, but it seems to be necessary. And it has grown—more than I thought possible.

I have maybe—hopefully—grown with it. These Tuesday nights are tiring but invigorating. The schedule an uneasy thing, but the music more enjoyable than ever before in my life. Because the thing is, the music is still the music no matter what the circumstances, and I get to be a part of it. There was a time I would have viewed my part-time community orchestra member status as a failure, but given what I found getting to this place—what a find.

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Found, Day 15

This today was gold: a TED Radio Hour broadcast on Making Mistakes. It's an older show, from almost 2 years ago, but it was new to me, and worth sharing.

"Every mistake is an opportunity in jazz." (Jazz composer Stefon Harris) I love his musical illustration of this. 

There's so much in here. I don't want to write about it right now, I want to internalize it all, let it simmer, pray that it will seep back out in ways I can't predict.

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Found, Day 9

It is ice-cold today (11°, sky-blue, bare,)

but I have found a patch of sunlight

to cover and warm my legs while I practice.

The heat stays with me when I get up—

while I light a candle

(tangerine and bergamot, mandarin and thyme)

partly just because

partly in honor of the moment,

in honor of being awake,

in honor of the chance to tease out

the meaning of what’s in front of me.

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Found, Day 6

My attempt at found poetry. Except I misread a word, fell in love with the misreading, and could not make a different poem happen.




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Found, Day 5

Tonight, this ("The Beatitudes", Vladimir Martynov.) Kronos Quartet has a version that is equally beautiful. 

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What You End Up With

I have next to no expertise with a camera. I am in awe of what people who have skill can do with their cameras, and I’m frequently frustrated by what I can’t do. But I’m also fascinated by what I can capture, even in my ignorance and lack of skill. In the car with Husband a few nights ago, appreciating again the colors of winter in my adopted state, and setting sun, and gentle rolls of fields, I took as many pictures as I could. I liked so much of what I ended up with, even while I didn’t capture exactly what I saw out the passenger seat window. Expectations aside, I ended up with something beautiful. I was still participating in some form of seeing.

That play of expectations and my response and what I end up with in the end—it can make me crazy, but it also makes life something of a holy kaleidoscope. And I like that. A lot.

It struck me a few months ago, while walking an unruly bunch of young violinists back from the bathroom and wondering at the crazy swinging we do every day between off-the-wall-tired and brilliant-short jags of learning: what if one of our primary responsibilities while we wade through this life—this chaos—is to dip our hands into it as it flows past and make something of it? Sometimes it requires great skill to form something (smooth, perfect, compact maybe, or maybe towering and grand.) Sometimes all that is needed is to reach into the torrent and hold up, shining and raw, what I get hold of. Either way I am on a treasure hunt. Either way the best thing next to the find is showing it to you.

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