Category Archives: Miscellaneous

My Life, without Glitter

The Clock’s Lesson

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Time tells us things, but never stops to think.

I awoke this morning in Bethesda, MD, in the room I grew up in. I looked out the window, through a high, distant patch of sky, a small hole in the dense foliage. I felt as if I were looking up to freedom from a place of pleasant imprisonment, to a place of infinite love from a world with all too much hate.

I thought of a meditation image where one thinks of the true Self as the blue sky behind the clouds. I lay in bed, thinking about this burgeoning Self, the blue sky I am just beginning to really know at age 46, about the importance of starting the day off right, with clarity and calmness.

I glanced at the clock to see what time it was, what time I was starting my day. The clock said 9:11 AM. Today is September 11, 2006. It was as if I were being reminded by that coincidence, being given my lesson. Today is a day for remembering and learning.

I thought of those who perished on this day five years ago. How many of them were just beginning to find themselves, as I am? How many had already done so and were sharing their love deeply with all those around them? How many hadn’t yet even glimpsed what they might have seen if they had had some more time?

The world changed that day. I wonder if those who perished then would think we’ve really improved things. Have we really tackled the hate behind those attacks? Or have we just obfuscated it, like so many more clouds obscuring the truly clear, blue sky? I wonder. What would “blue sky thinking” tell us? To hate back, or to find some other way?

I decided that my lesson for today was this: Not to add to the clouds of hate and mistrust. I think those who perished on September 11, 2001 would not want to see hate on top of hate. I will live this day actively toward clarity and compassion. I will try to help solve the problem by my actions, my life, rather than simply hating those who fumbled the opportunity we had 5 years ago to avoid war. I will try to forgive those who’s policies of hate have now caused the deaths of thousands of our soldiers. I will try to forgive those who started a war as a smokescreen to cover their own failures.

The clock reads 9:26 AM.

My Summer of Healing

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lotus in the drivewayThis has been a great summer for me. A violinist friend, Orbella, has been staying with me 4 days a week. She plays part time with my orchestra here in Columbus. She has quickly become a very good friend. We joke that we are the happiest unmarried couple alive. If only I were straight…

Orbella, whom I dubbed “the Orb”, has allowed me to laugh my way back into a comfortable happiness. She has given me the confidence to know the respect that my 46 year old presence commands, to know the value of my questioning depth. She has showed me many things which I hadn’t experienced in years, a kind of exuberant, European sophistication. Her spirit is healthy, rich, subtle and yet very similar to mine, but younger. We are much alike. So we have learned from each other who we are capable of being. We are soul mates.

Since we both wear Chanel colognes/perfumes, we call ourselves the Chanel Twins. Watch out, here we come!

The other thing which has changed my life is the Alexander Technique. Here is that story.

For much of my life I’ve existed in a kind of abstract physical denial. I live in a world of thought and ideas and emotional reactions, barely present physically. I was always worried about the future of the past, anxious about my playing, uncomfortable with my instrument, never able to relax and just be. I was also mistrusting of everyone, including good friends. I never felt comfortable practicing clarinet where anyone could hear me, for fear of being judged, or some other neurosis. I think that being sick for so long in the 90’s, then being depressed, added to this problem. I would basically go through the day filled with anxiety, fear, inhibition, expectation, judgment and unbalance. Exercise helped. Meditation helped for awhile. Self-examination, which would seem to help, actually aggravated the situation.

I developed pain down my left neck side and behind my shoulder blade. It got worse with yoga and weightlifting. I finally resorted to chiropractic and massage therapy. I had heard of Alexander being good for musicians, but had never felt the need to explore it. It happened there was a teacher in the building right next to the chiropractor.

I went to my first lesson and was blown away at the good energy coming from the teacher. She showed me, with my own body, how it felt to have space and freedom in all movement. She suggested I stop playing with my legs closed and the clarinet sitting on my lap, since it closed a major flow of energy. For the next week, I floated as a lotus does above the water, barely aware of the drowning prison I had endured for years.

I went to another teacher, who came at the same technique more intellectually. He outlined the method:

Most of us react to stress unconsciously, and the body goes into “startle position”, head and neck pulled back and down. This position becomes a constant habit, and as a result, the rest of our body is never able to flow and becomes unbalanced and unhealthy.

The solution is to learn the body’s language and learn to consciously control it.

1) primary control, or primary flow- releasing the neck forward and up, where it is free from tension and free to flow with the body following.

2) global awareness- being aware of your 3 dimensional surroundings, your body in space.

3) kinesthetic awareness- being aware of the body “from the inside” as opposed to from the mind.

4)Part of this process is “body mapping”, learning what feeling in the body connects to what parts, and separating fact from fiction as to how things work.

5) inhibition- a positive way of “thinking before acting”; in other words, acting very consciously.

As with most people, I was acting and living unconsciously. And my unconscious habits were atrocious. My emotions were so doubting and anxious that my body felt the same. My breathing was forced, artificial and tight. My neck was constantly in the “startle position”, pulled in and back. My back was tense. My abdomen was tense, more so because of all my surgeries and the resulting scar tissue.

Some of the problems, such as the pain in my neck, will take years to solve. (Part of the reason I don’t blog much is that I had head and eye strain from sitting in front of the computer. Hopefully this will improve with better usage) But I’ve found that the body awareness I’ve learned has also helped me emotionally. My constant anxiety and fear were deeply held within my body. I had become an expert at looking relaxed on the outside, but was usually anxious on the inside.

This brings me back to the way I’ve lived my life, or at least how I’ve lived the past 12 years, but perhaps much longer: in a kind of abstract world of ideas and fantasy and emotional reactions, without ever listening to my body’s language.

I’ve learned that being in my body is a way of staying grounded. I am naturally full of imagination and millions of thoughts and observations, chunks of worlds, seeing through people, giddy with possibility, or slumped with emotional and physical stupor from self-doubt. My body was dragged around behind all those wild emotions. Now that I have “primary control” (at least learning it) I can stay grounded, while my mind is free to explore all kinds of stuff without me losing who I am.

My physical existence is also incredibly important to playing the clarinet. Now that I know better how to breathe, support, stay loose under pressure…I can play more freely, finding the path of least resistance to being a better player.

As you can see, I’ve been busy, in very good way.

I’m off on my summer travels now. For the next few weeks, until August 18th, I’ll be: hiking in the Adirondacks (the BEST healing for me), visiting Father in Cape Cod, visiting Mother in Bethesda, and attending the International Clarinet Festival in Atlanta for a few days.

Thanks for stopping by. I’ll be back soon for more explorations of of Garnet-David’s existence.

abstraction, doing vs. being

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fish in pond, Hocking Hills, OhioThe man who created personalities created a multifaceted self. He was a molish kind of man. At least that’s who he saw himself as at the moment. To others he was many things. Musician. Artist. Cook, Lover, Artist, Musician, Husband, Gardener, Egoist, Queen, queen, bottom, top, philosopher, poet, arrogant, self-absorbed, insecure, jerk, stupid, lazy bum, but always with that ever morphing idea of Self.

And the “instrument” one needs to learn in order to play out the natural grace of living is the body. Grace leads us to our core, the vibrant entity of our bodily existence.

There are two types of animals inside each of us. They are constantly in a fight for our personalities, one could say our souls.

One is greedy, malicious, selfish, lazy, hateful, bitter and leads to a living kind of hell, a numbness which says nothing about your life, or only that you missed the boat. This part never questions why, but just does, in order to get something: power, money, control, revenge. It runs ever faster to escape listening to its heart.

The other is loving, giving, modest, polite, nonjudgmental, honest, grateful, and leads to a graceful peace who’s value is never in question. This part knows that we can never really know why we are here, but also knows that the heart’s quiet voice nonetheless gives a simple answer: love and let love.

The outcome of the battle depends on which one you feed.

Sometimes I feel twisted, writhing with doubts, questioning my faults. Anyone who questions themselves will find faults. But living with grace allows us to notice and smile and be as modest about our weakness as we are our strengths.

According to my massage therapist, we are human beings, not human doings. I liked that idea. Just be.

Grace

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Grace is probably my favorite word, idea, whatever. I like it because it implies both spiritual and physical aspects of living.

Grace is a flow of peaceful presence, a trust in the depth and breadth of possibility, no matter how frail we feel.

There is a deeper, graceful sense of being alive which often bypasses me, in fact if often avoids me, or I it. It’s the sense of being in the body throughout the day. Those of us who are ultra sensitive or self-conscious can become paralyzed with thought and analysis and we lose the flow of grace.

A Sunday Afternoon...1884-6, Georges SeuratWhen I think of graceful people the image I have is of Victorian women. Though corseted and bustled and weighed down with clothing, they are trained to float their heads effortlessly over their bodies, and to flow their bodies around as if on wheels. Try walking around with a book balanced on your head.

Posture is another important aspect of physical grace. But posture is not about sitting up straight, it’s about balance, finding your center. Check out this nifty little guide to posture based on Aikido.

good postureThrough the Alexander Technique, I’ve learned to float my head better over my spine, and to flow with my body. But I struggle with old habits of misuse and self-consciousness. Thinking about doing it right doesn’t work. Learning the body’s language is tricky.

What I often forget is the flow of fearless openness, just being inside my body and gracefully flowing into deeper, more life affirming habits, letting the body flow without being affected by judgment or thoughts. Flowing forward is not very easy for me. I tend to wander deeply into the jungle of thoughts and analysis, underneath an idea, drilling for oil. These explorations have their value to me as an artist, but not if they imprison me physically, inhibiting growth and learning from the body.

jungleTo accentuate the problem I also fear being lost. (one great line from Frank Herbert’s Dune is: “Fear is the mind-killer”) I feel lost fairly often, wandering without direction, just ruminating aimlessly. I didn’t used to. Or at least I wasn’t self-conscious about it. Once one is self-conscious, either about the body or the mind or their uses, it’s hard to let go and get back into the flow.

And the symptoms of these misuses are catching up with me. I experience quite a bit of pain these days. I have pain in my knees, my shoulders, my gut, and especially behind my left shoulder blade. I’ve been working to get to the root of this pain, retraining my uses. And I’ve achieved some success. But the nagging pain has returned after a frantic day of gardening where I guess I mis-used my neck and shoulders yet again.

This retraining takes time. I’m slowly learning to be aware of each motion of body use without self-consciousness. That’s where another sort of grace comes in handy: knowing that I can only do my best, that I need to allow my humanness and its frailty, to be gentle with myself and with others.

So with trust and patience, I’m learning the mind and body flow which allows confidence and grace to grow.

Let my body and spirit flow gently forward in a timeless river toward grace.

My Blog Birthday

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Witch Hazel with SnowI turned one year old a few days ago. Aren’t you impressed with my strong verbal skills at such a tender age?! In fact, I came out of the blog womb jabbering.

In my first few days of life, I mused on the nature of Compulsive Behavior. Believe it or not, I’ve finally learned how to deal with that problem. Soften into it, smile and be gentle with yourself. The beginning of change is acceptance. If my tendency toward compulsion helped produce this year old blog, then it was worth it. Writing and reading here has been incredibly healing for me. Even if most of what I write has no greater import than that, I sense that it’s value has been appreciated by you.

One of my very first posts was about the Comfort of Friends. I’ve formed many friendships here in the blogosphere. Some have faded, but few have been completely lost. All have been valuable to me. There have been many discussions among bloggers on the nature of blog friendships. They are so tenuous, veiled, ghostly. Yet they can offer some of the deepest healing. Perhaps it’s because people can offer gentle compassion from the safe distance of electronic communication. One blogger friend, Betty, is a good friend in real life, and our real friendship is tempered by our gentle support of each other through our blog comments.

I mused on the Myth of Tomorrow, the strange wisdom of which I often need to remind myself. The quote I listed from the Gospel of St. Thomas resonates deeply as I reflect on how much I’ve shared and learned of myself in the past year.

In the past weeks, I’ve enjoyed the citrine blossoms of the late Winter flowering Witch Hazel bush which lights the way to longer days and dreamy ways. One of my first poems written for this blog features those flowers, also shown in the photo above.

Spring Light

My eyes drift to the garden,
Lifted by soft citrine light
Toward the Witch Hazel’s
Glow, lonely and bright.
Fed by waning day’s lazy rays,
Among burnt brown and grays
This courageous bush
Harassed by Frost
Beacons by it’s spry gleam
Giving patient solace to
Weary Winter’s dream.

Here’s to being a blog year old, and to another fruitful year in this rich and satisfying medium. And here’s to the dozens of friendships I’ve formed through this blog. And finally, here’s to the thrill of freedom and the right to free speech and free thought. Use it or lose it. Blog on. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. I’ve been spending time with an Albanian friend who grew up under communism.