Life in General

What Would George W(ashington) Do?

Unsettled. Uneasy. The continued violence in the middle east combined with the revelation of yet another horrific terrorist plot against innocent citizens sets my nerves on edge. Going about the everyday business of life seems almost profane in light of all the death and destruction being faced by people throughout the world. I find myself glued to the news stations with horrified fascination as they describe this latest plan to actually create and detonate explosive devices in midair. I stare in wonder at the pictures of these young people who've been arrested - plain, ordinary looking folks, yet so full of hate for other plain, ordinary folks like me and my fellow citizens. While I'm terrified by the bombs they mean to create, perhaps I'm even more terrifed by the long term effects their actions could have on my country. Will we, as a nation, spend the rest of our lifetime on the run from an enemy that can pop up anywhere, anytime, around any corner, behind any door? An enemy that has no concern for it's own self-protection, one that is in fact happy to die in service to the cause? These terrorists are like cancer cells - they grow in secret places, ready to strike wherever the body is vulnerable, with no regard for their own safety or protection.

And what has America done to inspire this hatred from this group of Muslims? I know we're a young country, and like most "teenagers" can be pretty hard to take with our arrogance and our desire to have it all right now. That arrogance has led us to intrude ourselves and our ideals into the middle eastern world in ways that have fueled the unrest in existence there since our nation was nothing more than wilderness.

Richard Brookhiser, author of What Would the Founders Do? writes about America at the time of the first George W - Washington, that is. He reminds us that our own American Revolution often "shaded into terrorism," and that the British relied on "guerilla warare" to assist them in thier fight to maintain dominion over these rogue United States. Indian massacres in New York and Pennsylvania, "laid forty villages to waste," guerrilla warfare in the south had inhabitants "persecuting each other with savage fury," and bands of "marauding "cowboys "terrorized" Westchester County north of New York City. Brookhiser writes that George Washington eschewed this guerilla type warfare, and always favored establishing a professional army that was responsible to the Congress. It was the conduct and bravery of this "professional army" that is now generally credited with our victory over the British. "The Americans didn't always do right," Brookhiser states, "but they did right more often than their enemies, and it did them a lot of good."

I wonder how Washington and the other founding fathers would handle the situation the country now faces, some 230 years after the drafting of the constitution and the original fight for freedom from tyranny. Brookhiser writes that "America is about liberty or it is about nothing." I think the terrorists we're facing know that, and are striking at the very heart of what we love the most about our country and our lives. Along with my uneasiness about the possibility of more terrorist attacks, I'm also angry. I'm angry that a group of "religious" people have the effontery to decide my nation is "corrupt" and that its ordinary citizens don't deserve to live. I don't believe George Washington would take that lying down, and I don't believe we should either.

Moving Right Along

Back to School ads are being broadcast on American television, and I've just sent sympathy cards to all my teacher friends. When school lets out in June, those three free months stretch out in front of us like an endless sea of days. We make all kinds of fabulous promises to ourselves - we vow to read all of Dostoyevsy's novels, paint the next American Gothic, cook gourmet meals each night, learn conversational Japanese, and lose 15 pounds in the bargain. Then, in the blink of an eye, it's August, and Target, Walmart and Office Depot are inviting us all in for spiral notebooks, crayons, calculators, and pens.

(At this point, I could easily turn this into a post about how much I love office supplies - and what writer doesn't? I can spend hours wandering the aisles in the office supply deparment, testing the smoothness of all the pens, feeling the weight of paper in the notebooks...ok, ok, enough! )

What I really started to write about was time - how it flees from us all, teachers, parents, gardeners, accountants, every mortal soul who finds time slipping away faster and faster with each passing day of their life.

If you think back to your childhood, I bet summer really seemed endless, didn't it? I grew up in one of those baby boomer neighborhoods, and nearly every house on our block had at least 5 kids (except for me, of course, the odd "only child" in the bunch!) From dawn to dusk we roamed the streets, riding bikes, playing various ball games, reading books, jumping into the pool...all the fun stuff that kids should do in the summer. It seemed like summer lasted a lifetime, and when September finally rolled around, I was usually ready to go back to the routine of school.

As a young parent, summer was also a respite for me. My son, bless his little heart, always hated school with a passion akin to the Bush family's for Saddam Hussein. So I looked forward to summer in those days, as a time when he was (finally!) happy and able to relax. Unlike most parents of school age children, I was never very happy to see September roll around, because I knew he would again have demons to face, and I was always facing those demons with him.

By the time he was grown, I was again enmeshed in the school year calendar because of my job in the high school. I consider myself really fortunate in my part time position, because I don't work every day. Nevertheless, when the school year starts, life gets a lot more hectic for me. It adds another two work days to my weekly schedule, as well as at least one work night per week. Not to mention trying to juggle the concerts and special events that always occur in the music deparment. Come September, my life definitely gets turned up at least two notches! So I look forward to June, July, and August as a time to slow down a little and catch up on "things."

Well, here it is, August 9, 2006. I can remember writing this post as if it were yesterday - no, as if it were earlier this morning! The older I get, the faster time goes. Rabbi Israel ben Eiezer, the founder of Hasidic Judaism wrote this:

Live in the present.
Do the things that need to be done.
Do all the good you can each day.
The future will unfold.
Who can argue with this as a mission statement for life, no matter how fast your personal time might be flying by? Because the future does unfold, and very rapidly too, like it or not. So, back to school, here we come. Let's hope we can do "all the good we can each day."

Poetry Thursday - Arabesque

The poem was inspired by one of my all time favorite piano compositions, Arabesque No.1, by Claude Debussy. It's a rich, but delicate, non-stop melody, that instantly brings to mind a ballerina executing one graceful arabesque after another.
Arabesque

Light, skittering footsteps propel her across the stage her tiny body all grace and air spinning, floating freely.

Alone she sparkles long, slender limbs like wings attitude of strength beauty beyond compare.
Motion is joy is flight, is freedom - dizzying spins, wide leaps full stops in repose.
The air is charged with the heat of her movment her passion ignites every soul in the room.
Oh, the hours she has toiled to reach this place caught in the gaze of 1000 eyes.
Held in the light of such love and devotion their admiration -nourishment
their applause - nectar.
For more poetry inspired by song, go here

Bringing Good Things To Life

photo courtesy of stock exchange

"Anything that does not bring you alive is too small for you." Sweet Darkness David Whyte
Once again, I've been "lightning bolted" by bloggers. First, it was Alexandra, who quoted this line and posed the question, "What brings you alive?" So all day, I've been going about my usual Sunday business, and silently rating everything I've done. Did sitting in my favorite chair, bathed in sunlight, with hot coffee and the New York Times bring me alive? Did making brunch and watching Magic and Molly lick their lips on tiny bites of cheese omelets and croissants bring me alive? Did shopping for accessories to match the new carpet and furniture in my family room bring me alive?
The answer - in small ways, yes. Of course, the question really refers to much larger elements of life than the homely little things I was thinking about today. Things like relationships, spirituality, careers, lifestyles. So I began reflecting on those things and marking a mental report card on what in my life might be too small. The things that really make me alive - being with my family and friends, playing music and interacting with other musicians young and old, sharing ideas with interesting people, especially through writing and reading, and seeing new things through traveling. Things that are definitely too small - shuffling papers at the office, spending too much time doing shopping and household tasks, and living so far away from my son and daughter in law.
And then I read Susannah's post, and she wrote so beautifully about living life to it's fullest every day. She too posed a fascinating question - if this were your last day on earth, what would you do? As I began to think about that, I realized that the answers were the same ones I'd given for things that bring me to life, which makes perfect sense, doesn't it? I'd spend the day with my family and friends, make some wonderful music, read and write some wonderful words. I'd probably choose to do it all sitting on top of a mountain, overlooking the ocean, and sipping a glass of very good champagne.
So on the whole, I guess I feel pretty good about my life at the moment. At least I realize that the potential is there for most of my life to be filled with things that contribute to enliven me mentally and spiritually. These are also obviously the things that mean the most to me, since they would be the way I'd choose to spend my last day on earth. In my "alive time," I could probably appreciate a larger helping of traveling, and it would be nice if my portion of paper shuffling would decrease. And even though I don't like spending most of my time living far away from my son, at least I'm able to have another home near him and visit there often.
So this was a good, enlightening exercise for me today, and made me feel better about my life as a whole. Thanks, Alexandra and Susannah, for the inspiration, which I'm now passing along to all of you. How would you spend your last day on earth? What brings you AliVe???