Smiling in Sante Fe

I woke up this morning and had no idea where I was. For a few seconds, I looked around in the semi-darkness and a few scenarios popped into my head jolting me around in space and time before I remembered I was in Sante Fe visiting friends I knew from my time in Moab, Utah.

Good friends. The kind of friends that no matter how long it's been since you've seen or spoken, there's no awkwardness and time takes on a funny quality as in 'Wow. How could you have done all that in the time since we last saw each other when it feels in this moment like it was just last week when Nat did that double pitch climb and Adam and co. hosted that 'roll your own sushi' party and then we were all laughing at that music festival when I bought a turkey leg and grease was dripping down my chin and one of y'all said 'Isn't this the girl who's about to go live on a vegetarian Buddhist lettuce farm?!?!?!?!?'

I sit here in amazement too because I had no idea Nat and Adam were back in the states. Last I heard, Nat was getting her Master's back in her homeland of Canada. When I arrived in Alburquerque a week and a half ago, I posted it on Facebook and Nat saw it and told me that they were in Sante Fe which is superclose to ABQ. I emailed back, thinking they were on vacation, saying I hope they are still there when I finish my training. It turns out that they live here and so after wrapping up in ABQ yesterday afternoon, headed up here and I feel so happy to reconnect with them.

I have felt quite disconnected from my friends and from community down in coastal Texas though it has been great to reconnect with my family. I went back last year thinking I would stay for a few weeks, maybe a few months to help my Mom rebuild her life after enduring Hurricane Ike and then head back west. I have chosen to stay to continue being helpful and to study music and will be going back for school in the fall.

This summer, though....this summer is a gift to myself of reconnecting with friends, with nature and with myself through songwriting and by continuing to explore how I can be helpful in the world. I'm driving and so I have flexibility to take advantage of opportunities that open up and to move at my own pace, receiving the gifts of the universe instead of rushing off to the next thing I have to do. I feel really grateful for that plan because I had originally booked my whole entire summer up with trainings and retreats with little time for friends or for myself. The new improved plan is a combination of both. And so, it is with much joy that I receive this unexpected gift of reconnecting with Nat and Adam. They are going out of town for the weekend and are gifting me the use of their studio where I plan to play with music and catch my breath from the intensity of the last few weeks (more later). Perfect, perfect, perfect.

About an hour ago, I had wanted to go for a run, move my body, breathe in the morning air and Nat told me about a trail that runs along the railroad track. I was supposed to take a left down this pedestrian alley a few houses down and then take a right and continue straight through some houses to the track. I became confused and couldn't find the track and thought maybe I would just jog around the neighborhood. I backtracked, tried to find the second alleyway again, wondering if anyone was home where I could knock on the door and ask and then I saw an older gentleman standing in his driveway. He was visiting too, but used to live here and pointed out the path to me. I gave him a hug and continued on. Perfect, perfect, perfect.

The alleyway popped out onto a paved track adjacent to the railroad bordered by plants and trees. I stretched, started the timer on my watch and took off, listening to the playlist on my Ipod I call 'Girlfriend'. It includes Alanis Morissette's '21 Things I Want in a Lover', 'Respect' by Pink, Indigo Girl's 'Closer to Fine', Lyle Lovett's 'Aint It Somethin', John Michael Montgomery's 'Life's A Dance' and India Arie's 'Private Party'. When the path came up to a road, I danced on the sidewalk until the way was clear and I smiled at everyone I came across: solo cyclists, cyclists with kids in those cute little carriers, joggers with cute little puppy dogs. I 'Hi-Five'd' the branches of trees reaching toward me.

As I prepared to turn around to head back, I suddenlty felt afraid as I realized I had not turned around and taken a look at where I had popped out from my friends' neighborhood onto this track. 'What if I run right past it?', I thought with a little bit of alarm. I strategized that I could run back for the same amount of time I had run to this point and I should be close. My experience is that usually it takes less time to get back than it did to get to the turnaround point so I was still feeling a bit concerned. I don't know this town well at all. And I kept running and smiling at people and then all of sudden, a woman popped out from the left ten feet in front of me. I stopped short in awe of the grace of the universe and had to manouever to not get run over by a family of bicycles. I tried to talk to the woman to express my amazement at her timing, but she just kept on walking oblivious to my experience or maybe aware that I looked a bit crazed in that moment.

Ain't it somethin' how the way things go? Perfect, perfect, perfect:)

What am I supposed to be learning? Music proficiency or poise and grace?

Here I offer my first piano performance exam of the semester. Class Piano 2. Ivan Sings composed by Aram Khatchaturian. Well, Ivan attempts to sing through the piano and me and has a difficult time expressing himself. My first performance B in piano. No one got an A. Dr. Termini gave a very rousing lecture afterwards on expression in music and likened us to lifeless drones or something like that.

He asked us to ask ourselves why we wanted to be musicians. It's a good question. He said that the world is full of people who were technically proficient and that's not enough to sell tickets. If they can't 'feel you', they'll be bored. You have to connect to the audience. Share the experience with them. He's shown us video clips of some great performers so that we could see that it didn't matter that they missed a note here or there- the audiences loved them and didn't care because they were so moved.

Dr. Termini wants us to take risks - to risk missing a key if it's going to mean that we're up there saying something and not just going through the motions. It was quite a memorable speech. My friend Amber wished we had gotten it on video. I can really appreciate him wanting to set the bar high and to pass on what he has learned in his experience. He wants us to succeed. He cares:)

I care. This was the hardest piece yet. I made a lot of mistakes. Apparently, I even learned one note wrong. I had just memorized it, so I thought. It definitely was not an A performance. Not only did I get some notes wrong, have pauses due to rough transitions, and my bass was too loud, but I got points deducted for vocalizing my displeasure at my stumbling. It's a bad habit. When I perform with my guitar at open mics, sometimes when I mess up, I let out a screeching 'Aaaaaah! that reminds me of James Brown.

My other pieces last semester, I had memorized at least a week before the test and had time to work on expression. My first piece used to bring me to tears. I had finally gotten to the point a day or so before that I wasn't constantly focused on technique and was moved. It didn't happen during the performance though. I was still memorizing and working on technique. Especially those grace notes. I learned a lot. It kinda felt like I was trying to pat my head and rub my tummy at the same time.

AND..... I am totally stoked to be playing the piano!!! Who would have thought? I didn't even know there was a bass clef until the first day of piano last semester:) hee hee. I thought Every Good Boy Did Fine and that was it. I'll catch up with the band kids yet!!!!

Dr. Termini had us practice in front of the class the week before and it was wild. I didn't want to go. I didn't have it memorized. I still was getting lost. I had some of it memorized and I'm still so new to reading notes that sometimes I had the hardest time finding where I was in the score. I'd look down at my fingers and think 'okay, I need to find a place where there's a G in the right hand and an F and a C sharp in the left.' Sometimes, I just couldn't find where I was and would just have to start over from the beginning. The only thing that was working well was the pedal. I was one of the last people to go. Earlier, one young girl in the class sat down at the piano and was so frustrated with mistakes right at the beginning that she banged her hands on the keyboard and walked off, refusing to try again. I could relate to that feeling. I was sitting there thinking 'This is going to be sad.' Luckily, I also had the thought 'Well, this is my offering. I can't be any better than I am right now. I'll do the best I can.'

I walked up to the piano. I sat down and, miraculously it seemed, was really kind to myself and present. I focused on what I was doing and wasn't worried about what people were thinking, just what to do next. And next. And next. Dr. Termini helped me find my place and then at one point had me just move on to the next section. So I did without any self deprecating thoughts. Just doing the next thing as instructed. (Follow the simple instructions, Byron Katie says.) And I made it. To the end and didn't cut off the last note like most people had done, glad to have gotten the public practice over with, leaping out of the spotlight as soon as possible.

With gratitude, I let that last chord ring out and I listened. And then I turned to my audience, my classmates, with a huge smile, waved my fist in the air and yelled out 'Yeah!' And it's true that the audience wants you to succeed because everyone cheered with me. If I had dissed myself, people may have felt uncomfortable for me and squirmed in their seats. I put them at ease with my acceptance of myself except for one classmate who is as hard on herself as I am on me who said in disbelief: 'You're happy with that?!?'

Indeed I was. Happy to be playing the piano. Happy to be learning about music and about life. Cheri Huber says the process is more important than the content. I think she's right. I am happy to be supported by so many beings including myself, 'mistakes' and all.

Beach Bum: March 6, 2009

Copyright (c) 2009 Linda Daline Limbaugh 

I had been curious where I would stop. I didn’t imagine it like this. Not at all. Bum right on the sand. Where’s my blue-gray, weathered hunk of driftwood with branches and trunk curling up toward the sky? The one that so nicely would have supported me. The one I remember from my late teens and early twenties. When I still lived here. Mom doesn't even live here anymore.  Not since the hurricane.  Now I’m just one of those ones– the visitors, the ones who create all the crazy traffic. Spring break has begun. As I look around, I realize that the new – well, it could have gone up anytime in the last dozen years since I’ve been here – highrise must have eaten my beloved driftwood. The one where I would read when I wasn’t floating past the wavebreak, ears submerged, listening to the chatter of dolphins.

The sun begins to set behind me and to the right. A glowing orb, it casts a few buildings into sepia tone – one is the island hospital which may not reopen here, but move to the mainland instead, taking hundreds of jobs with it. The water may be gone, but the effects of Hurricane Ike still ripple through the community – the ones still here and the ones scattered around like fall leaves in all sorts of small towns and in the big city (Houston). But, back to here and now…

I notice a smile that won’t leave my face. They say that she who amuses herself never ceases to be amused.  This is such a familiar feeling – this dissatisfaction. I had a vision of the perfect spot in nature. Actually drove many miles South to look for it, the pristine, ‘right’ spot where I would be inspired, words spewing forth like popcorn – I’d barely be able to write fast enough. I’d be so empassioned, the force of my grip would break the pen and then I’d be trying to write holding onto the flimsy ink cartridge and I would write until the darkness made it impossible to see the page…

‘This isn’t that place’, I think and I laugh. Of course, I could have kept looking. Right now, I could walk back to my truck, drive to the west end of the island or maybe to the bayside park. I notice that I don’t move and find myself very amused to be here – apparently in the perfect place. I know myself – I have been studious – and I choose to get off the hamster wheel of perfection seeking to discover the perfection of what is all around me: the trash littering the beach; the people approaching to ‘invade’ my spot; the lack of a proper seat for my bum. I catch myself thinking, ‘Next week, I’ll bring my campchair and then it will be perfect.’ How critical the mind is, always searching for that which will keep it from peace.

The gulf breeze helpfully blows the hair from my face so that I can see the page, so I can see the beauty of where I am. While earlier, I saw birds flying by in formation, solitary gulls fish the seas before me now. A family walks by. There are two women, two men, two children, one stroller. I was wrong – two families walk by. A woman in the distace walks two dogs.  

I am sitting on the sand right in the middle of a set of tire tracks that leads straight into the water. I hear the baby express itself vocally without words, but not crying.

I turn to my right, hair flinging itself into my face and notice the orb is gone, replaced by a region of pink, diffuse with yellow hues above. A cloud passes through quickly from west to east.

Looking down, I notice a feather.  I also notice that I would appreciate a restroom, but a civilized one is not present. Will I bare my bum in front of strangers, I wonder. There is a line of artificially created sand dunes behind me. We’ll see…

To my left, I see a line of posts, barring vehicle passage. A tempting gap opens near the middle, posts on each side warning ‘Do Not Enter.’ I know they are not meant for me with my sandals, yet I wonder how I stop myself. How I bar myself from entering fully into my own life with other people’s stories, with the stories told by our culture, stories that are not for me.

I look forward and the first word that comes to mind is ‘ruffles.’ I see the grand dame, Gulf of Mexico, dancing in a large, straight skirt, rimmed with undulating white ruffles. The constant movement looks the same constantly. Does she never get tired?  

A couple in the distance looks also out toward the Gulf. The man raises his arm to point at something.

My attention returns to my body and I thank the earth for supporting my bum so solidly. My bladder says ‘Can we go now?’ And I laugh.

I look up – I don’t know what made me do that – and quickly, audibly take in breath as I notice the moon. A waxing gibbous. ‘Hello moon!’ I am not alone. Not by a longshot. I never am.

The smile is still stuck on my face, lips parted, teeth showing. A man jogs toward me from the left. Wish I had my running shoes. I look up and smile at him as he passes. He doesn’t smile back, yet I keep on smiling. I remember a time when I would have judged him for not being friendly and I would have dropped my smile. Now why would I do that to myself?

Lights begin to emerge from the dusky horizon. The breeze is delightful. I notice a paw print to my left. I wonder if I will be able to find my bumprint so that I can sit in exactly the same spot next week. I laugh as I realize I will sit in the perfect spot wherever it may be. Maybe in a camp chair. I’ll just have to wait and see.

‘Love you, world. See ya around.’ I am moved to bow to and from my spot, as if I am in the zendo of my former community and realize that now, the whole Earth is my zendo. Yay!!

I kiss my hand, raise it to the sky and wiggle my fingers, still smiling, grateful. A shout out to the creator.