Day: March 30, 2014

Alex was heading out the door, checking the battery time on his smart phone, putting his Ipod buds in his ears, shifting his backpack more comfortably on his shoulders, he was surprised to see his father blocking the hallway in front of the door, the sound of the cable new channel debate wafting through the house, a sound that had competed with his music for several years.
“Son, I need to talk to you.” Alex froze, he loved his father, he was a good and hard-working man, a lineman for the electric company, but his father rarely asked to speak to him, and it was not usually something good or easy. When he did want to speak to him about something seriously, it was always in the hallway, that was where all serious conversations took place, as if they had to be on the fly and couldn’t last too long.

“Your mother told me you were taking the wages your earned at the market out of the bank, you are using the money to take that music class at the community college.” He paused, his big frame blocking the light in the hallway. Alex was in awe of his father, a strong and silent man who had the respect of everyone on their small town. His father had always made it clear what he thought about Alex’s music, the songs he was always writing, the time he spent practicing his guitar.

“Listen,” he said, “I have to be straight you son, you deserve that from me, I’ve learned the hard way. Music is a road to nowhere, there is no future in it, no security. It looks great to you now, but one day you’ll have a wife and kids, a house and responsibilities. You need to be studying something that will get you somewhere – law, maybe, engineering, something with a future, with a regular paycheck. I know you can’t see this now, and this is your money, you earned it,  I can’t tell you what to do with it. But you know I love you and I can tell you security is everything in this world, you can’t live your life in a high school fantasy. Don’t throw your hard-earned money away, I will not be giving you more, not to waste.  You aren’t going to be Bruce Springsteen, you need to save your money to study things that will get you a good job with a future.There is no future for you in music.”

Alex was not surprised, he had heard this before, he knew how his father felt, but still, it stung. He thanked his father for the advice, said he would think about it, and then he left the house. Although he tried to hides his shaking hands and felt a band of sweat forming a sheen on his forehead, he waited outside for his friend Lucy to pick him up and drive him to the community college, where he wrote a check for $800,  more than two-thirds of the money he had saved working at the IGA down the street on weekends.  Lucy loved Alex’s music, she was the only person in his life  who didn’t think he was insane. That was a lot of stacked boxes, he thought to himself as he wrote the check. On the application, he wrote, “I am a wannabe singer.”

Alex hadn’t even told Lucy that he had applied to the Boston Conservatory of Music, spent hours in the library and with his music teacher Mr. Stevens filling out the application, sending tapes and videos. Mr. Stevens had written a glowing recommendation to the school, so had Al Pendergrast, the owner of the town cafe where Alex played on Wednesday nights for the usual crowd of five or six people and two bag ladies. And Lucy and sometimes Mr. Stevens.

When Alex got to the classroom, he saw there were another dozen students there and the professor, formerly the lead guitar in a local rock and wedding band, standing in front of the classroom. His shoulder length hair was about the only vestige of his life as a musician, he told the class.

“Welcome to Advanced Music 140,” he announced. “Before we start, I just want to be honest with you aspiring musicians. None of you will make a living doing this. It’s a kind of shell game, I make money teaching it but you will never make money doing it. That’s how it goes, they sometimes call it a pyramid scheme, eople make money teaching something nobody they teach will be able to do, and they make sure to discourage everybody who wants to do it. Some of the best musicians in the world are starving right now, and probably always were. You don’t have a chance. Lightning does not strike much in the music industry. It’s even worse than being a writer, and that is pretty bad. I’m happy to teach you what I know, but listen to your parents, I don’t want to take your money under false pretenses. Get a day job that will put food on the table and don’t ever give it up. Let’s get to work.”

***

Alex had sat through the first class, then had a world-class panic attack, his father’s wise words echoing in his head. He went to the registrar’s office and got his check back. He applied for and received a partial scholarship at Penn State University, his father was pleased to help him pay the tuition,  he ended up with an engineering degree and 20 years later, he was secure and respected, he had a good job working for the State of Pennsylvania’s Building Division. His days were relatively busy if routine, he was rarely challenged or stimulated, he nearly drowned in paperwork and bureaucracy most days, and he almost always daydreamed about his music as he made his rounds inspecting building projects.

As his father had predicted, he was married – to Lucy as it turned out, now a hard-working nurse-practitioner, he had a son to worry about, a three bedroom split-level with attached garage and a small pool. They had even saved up and bought a second home in Poconos, it was the good life in most ways, the life middle-class working people dream of having in America. He had gotten that good day job, he had health care, a pension and the best job security there was – a high-level state job in the state capitol, Harrisburg. He had taken his father’s advice, and that of the professor – it seemed foolish to disregard both of them, despite the pleadings of Mr. Stevens, but what did he really know?. A small town music teacher who never made it in the music world himself. Music was always in Alex’s head, in his dreams and thoughts, even after all those years. But it was always in the background, a day dream, Lucky still loved to hear his songs but few others ever did. His father was right, that was not his path.

Once or twice a year, he would visit one of the few remaining smoke-filled cafes with open mic nights, he never played there, but he had never sold his guitar. His son Mark, now 18, played the guitar also, the two of the often wrong songs and played together, some of the sweet nights of his life. Silly nights, he called them. The two of them sang every now and then at family functions and on holidays, they allowed themselves to be badgered into doing it. Mark had joined a friend’s band and they had accepted a few free gigs at school parties. The apple from the tree, thought Alex, Mark loved playing and song writing just as he had.

Mark, like Alex, was careful and responsible, he had absorbed the idea that a musician’s life was reckless, a life of impoverishment and uncertainty. It was something he loved as a hobby, it was not something he would think seriously about doing for a living, this was something he shared with his father, with whom he was close. He often thought about a career, something safe, something, unlike music, that you could count on. Accounting, maybe, or law.

Alex thought Mark was very good, he had a real gift for music, but he never discussed a life of music with him, would never encourage that, his father’s caution was still so fresh in his mind, the professor’s disclaimer lodged in his consciousness after all this time.  Alex had made his choice – his family, security, money in the bank, good benefits. At night, when everybody was asleep, Alex sometimes went into the basement alone  wrote music lyrics, he had three boxes full of them, he was never happier or more at peace than when he was writing songs and singing them. Once in awhile, Mark, awakened by the music drifting up the stairs, would come down and join him.

After his father had died, his mother sat him down at the kitchen table – she was crying – and showed him the letter from the Boston Conservatory of Music accepting him into the school and offering him a full scholarship and a job in the school’s library. She was sorry, she said, your father thought it best, he was thinking of you, he loved you so very much. They had hidden the letter in the basement, in a box in the cold storage room. It had bothered her all of those years, she said. She didn’t know if it was the right thing, but your father made that decision, and we both stood by it.

“We agree with your music teacher’s assessment of your skills,” the letter said,” you have great promise as a musician.” His mother explained that his father decided to hide the letter to keep Alex from making a terrible mistake. Alex told his mother it was all right, he understood, and he shocked himself by suddenly bursting into tears on the way home,  thinking about what his life might have been had he seen that letter. But then he settled, the sensible part of him taking hold again, he was his father’s son. What was the point of dwelling on it?, his father loved him and was doing what he thought best, just as he had always done with Mark.

One evening Mark approached Alex nervously as he was heading into the hallway to take the garbage out. “Dad, I want to tell you something.” Alex froze, he doubted it would be anything good from the nervous look on his son’s face. “I didn’t want to hide it from you, two months ago I applied to a summer music program run by Julliard College in New York City.  I saw it on the bulletin board, my teacher said I should apply, I never thought I’d hear back. I sent the lyrics I’ve been writing and some tapes and they want me to come to New York City in two weeks for a face-to-face interview, there are only 20 spots and hundreds of applicants. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you but Mom told me what your father told you and I know how you’d feel about it. Don’t worry about it, I applied for a job this summer in town, I’ll be working in a law office, it would be great for my college resume. I’m taking that, but I just wanted you to know about the Julliard thing, it is cool, isn’t it, to be accepted there?  Especially for a wannabe, right?…I thought you’d be proud.”

He saw his son was trembling, shifting back and forth. He saw his son’s eyes widen as he saw the tears streaming down his father’s face. “Dad, what…?” But Alex didn’t let him finish.

“Mark, I’m driving you to New York for that interview at Julliard,” he said, “you can do what you wish to do, but you will not spend the rest of your life wondering what might have happened if you had gone. You are not a wannabe musician, if you want to be a musician you are one, nobody else can tell you what you are or aren’t or what you should or shouldn’t be. I want you to call the law office and tell them you might not be able to make it. We are spending the next two weeks practicing music together, getting you ready. Is that okay with you? Whatever choice you make will be yours, not anybody else’s”

Mark looked stunned, he dropped his book bag and threw his arms around his father, and Lucky was startled to come out of the living room and see her husband and son locked in the most loving and intimate embrace. In a flash, all three of them were crying.

I am overjoyed to share two powerful creative triumphs with you. My friend George Forss, the world famous urban landscape photographer, has just successfully funded his Kickstarter Project, “The Way We Were,” a collection of photographs taken before 911 that he will shortly be publishing in a book of the same name.

George asked for $8,000, he received $14,000 in pledges and another $8,000 from an anonymous donor. The money is going to pay to publish his book and to buy some urgently need photographic and printing and computer equipment. As Gordon Parks said of George, his work reminds us that genius will overcome the greatest odds. George is back in the light where he belongs, in the darkroom spinning his wizardly, congratulations George, you never quit on yourself, the world will never quit on you.

Also today, the writer and illustrator Rachel Barlow, a student in two of my writing classes, has just published her second e-short story, “What Happens On The Road,” for $1.29. Rachel is a hero to me, she has overcome depression, bi-polar disorders and the challenges of raising two children and writes with insight, warmth, great human and compassion. She is a natural writer and illustrator, she just needs to believe it.

Rachel keeps asking me if I think she could ever make a living writing full-time, I have told her 100 times that she can, and sometimes, she even is beginning to believe it. This story is charming, very real and skillfully told, it is a story any parent, mother or pilgrim on the road to life can relate to.

Rachel is gifted, she can make it and she will make it as far as she wants to take it. This short story is another huge step on the road to where she wants to be. She ought to charge more for her work, it is a give-away for $1.29. I am urging Rachel to gather her wonderful illustrations and sell them as an e-collection. Take a look at her blog and her great work for yourself. I call her the sustainable Erma Bombeck, she is a committed environmentalist, and she writes with power, humor and much wisdom.

This is the only photograph of my mother and I that I have, the only photograph that exists of me as a child, it hangs on the wall in my study, I look at it almost every day and wonder at the magic and mystery and heartbreak and hard lessons of life.  This photo tells me that my mother and I loved one another, and that the little boy in that photography was happy and at peace, that was the person he was meant to be. That has been important to me, many times. Last night, dancing with Maria at the Blues Dance at the Hubbard Hall Opera House, one of the singers dedicated the song the band was playing to all of the beautiful women of the world, and I thought of my mother, her birth name was Eva, everyone called her Eve.

Silently, I dedicated our dance to her, and wished one more time that I had gone to see her and talk to her before she died, I had not talked to her for years.

She grew up in a poor immigrant neighborhood of Providence, R.I., in a Yiddish-speaking house, the principal of her school called her mother and begged that Eva, who he said was the brightest student he had ever seen in his school, apply to college. No, said my grandmother, she had no need of college, she would marry and have children. Eva got a job as the principal’s secretary and met my father, who was running an orphanage across the street. They got married, she had those children, she stepped into the life my grandmother chose for her, and my mother was never happy again. It was not the life she wanted. She told me again and again the story of the principal, she never stopped wondering what her life might have been like had her mother listened. She told me that I was brilliant, creative, gifted, she told me I could be anything I wanted, and that she loved me more than anything else on the earth.

She loved me too much, as it happened, and in too many of the wrong ways. She became angry, needy, vengeful. She  tried to break out of her life and her unhappy marriage again and again – she ran a classy gift shop, she managed an art gallery, she was hostess at a hip vegetarian restaurant. But she could never stick with those things, those were always interrupted or cut short, she blamed my father, but I think in those times she was really thwarted by the suffocating notions of how she and other women were expected to live.

She drove her husband and her children nearly mad in so many different ways. She fought with my father, loudly and bitterly, every day of her life. She raged in fury at him, day after day.  There were never two people more poorly suited to one another, and they could never accept that find other ways to live, they could only rage and storm at one another while their children cowered and fled their house.

The hard lessons of life are often learned later, the young are not supposed to be wise, only creative and daring. I am still not wise, but wiser. I understand my remarkable mother much better now. She was a victim of her times, a prisoner of the way the world treated women, of the boxes they were stuffed into, of the boundaries of their lives that were, and in some ways, still are defined by men. She always blamed my father for her unrequited life, she always blamed men for her broken heart, her stifled self, the creative spark inside of her that never got to live or be free.

There was a lot of mental illness in my mother’s family, severe depression and anxiety, it was never recognized or discussed, but it was always there, always in the air. I think she suffered terribly from it. When I begged her doctor, a man, to consider some medication for her, he laughed at me and said, “oh, your mother is a tough girl, she can handle things.” I had no idea what this kind of illness was or how to see it, it was all over my family, I always fought it without every knowing what it was. Until I learned.

“Why didn’t I leave?,” she would ask me, “why could I never break out, or get away?” It was the wrong question to ask a little boy, it was frightening and disturbing to hear her fury at my father, but she had nowhere else to turn, she turned to me,  the one she loved, her final hope, I think. She had entered into a loveless marriage and in keeping with the times, she stuck with it, she never really felt she had a choice.

My mother never quit on life, to the end she was fighting to find herself, to find love, to free the creative spirit trapped inside of her, it only broke out now and again, and it was always a beautiful thing to see. it was the only time I saw her happy.  I could not fill the holes in her life, I could not be for her what she needed. My mother was creative in every part of her life that she could be creative in: clothes, cooking, shopping for antiques, spotting classy things, making money stretch, encouraging me every day to write and tell my stories, all through our awful troubles with one another. Whenever I wrote anything – a newspaper story, a book, a poem, she was the first person to call me up and tell me how wonderful it was, how gifted I was, how proud she was of me. I see now that she put all of her hopes and dreams for herself onto me.

At the end, I could not bear to see her or be with her, it simply was too painful for me to see what had become of her and to struggle with her demands on me, and I do  not say that in anger or pride. I kept her away from my daughter, from my family, I felt I had to protect them from what my sister and I had endured. Maybe I was right. I have stopped beating myself up about it, mostly. When I think of my mother, I look at the photograph she left for me before she died, she made sure it would find it’s way to me. She sent it without any comment, but then, there was no need of any comment.

I look at the photograph, and I tell her that I love her. You can’t change the past, you can only have a more meaningful present. When Maria and I fell in love, we drove to the cemetery where my mother was buried – it was the first time I had seen the tombstone, I did not go to the funeral  – and I got out and introduced Maria to her, and I told her that I was happy and has found love, and I thanked her for all of the encouragement she had given me, I told her I know she did her best, she did not have the tools or support to deal with her life. Her oldest friend told me my mother belonged in another time, the world changed too late for her.

I am happy to tell you, I told her in that crowded old Jewish cemetery,  that I did become a writer, I have made a living doing creative work my whole life, just as you hoped, you are very much a part of that, I told her, I thank you and love you for it. I told her I loved her and that I had learned from her and her life to make sure to encourage the woman I loved, to make sure she got to live her life, not to regret it. I will never be the man who held my wife back, who kept her from her life.

That, I said, was such a powerful lesson, and I am grateful to have learned it. I dedicate this day to you, mother, you should have gone to college, you should have held out for a man who got you and appreciated you,  you are one of the beautiful women.  I wish you could have lived the life you were meant to live, just as you fought so hard and in your own way for the boy in the photograph to live his.

I have always admired first dancers at dancers, they are a special tribe, brave, confident, skilled. I love to dance, Maria and I were dancing quite a bit, but first dancers have a special place in my heart, these two, both Vermonters, came to Cambridge for the Hubbard Hall Blues Dinner and Dance, they got everyone up and moving.

The sheep seemed a bit nonplussed when the hen jumped up one of the Border Leicesters again this morning, Ted the ram gave her a good look, I’m not sure he had seen that before. She seems happy up there.