HOPE REMAINS

"Hope" is the thing with feathers-/that perches in the soul-/And sings the tune without the words-/And never stops at all." Emily Dickinson

It won't go away. My natural instinct appears to be to hope. It stubbornly tags alongside me.

Decades ago I received a copy of Dickinson's collected poems. My heart aches with the truth of her words.

Hope obstinately sits beneath my window. I've shut it tightly. Drawn the blinds. Nonetheless I can hear its faint but continuous song. My sycophant embellishing each irrelevant detail to hope's advantage.

Hope lingers. Loitering within my dreams. Slow to leave but ever-so-quick to return. Softly nurtured in my sleep.

Hope's delicate whisper of wing to wind never ceases. Would it be wiser to hope for nothing?

I am not yet brave enough to let hope leave me completely. In silence. Alone.

Perhaps the wisdom truly comes with hoping for everything, yet admitting that we know not when it will arrive.

CHANGING MY TUNE

Organ music tends to drag me down. On a glorious morning in Balboa Park I welcome the din of leaf blowers over that of the organ.


Organs make grave companions.

I have always fervently believed that organs are best left to accompany church choirs, dastardly villains, wax museum monsters and Vincent Price. Not necessarily in that order.

Organs lack versatility.

The deep, resonant tones of the organ tug me into a somber state. Its heavy, melancholy notes sap the very life and vital energy from around me creating a funereal mood.

Changing my tune.

This evening I witnessed a joyous, "thrashing" of the Spreckels Organ. Our musician played with an enthusiasm he credited to his fourteen-year-old self. Dennis James has played the organ alongside silent films at Spreckels for over 2 decades. This man is unquestionably, contagiously passionate about what he does. So much so that his zeal sustained him during 77 continuous minutes of pairing his delightful music to Buster Keaton's silent film, The Cameraman.

Uncontrollable laughter.


I cannot remember the last time I laughed so continuously, so raucously. I felt compelled to stop laughing myself only so that I could enjoy the guffaws and fabulous belly laughter that surrounded me. Here is a hero I truly want to rally behind - a clumsy-yet-amiable human, imperfect and yet perfectly loveable. It almost feels like voyeurism, watching Buster become instantly enamored with Sally, his open admiration and their awkward first date on a Sunday stroll.

Elicits delightful emotions.

I credit Mr. James' sheer delight for warming my heart to the organ's tunes. This man is obviously living his dharma. Together with an audience of several thousand, my emotions rose and fell on cue with Mr. James' precise coaxing.

Resonant Laughter

There is something extraordinarily therapeutic about laughing out loud, uncontrollably at times, in a large crowd. The vibrations of unrestrained laughter resonated within us, surrounding us with positive energy, similar to the chanting of om as the sounds harmonize and become one with everything. I have a colleague, Santosh, who guides a Laughter Yoga workshop (http://www.yogasantosh.com/). Unexpectedly, I believe that I experienced a sampling of the transformational power of this form of yoga tonight.

What is it about the silent film that awakens our inner emotional dialogue?

Silent films embrace simplicity, minimalism. The message is pure and uncomplicated. Transparent. Genuine. It's true that at times the scenes are slightly exaggerated to illustrate the story in the absence of dialogue. But I felt no lack, no shortage, nothing missing from this evening's performance. Only abundant humor and high spirits. Instead it was absolutely perfect. Timeless.

Once again, contrast.

Such stark contrast to the presently noisy, muddy and complex productions created by Hollywood. Usually I would bemoan the crowd's laughter as distracting, a hindrance to hearing all of the dense dialogue necessary to explain the subtle details of the plot.

Charmed.

Not tonight. Here the audience's reactions became the dialogue, a supporting role to the events unfolding on-screen. The laughter mingled with the live organ music to create a spontaneous symphony chronicling our response to the plights and pleasures of our hero and his quest to woo and win the girl. Relying on the audience to truly, openly feel. I left charmed by the experience. I find myself eager to allow the simplicity of laughter and silent movies to infiltrate the rest of my world.

May sheer, authentic joy reverberate throughout your life like an uncontrollable, belly laugh.

In order to illustrate the evening's tone I feel it necessary to share a sample of laughter and organ music mingling. ENJOY!

To learn more about the Spreckels Organ, upcoming events and how to support silent movie night, please visit, http://www.sosorgan.com/.

DETAILS

I am a recovering runner.

I would rush and hustle and hurry with a fierce pace, everywhere. Miles would pass in a sort of hazy blur. My sole concern was to push farther, go faster.
In my haste I missed all of these lovely details. The subtleties, like the first signs of the changing seasons, would go unnoticed.

I am grateful for the power of slowness. Now I appreciate meandering. I savour soaking up the details. Noticing. Listening.

What do you notice when you slow down?

UGLINESS

The rain fell gently.
Enormous drops, timed as though the sky were opening. Shedding heavy tears. Pregnant with the weight of accumulated emotion.

On a balmy, summer night, accompanied by intermittent showers, I watched eagerly as the tale of Shakespeare's Cyrano de Bergerac unfolded before me at The Old Globe's outdoor theatre.

There is something truly magical about entertainment of any form outdoors, under the stars. Perfect timing! Could it be the stray moth fluttering across the stage lights or the unexpected tickle of a raindrop?

While most of us lack Cyrano's blaring protuberance, we each travel with what we believe to be our own unlovable aspects of ourselves. These facets may be less immediately visible than Cyrano's extraordinary nose, but they present equally treacherous obstacles between us and the achievement of our authentic happiness.

I watched as Cyrano confidently conquered his adversaries with his delightful combination of wit and words. All the while, he hid his talents behind the mask of what he believed to be the idyllic, handsome figure. Cyrano repackaged himself.

I was reminded that each of us feels a secret longing for acceptance and love. Someone who will love even those parts of ourselves that we view to be glaring imperfections, unlovable features that we struggle to live and accept ourselves. We ache for the day when someone is willing to love us because of our humanness and beyond even our own expectations.

Granting Wishes

For a time we find ourselves frivolously tossing coins and wishes into fountains - reckless of what we ask for and how it might be granted. If we're fortunate, there will come a time when we find a genuine wish, our heart's true desire that requires a patient, thoughtful, focused gesture. Let us honor the intrinsic beauty cradled precariously within this hope.

"...have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time--beautiful?"E. M. Forster, A Room With A View

Tact and fear have a habit of tightening the reins on the natural strength and beauty of our emotions.

"Through the whirlwind which your eyes stir up inside me. But now, in this blessed darkness, I feel I am speaking to you for the first time."- Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Act 3

Blessed darkness may take the form of lengthy emails. A format in which a trusting heart blossoms with the latent force of conversations yet unopened. Oh, the possibilities that lie restless and awake as darkness descends upon the park! In the silent stillness I feel a rising tide, filled with all the words left unspoken, now gushing forth, aching to flow freely upon your eager ears.

"You're a genuinely good man. There aren't many of you left."- Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Act 2

May we each find peace, happiness and love - abundant and true. I have faith that this too will all work out even better than we ever could have imagined.

TRADITIONS

"Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire."

Gustav Mahler

Our family history is filled with quirky superstitions and time honored traditions.

Sometimes it feels like ashes are all that's left. And here I sit, foolishly pumping the bellows trying to restart a pile of cold, dead ash.

One person doesn't make a tradition. These are the makings of communities and families. Nostalgia infuses our memories with warm thoughts of traditions long lost.

What Makes Tradition?

What qualifies something as a tradition? Is it years, generations or multiple family members recollecting and reproducing the same event over time with a story? What makes a tradition distinct from other regular occurrences or routine habits? There is something unusual and playful about our family traditions. Typically, these traditions have been passed down among several generations and their origins are no longer traceable. A verbal retelling of the explanation is all that remains. Holidays especially tend to have family traditions intertwined among the festivities.

Highway Pieway:

The act of stirring one's ice cream together to create a malleable soft-serve-like consistency. Then patiently smoothing, digging and texturing to create roads and geographies. We would draw out the experience of dessert, carefully molding a unique frozen landscape.

Two Sides

Strangely, many of them were passed down by my father's side...Do the Irish tend to have more prevalent traditions than the Germans? Might some traditions verge on behaving like genetically recessive traits? Some families simply nurture more traditions, passing them along, over time helping them to grow and thrive.

Harmless Tradition or Superstition?

Bayberry Candle:
A bayberry candle burned to the socket means health in the family and wealth in the pocket. In our daily lives tradition verged on superstition. When does tradition become obligation? I would fear to forget to light a bayberry candle on Christmas Eve. I would be too concerned that the result might be a year of poor health, little wealth and general bad luck.

Please Pass the Salt:

A salt shaker must be set down on the table, rather than passed hand-to-hand. Am I willing to pass the salt shaker directly, hand-to-hand? I'd rather go through a lengthy explanation of this unusual family tradition of unknown origin. Otherwise, who knows what misfortunes might ensue?

Shedding Tradition

At what point does tradition no longer serve us? How do we determine this? Is a tradition something of value to preserve or simply a means of spreading ashes across the generations? When does the tradition enrich the experience? When we lost my father I found myself clinging to memories and traditions. As time passes, some of this naturally falls away. Hopefully we willingly shed that which is unnecessary and no longer authentic for our family.

Kindling Traditions

My daughter and I have begun a few of our own traditions. Thanks to a lovely dinner a few years back at a dear friend's home (The Boyle's), we now include Family Peace at the end of our pre-meal grace.

On lazy mornings we always enjoy playing the Under-the-Covers game.

We still enjoy Highway Pieway. Only our variation is with non-dairy ice cream and frozen yogurt. Yogurt Escape is our recent favorite!

Natural Selection

Some traditions fade over time. Others we adapt and redefine to fit our changing lives. I only sincerely hope that I am present enough to judge when it is time to let go and shed the traditions and routines that no longer serve us.

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Einstein

This is a wonderful quote as it has many facets to it. Here, I am introducing it to elaborate that I truly believe that we are all a bit insane, especially families. We create roles for one another. Ultimately we often practice the same scenes over and over again, all the while expecting a different outcome. These are the traditions it would best serve us to leave behind and shed.

There is a fine balance between diligent practice and foolish perseverance. If we are willing to listen and to learn, evolution will help us to identify the flame worth preserving.

HAPPY ENDINGS

I'm absolutely positive that I'm not the first one to note the contradiction inherent in happy ending. It's an oxymoron, of the truest kind. And if we examine the phrase, we find that it’s false advertising. After all, most happy endings are in fact, bright, new beginnings.

We're all familiar with the way it plays out. Just as the gorgeous bouquet of cut flowers he hands you will eventually wilt. It predictably begins...

Once upon a time...

After much fuss, somewhere near the end, a tragic, rather gruesome finish deservedly comes for the wicked stepmother, evil queen or terrifying, dog-killing lunatic.

What is Cruella Da Ville? A cougar of the fiercest kind?!

I rather doubt if any of them were still alive to comment, that they would describe their endings as happy. No, somehow that doesn't seem to be a line these villains would easily deliver.

Instead, the happy refers to the bright, new beginnings and unlimited possibilities that the future holds in store for our heroes and heroines. Now that the other ending has conveniently disposed of their adversaries, our champions can happily move on.

What happens when there is no evil antihero?

These days the story lines have slowly blurred, disintegrated. Our protagonist lacks her rapscallion counterpart. Without the contrast of her evildoer's dire fate, our heroine's happy ending appears woefully bleak.

Contrast

Our courageous woman must single-handedly survive both fates. Alone she must create the desired contrast that enables us as an audience and her as our central character, to truly appreciate the happy ending. She must weather the expected demise of something or someone she desires. This sense of loss then creates the opening for what is to come. On cue, just when we fear that all is lost, a happy new beginning occurs.

Yin yang.

In order for the happy to exist, the end must also simultaneously exist. Therefore, it would be redundant to quip happy beginnings.

Timing

If we could only depend upon a timely happy ending. The arrival of a convenient solution within the hour, just as our patience was lapsing and our faith seemed challenged. Next Stop Wonderland.

Like karma we know only that the opposite of our condition exists, somewhere, possibly just beyond the horizon, or possibly as far off as in a whole other lifetime.

Hopeless Romantic

My favorite cinematic happy endings tend to offer contrast paired with a solidly happy ending. While a favorite, The English Patient is a bit too tragic for words. Disney movies almost always offer a clearly happy beginning to the end. There is no remaining doubt or uncertainty. From Snow White to The Parent Trap to Enchanted the unhappy endings lead to joyous beginnings. One of my all-time favorites, A Room with a View, offers slightly less clear-cut distinctions between good and evil, but a nonetheless tragic-turned-delightful ending. While Shakespeare focused on the endings all around for Romeo and Juliet, Cyrano and Much Ado About Nothing provide a slightly more cheerful outlook at the finale.

Wishing you all sweet dreams and happy endings that lead quickly to even happier beginnings.

THRIVING

Light. Pure and magical. Captures the intrinsic transparency and radiant energy in all things.

May the dark, heavy veil that weighs upon you be lifted. May you feel a joyous lightness surge throughout you, transforming endings to beginnings.

What once appeared lifeless and hollow now resurrected, thriving.