Why Music Matters

We had our first performance of Brundibár at 10:00 this morning. I was rehearsal pianist for the two casts of singers in their tweens and young teens over the past three months, and was very excited to play the piano part with the CityMusic Cleveland musicians. We are playing four matinees for school kids and five evening performances for the general public.

This morning's performance was reserved for the students at John Hay High School. And I mean the entire school. Several hundred teenagers filled the auditorium, talking, laughing, texting, playing with their iPods, etc. I could tell they were happy to get out of class for an hour. But I couldn't help wondering if their teachers had given them any of the background context for the opera. Would they get it? Would it engage them and draw them in? Would they even like it?

The cast and most of the orchestra pre-set ourselves at the back of the auditorium before the concert began. The idea was that we would process up to the stage after the first piece, seamlessly and without the distraction of the doors in the back letting in light from outside. The concert started with Max Bruch's Kol Nidre for cello and piano, played beautifully. Unfortunately for those of us in the back, there was a constant stream of kids entering and exiting the back of the auditorium as the security guard cluelessly let them in during the piece, light flooding in, letting the doors slam as they closed. Kids being kids, there was a lot of whispering, giggling, and shushing from the peanut gallery. There were slides projected onto a large screen during the performance, but apparently that wasn't enough to focus them. They clapped when they thought the piece was over, about a minute too soon. I know that most of them have rarely or never attended a classical concert, so they don't know the protocol as well as they might.

The sound of a train whistle filled the room. Huge, menacing-looking images of a black steam engine filled the screen. Spotlights illuminated the aisles. I got to lead a line. We were to walk--slowly--while a very few musicians played the 90-second overture. It's hard to walk slowly but fast enough so that everyone behind you can get to their place on stage before the overture is over.

Maybe it's because I was on stage, behind all of the other musicians, but I didn't hear any noise from the audience except when they laughed or clapped at the action on stage. At the very, very end, something special happened. Ela Weissburger, who played the Cat in all 55 of the original performances in Thereisenstadt, came up to the stage and talked to the kids for about 15 minutes about how this music helped her survive the horrors of living in a concentration camp. It gave everyone involved an escape from the cold, the hunger, the terror of being sent away to a place no one ever came back from. It gave them hope, a feeling of connectedness, and a hold on their sanity.

She is in her early 80s. Her voice isn't the loudest and she didn't have a microphone. But that room was absolutely silent. They got it.

What IS Reality?

Paul and I love this topic, and have a variation of this conversation at least once in any given week.

Unless I stop to think about it, I tend to assume that everybody else experiences reality exactly the same way I do. That plate I'm eating from sure seems to be a solid object, even though on the atomic level it's mostly empty space between atoms. If a friend and I each took out a pencil and paper to draw the plate, I think we would each come up with a similar picture. This leads me to believe (and assume) that s/he and I perceive the plate the same way. When we have a conversation "on the same wavelength," and we don't have to work hard to make each other understood, it feels like we must experience the world in a very similar way.

It's really hard to imagine the world from any frame of reference outside the filters of my bodily senses and life experiences. Without the brain's ability to organize raw sensory data into patterns, the world out there would just be a chaotic mess of random-seeming atoms. We wouldn't be able to make sense out of any of it.

Even if someone else shared my exact sensory perceptions (doubtful), s/he would still have a totally different history of life experiences. We would perceive the same sensory experience very differently.

This reminds me of a spirited debate in my Twentieth Century (music) Analysis class in my CIM days. Our prof asked the class the following question: If you encountered an isolated group of people who had never heard Western music before and played them a Beethoven symphony, would it sound like dissonant chaos to them? A minority of the class, including me, said it would. The other side argued with conviction that Beethoven was so universally accessible that of course they would understand it, and probably love it, upon hearing it for the first time, just like we would. We must have debated it for at least half an hour.

I still stand by my conviction. When I first heard Indian music, it sounded strange and out of tune to me because the intervals in their scale are much closer together than ours. I'm sure it doesn't sound that way to them!

Since every human is unique, it follows that there are approximately 7 billion different human realities out there. It's amazing that we get along as well as we do!

This Is My Brain in The Zone

Today, one of my Facebook friends set up a group called "Tapping Our Creative Energies," with the aim of exploring and sharing our insights and experiences about being "in the zone" where creative inspirations happen. This is a great topic, as I've arranged my life so that I can have creative experiences every day. It's the only way I can consistently enter the Zone, where I can feel fully present in the moment for more than a couple of seconds at a time.

I posted this as the first discussion.

Ever since I can remember, I've always associated specific colors with pitches (A is red, D is green, etc.). It's not as vivid as it was when I was a child, but whenever I play a piece of music, I see in my mind's eye a combination of colors, shapes, images,and musical notation.

The colors are always coordinated with the tonality of what I'm playing, and the shade changes depending on the harmonic context. For example, D major is a bright, primary green, while D minor is is more pine or sage green, and a D in a diminished chord would be more olive. It's a sort of visual shorthand.

When I'm playing for a modern dance class, where I have to make up everything on the spot, sometimes I'll look at what color someone is wearing to help me pick a key. I'll see a shape or sculpture that reflects the meter(s), structure, or accents of the exercise--for example, if it's in 7, is it 2-2-3, 2-3-2, or 3-2-2? If it's the first one, I'll see two squares and a triangle--then all I have to do is "color in" the picture with notes, and not get bogged down in concentrating on each individual count.

These "little" patterns become parts of bigger structural elements. Say there are 9 7's. I'll maybe divide it up into 3 sets of 3 7's. Or the overall pattern might be 4+5. Whatever it is, that's what I'll use to phrase it.

I use this same process when playing things I did not make up. Memorizing just sort of happens automatically, unless I haven't spent much time on it.

If I didn't see these visuals, playing/composing music wouldn't be half as fun or interesting. How about you? Anybody else have sensory overlap experiences during the creative process?

The Living End (Reflections)

I just devoured a book called The Living End, by Guy Brown. It was a well-written account of how the circumstances of death have changed drastically in the past 100 or so years. In the old days, something like 40% of humanity never made it to their 5th birthday. Life expectancy was still low even for those who made it past 5--they were most likely to die in their 30s or 40s from acute causes like infectious disease, famine, violence, complications from childbirth, etc.

Nowadays, in an age of good sanitation and antibiotics, people live a lot longer but tend to die of chronic conditions like heart disease, cancer, respiratory disease, and dementia, often after at least a decade of poor health. Even fatal heart attacks have become less common (when you think about it, that would be a good way to go--it's quick). Now, instead, people live with congestive heart failure, or a fragile, jerry-rigged heart, kept going by technology and drugs.

The first third or so of the book, as you might imagine, was a bit of a downer. There is no evidence, he says, that a good diet, exercise, supplements, etc. slow down our aging rate at all. Yeah, you'll be healthier, but a 65-year-old in 2010 is just as physically aged as a 65-year-old in 1510. So all of this increase in life expectancy isn't front-loaded onto youth; it just adds years onto the end, when you're less functional.

The cool part of the book was the discussion about how death has changed from a "digital" (1 you're fully alive, 0 you're fully dead, with no gray in-between) to an "analog" event (more like a dimmer switch). From the book:

The digital theory of death is dying. We can no longer think of ourselves as suddenly going from being fully alive (1) to fully dead (0). In the same way we have accepted that we do not jump from being non-existent (0) to fully alive (1) at birth. Becoming a full human being is a process. We grow into it over a period of years and decades, but then we grow out of it. That does not mean that aging is growing up in reverse. They are obviously completely different processes: an extremely old person is not the same mentally or physically as a new-born baby. But growing up and growing old could be thought of as growing into and growing out of life. This would give us an analogue theory of life and death: there is a continuum between life and death. Life is not all-or-nothing, there are degrees of life; at some times in our life we are more alive than at other times. We’d all agree that at some times of the day (or night) we are more alive than others. But to assert that some people are more alive than others is a political bombshell. However, whether we like or not, the future reality where the majority of us die demented or cognitively impaired will force new concepts of life and death upon us.

Later in the book, he applies this analog theory to the concept of self. Our cells, organs, etc. are constantly dying off and being regenerated over a lifetime, like a wave that is made up of different water molecules as it advances. In our culture, we've always thought of the "self" as a kind of unchanging spiritual essence that stays constant throughout life and survives in eternity in some sort of afterlife. His theory suggests that the self is just as fluid and ever-changing as the body or the degree of being alive.

All of the memories of every experience we've ever had affects the chemistry of our brains, wiring them differently for each individual. Neurons die or get pruned constantly--there's no way we could remember everything that's ever happened to us. The very act of calling up a memory changes the neural pathway where it's stored. The life experiences/memories that make you unique are therefore constantly changing--it's just usually so gradual you don't notice it.

Are you really the same self at 80 as you were as a baby? This makes sense to me, but seeing it spelled out like that made me sort of uncomfortable. The "self" is such a big deal in our culture. Paul has read the book too, and we're trying to figure out what actually constitutes the "self."

Just When They Thought It Was Safe To Bloom...

Merry Easter, everyone. Greetings from the freakishly Frozen North, where the temperature dropped 50 degrees in 24 hours last Wednesday and hasn't climbed out of the 20's since. The calendar may say it's April, but it looks a lot more like January out there. We're under a lake-effect snow warning. We tried to drive out to go dancing tonight, only to turn around because of blizzard-like conditions and the scariness of sliding around while going only 25 mph on the freeway. Three more inches have fallen just in the 2 hours since we got back.

I think we've entered a wormhole in the time-space continuum and emerged somewhere in the thick of winter. Eight inches of snow on the ground and more falling every hour--check. Wearing sweaters, down parka and waterproof boots to go outside and the formation of snotcicles when walking for more than 5 minutes--check. A nasty gust of wind that snapped our front storm door open so violently that it yanked several screws out of the wood on the door jamb--check.

But taking a closer look, something's not quite right. Our mostly bare magnolia tree is sporting shriveled blackened husks that were fragrant blossoms only 4 days ago. Shrubs that were bursting with tender baby leaves or yellow blossoms are now freeze-dried. Daffodils that were popping open like popcorn at the end of March are now bowed down all the way to the ground in defeat. The cherry, apple and peach blossoms were just starting (a good two weeks early) and are now ruined for the year.

Easter is supposed to be a time of resurrection of new life and new hope, but I'm just not feelin' it this year. It feels like we're Charlie Brown and Mother Nature is Lucy holding the football. When it hit 79 degrees on Tuesday, I considered risking taking my down parka to the drycleaners, and then she swoops in, cackling evilly, "Haha, you thought it was spring! Suckers!"

What happened to the summer?!

Whoa. I blinked, and half the summer got away from me. I got out of the habit of keeping up the blog from pure laziness. (It surely isn't my huge workload--I worked for 4 weeks with only 2-3 classes a day. That mostly ended 2 weeks ago.)

What on earth have I been doing? you may be wondering. Here's a list of highlights:

• I've been learning more about yoga and integrating more of it into my workout schedule. Paul has some yoga videos that I've been trying out. I like the ashtanga style ones, as they are more vigorous and generate heat so my tight muscles are more likely to get warm enough to actually stretch. I bought a couple of new ones (here and here). I'm not up to doing this style every day so I'm supplementing with beginner lessons from one of Paul's books. It's already making a difference after only a couple of weeks.
• We've been playing horn and piano music together. We played for a church service in July and also got together with Sharon to play some horn, piano and flute music.
• Today Paul and I had an adventure at the Conn factory. He's been thinking about getting another (smaller) horn that would be less unwieldy and better suited for chamber music. The factory is in Eastlake, Oh (only about 25 minutes from our house). Paul got the name of a contact there from Chuck Ward when he brought his horn in for maintenance a couple of days ago. He made an appointment for 8:30 am today, and I got to come too since I wasn't working. He spent an hour trying 3 different horns and ultimately (much to his surprise) ended up choosing the 11D (medium bore) instead of the 10D (small bore). He still had to buy it through a dealer, which was a little bit of a hassle, but we just went home, made phone calls, closed the sale over the phone, and then drove back out to the factory to pick it up, all before noon. I am excited for him!
• At out Joseph Campbell Round Table discussion group at church last month, the conversation turned to altered states of consciousness, the universal drive for such states in all humans, and the many ways to get there. I read some more of Paul's books (The Natural Mind and The Marriage of the Sun and Moon, both by Andrew Weil) that explore the role of drugs and other substances in different cultures. Fascinating reading. Since I've never tried a drug in my life (with the exception of caffeine, alcohol, and prescription pain relievers), I had no idea that one's mindset, expectations, and setting make a huge difference in a drug's effects. Having grown up with the "This is Your Brain on Drugs" propaganda that Drugs Are Always Bad in my formative years, I always just assumed that one try would instantly turn you into an addict and a crazy person. I'm still not interested in trying any of them, but maybe that's because I have arranged my entire life, career choice, etc. to maximize the chance of an altered state. Let's see: Music, romantic love, athletic activity, dance, sugar, caffeine...
• Cambell says that people aren't really interested in finding the meaning of life, but rather the experience of being alive. We talked about that at last night's meeting. I see what he meant, but I would have to say that most people do care about making a difference (meaning) and that life is more than just a roller coaster ride (experience). But I think without the experience to make one feel alive, it's awfully hard to connect to the meaning.
• Speaking of experience, we continue to find new ways to enjoy food. I have been finding new recipes online for summer and now I do most of our meal planning. Lots of pasta salads and green salads witha variety of toppings. The West Side Market has been a great source for cheap fresh produce. They have a stand that sells all kinds of dried fruit, including dried strawberries. These are so delicious! Think moist and chewy as in dried apricots, only super-sweet, concentrated strawberry flavor. Truly the food of the gods and the best candy ever. I cut up mangoes to put in the freezer--great frozen treats. Another thing we've discovered--super premium ice cream (Ben & Jerry's or Haagen-Dazs) is oh-so satisfying even if you only eat 1/3 of a cup. Those little pints are yielding about 6 servings around here! I eat some every day. All those nutrition advice sources that say you can eat sweets "occasionally," as in no more than once a week(!)--I just think that's so bogus. I must be doing something right because I've been able to maintain my goal measurements for 20 weeks so far with no problem.
• It's been so hot lately. I've spent a lot of time holed up in our lovely air-conditioned house watching free DVDs and reading books from the public library, napping, and playing on the internet. This always happens to me during the summer layoff period--I just get really lazy and hardly accomplish anything. But this time I've kept up, and even increased the intensity of, my workouts (it's a little too much--I will have to pull back a bit) and have so far (except once or twice) avoided overeating out of boredom. These are major, major victories.

Music: Connecting With the Spirit

Tomorrow's church service is about connecting to the spirit through music and art. I've volunteered to speak for a few minutes about my experience. Of course, I've spent the whole week procrastinating writing out my thoughts. So here it is, almost 1:30 in the morning the night before, but I finally finished. Here it is.

Music: Connecting With the Spirit

My earliest experiences in life, before I can even remember, had music. My parents had a very small record collection, maybe half a dozen, and played them over and over while I was in utero. My mother sang and played the autoharp and a little piano. One of my earliest memories was wildly dancing around the living room to whatever was playing on the stereo. I was maybe 3 or 4 years old, still at that pre-self-concious age when it is effortless to live fully in the moment, totally connected to the spirit. When I was upset and nothing else would calm me down, my mom would play one of our records and it always worked. There is something about rhythm (like a heartbeat) and melody (like a breath) that can take us back to the time in the womb. It is profoundly comforting and centering, and surprisingly powerful and universal.

Starting in my childhood, and to this day, if I listen to the noisiness of my brain, there is always a constant musical soundtrack. It can be anything from a simple rhythm to a song from my childhood, to a symphony I heard on the radio yesterday, to a repeating phrase caught in an endless loop. Sometimes, when I'm really paying attention, I notice what thought in my mind triggered that particular music. When the song "Somebody Done Sombody Wrong" enters the playlist, for instance, maybe I've unintentionally upset someone by something I've said or done and this is the spirit's way of calling it to my attention.

Certain pieces of music get tied to certain memories or experiences for me. Hearing a top-40 song from junior high will take me right back to 7th grade. I can practically smell the raspberry lip gloss and feel the heart palpitations as I pass by my first crush opening his locker, both hoping and fearing he'll look up and notice I'm alive. 1812 Overture? A muggy July night, fireflies twinkling, the smell of suphur as the fireworks boom. Silent Night? Echoes of every Christmas in my memory, especially singing by candlelight with my church community on Christmas Eve. These musical memories I have in common with others in my age group, culture, or religious community help me feel easily connected with them.

I've used music to get me through a hard time. Sometimes when I'm too upset to cry, a song or a sonata will open the floodgates. If I need to wallow in misery for a while, the perfect piece of music is just what I need. If I don't have the luxury of falling apart, or I need a break from the misery, another piece of music will provide me a lifeline, a much needed distraction, or a beacon of hope that things will get better. When I'm feeling apathetic or unmotivated, listening or playing some music usually helps me feel engaged and interested again.

Besides all of these things, I also use music as my main spiritual practice, much as someone else would use yoga, prayer or meditiation. When I hear certain pitches, I see certain colors associated with those pitches. I've had this my whole life, since before I knew notes had names. So when I hear music, it's like an impressionistic kaleidescope. If I'm listening or learning with the analytical part of my brain, splashes of color might be superimposed over images of notes on the page. Or my brain will come up with an architectural pattern or shape of the structure of the whole piece, with big sections, subsections, phrases, and individual notes all color-coded. This makes it really easy to memorize things--it's like having the answer book in front of you! I've had a third of a century of experience since I started learning to play the piano, so a lot of things that used to be awkward and labored are now effortless and second nature.

When you're just starting out, you're just worried about getting through what comes next without making a mistake. When you have to conciously think about every little thing, you're so preoccupied with that that there is no room for the big picture. Once you get the notes, then you can think about expression. I have been through this cycle countless times. In fact, I go through a miniature version of it to this day every time I learn a new piece. It's like a spiral of details-expression-communication, getting to an ever higher level every time I go around the circle. Technical refinement and perspective from life experience over the years has gotten me away from getting stuck in the details and closer to focusing on the pure expression and the big picture.

Sometimes I even have moments of transcendence, where nothing exists but the music and I am engrossed by all the pretty colors resolving themselves. Most days I have at least a few seconds of this. This is as close as I can get to feeling oneness with everything. For me, music is a metaphor for my life. It's full of little details. It's so easy to get bogged down in the minutae, constantly trying not to mess up. But this life has something larger. Maybe my music practice can help me see it.

"Rate My Life" Quiz

Just for fun, I took this online quiz. Some of these quizzes are off-the-wall ("What Kind of Fruit Are You?") but this one asks questions that actually make sense. My results were pretty much what I expected, except "Friends & Family" was lower than I would have thought:

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	8.3
Mind:	7.9
Body:	8.2
Spirit:	7
Friends/Family:	5.6
Love:	9.1
Finance:	8.5
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

I guess that's because I answered "1 or 2" when it asked how many good friends I have. (Hi, Darce!) I guess it depends on your definition of "good." I have a lot of church friends who I really connect with, but we don't invest a ton of energy in getting closer. Some energy, yes--we go out to lunch, invite each other to our parties, are involved in covenant groups and church activities together, and have occasionally provided support for each other during hard times. But it's not like we call each other or hang out on a regular basis.

I've always been one to invest most of my relationship energy into my significant other. I think I've gotten better but that's still my default setting. Is that so terrible?

May-December

I've heard the Ashton Kutcher/Demi Moore marriage referred to as a "May-December romance." I don't know about you, but I think, metaphorically speaking, you don't reach the "December" phase of life until near the end of it. You know, "winter of my discontent" age. At the minimum, at least the age you're old enough to be a card-carrying member of the AARP.

Demi is 43, only a couple years older than myself! If she were the 28-year-old and he the 43-year-old, they would have called it "May-September," if anything, or at worst, "mid-life crisis meets trophy wife." It seems that women Of a Certain Age are perceived as older than men of the same age.

All of these seasonal descriptions got me thinking about the idea of the metaphor of months corresponding with the human life cycle--spring as the time of youth, summer young adulthood, autumn middle age, late autumn to early winter old age and death, and the bulk of winter perhaps that dormant time after death or before birth.

If I were going to assign what I consider appropriate ages for each month, what would they be for a human with an average 80-year lifespan?

March: Birth, infancy, early to mid childhood (0-8)
April: Late childhood to young teen (9-16)
May: Peak fertility years (17-24)
June: Young adulthood (25-32)
July: Mid Adulthood (33-40)
August: Early Middle Age (41-48)
September: Middle Age (49-56)
October: Late Middle Age/"Young" Old Age (57-64)
November: Old Age (65-72)
December: Late Old Age/Death (73-80)
January and February: The Twilight Zone

This little exercise has made me realize how much in denial our society is about how Aging=You're Gonna Die Someday. Middle age is always however old your parents are. We think death is optional, and if we just keep eating healthy/working out/getting ourselves sliced and diced with cosmetic surgery procedures, it won't happen to us.

A coworker of mine was going on and on about how someday in our lifetimes, we'll have the technology to live to 120, and he was all excited about the idea of living that long. Yeah, I don't particularly want to die either, but to me that just seems like hogging the stage and wearing out your welcome.

Colorado, here we come!

Tomorrow we leave for a week in Colorado. Paul and I will be joining Eric & Rusty plus Mom, Ron, Phyllis, Alec, Peter and Roxanne for a second memorial service for Grandma in Denver. I was really disappointed I couldn't make the first one in Portland last December due to my cast & crutches, plus 3 jobs. I am going to be playing selections from Phantom of the Opera because it was her favorite music ever.

We've decided to make a vacation of it and will be staying in a charming place in Estes Park called Idlewilde by the River for a few nights. We'll spend our 2nd wedding anniversary (8/17) in Denver at the posh Hotel Teatro and maybe see a show or have an elegant dinner. We won't be returing until the 18th, and I anticipate a total internet vacation the entire time, not a bad thing.

Here are my reflections on Grandma that I will be sharing during the service.

One of my earliest memories of Grandma was the Christmas I turned 5. I was in my ballerina phase, and I wanted a ballet tutu more than anything in the world. When I opened my present from Grandma, it was this wonderful creation she had made herself--a skirt made out of stiff pink tulle, decorated with an array of colorful poufs commonly used to scrub pots and pans. *holds pouf as visual aid* I gasped in my excitement, "It's a ballet dress!" She laughed her famous laugh and said,"Oh, no, it's a Silly Grandma!" I thought it was the most beautiful skirt ever.

We always lived far away from our grandparents and didn't get to see them very often, so a visit to their house was a Really Big Deal. Grandma would bend over backwards as a hostess, wanting to make sure we were comfortable, well fed and had enough to do. When Grandpa would sometimes get fussy or grumpy when we inevitably got on his nerves, she would say, "Oh, he's just being an old fuddy-duddy!"

I was kind of an uptight kid and she was always loosening me up. Even in my 30s she spent several years encouraging me to try margaritas, which I didn't like at all at first. Now it's my favorite drink ever, and I always think of her whenever I have one. She was very proud of "corrupting" me at last.

Peace to you, Grandma. My life is better because you were part of it.

Body Worlds

Yesterday we spent the 4th at the Great Lakes Science Center. We went to the BodyWorlds 2 exhibition, a bizarrely fascinating collection of real human bodies preserved by a process called plastination, and displayed in such a way that you could see all the muscles, systems, etc. as well as bones. Some of them were posed doing things like ice skating or spear throwing, to show how the muscles look different when stretched or flexed.

This is one of the things some people find controversial about it--it was part science, part art, and part sideshow. I, of course, have no trouble admitting to morbid fascination. I also felt awe, amazement, occasional ickiness, and even a sense of the holy. There were also a few animals--a horse, camel and rabbit. I couldn't help but notice how similar the basic building materials were for the humans and animals--only the form, size and shape varied. It seems undeniable to me that we all descended from the same common ancestors.

Articulating my UU Faith

The Faith Articulation Covenant Group that I'm in is leading the service at church tomorrow, and I am one of the people who will talk about my faith for a couple of minutes. It's always been sort of nebulous for me (that's why I joined the group!) so the assignment was a little daunting, but I've finally written it out. Here's what I'm going to say, and afterwards I'll play a piece of music that means a lot to me.

Articulating My UU Faith

I didn't grow up Unitarian Universalist. When I was a child, my family were active members of the Episcopal, then the Lutheran church. We would follow a liturgy, reciting our prayers, creed, and confession of sin from the book. There were Bible readings and communion with homemade bread and real wine. My favorite parts of the service were the Passing of the Peace, a time to greet your neighbor that involved lots of hand-shaking and hugging, and of course, the music. By 5th grade I was singing alto in the adult choir and in the Folk Group. I always felt enriched by the community aspects of church; the fellowship hour, the church camps, the church musicals, the early morning trips to the birthday girl or boy's home where we would serenade them and throw fresh flowers on their bed.

My parents always encouraged us to think and ask questions about anything, including religion. As I became an adolescent, everthing in life seemed to be about hating being told what to do or losing the Power Game in any way. The idea of humility before God seemed so off-putting to me. The prayers we recited didn't make me feel connected to anything, they were just the same words we repeated over and over every week. The 2000-year-old, Middle Eastern, agrarian frame of reference just had no relevance to my life.

Our whole family dropped out when I was about 17, and for the next 15 years the only time I went to church I was getting paid to play the piano. I spent a lot of time out in nature, at the piano, or nurturing a relationship. Sometimes I would have brief moments of feeling fully present and connected to the universe doing these things. But I still felt kind of isolated and missed that sense of community I got from church as a kid. I felt really at home here when I joined this church. Here was a place I could have real conversations and feel part of a group of like-minded people.

For me, my spiritual path is something that grows organically from my experience, as opposed to an external creed or ritual. Nature, love and especially music are my ways of being connected to the universe. Ask me to pray or meditate and I'm not very good at it, but sit me down at a piano and I can reach that "flow state" right away.

Why is This so Funny?

So many things make me laugh. Satire, irony, absurdity, situations, even a good word play. But the kind of thing that gets me laughing until my abs hurt and I've cried off all my eye makeup? More often than not, it tends to good ol' bodily functions. The first time I saw
Farting Preacher Two * with Darcy and Paul, the three of us were howling.

Usually I'm the one laughing until I'm crying, and Paul is laughing more at me than at the farts, poop, barf, etc that set me off. But this time, he actually had to leave the room because his stomach was hurting and he was crying. I have never seen him laugh so hard, which of course set Darcy and me off even more.

The artist who edited this video is a comedic genius. The preacher often pauses and makes funny faces, gestures, etc, providing perfect opportunities for "sound effects." He'll say things like, "I feel something billowing and bellowing out of me," "that was prophetic," "Jesus spoke that through me," "I was meditating," etc., all of which add to the hillarity. As Paul says, "He thinks it's the Holy Spirit, but really it's just farts."

So we may think we're spiritual beings on a different plane from all other animals, but sooner or later some bodily function will bring us down to earth at a most inappropriate time. See, potty humor can be profound!

Here are some more pages, for your enjoyment, that caused me many a belly laugh and nose blowing:

Doodieman
How to poop at work

* There are also Farting Preacher One, Three and Four, but Two is our sentimental favorite. In fact, we watch it periodically for a good laugh at bedtime. Our euphemism collection has been considerably enriched. "Hello!"

I'm finally starting this

I am such a flake when it comes to responding to email. It must be the perfectionist in me that makes it take an hour to write a personal email that takes maybe 90 seconds to read. If only I could just spit it out without overthinking so much.

My brother just started a blog this week and sent me the link, inspiring me to start my own. I haven't kept any sort of journal since I was 23 (for you mathematicians, that's 17 years ago). I found that journal during the Great Purge of 2002 (first move in a decade), and reading it was very educational. I remember at the time thinking I had grown up and matured so much. Let's just say, from my present vantage point of age 40, I was still very much an adolescent.