On My Mind

My blog entries have been less frequent that I would like lately. There are a few reasons. First, Blogger has changed it's method of logging on. At first, Doug could get me on. Today I logged on all by myself! I notice that it wants the user to have an AOL (I think) e-mail; I have gmail. But today it worked so I'm writing!

I'm sure we are all concerned about Japan. Years ago, after the tsunami hit Inonesia, I started writing a story about a storyteller who, shortly the tsunami, travels to Indonesia to tell the story of Rip Van Winkle.

Briefly, Rip Van Winkle is about a lazy (at home) and helpful (with all others), henpecked husband who goes hunting in the Kaatskill Mountains and meets up with an unusual group of people who live there. They are dressed in very old Dutch clothing and are playing nine pins. Every ball rolled resounds like thunder. Rip has helped a man carry a keg up the hill to where they are playing and is asked to pour for them. He pours them each a drink and, when no one is looking, helps himself a few times. The next thing he knows he is waking up the next morning (he thinks!). His dog, Wolf is nowhere to be seen and instead of his nice hunting rifle, next to him is an old rusted rifle. He thinks he's the butt of a joke of the people he drank with so he goes looking for them, but sees nothing familiar to help him find them. He makes his way back to town where he sees strangers and recognizes no one. The children of the town, who used to play with him, gather around with the women and stare. Nothing is familiar. He walks to his house which is completely dilapidated, no sign of his family. He goes to the inn he frequented, but saw no familiar faces. There, in place of a tree that had shaded the inn, was a bare pole with a strange flag with stars and stripes and inside, in place of the picture of King George, was a man named George Washington. Strange. He cries out "Doesn't anyone know Rip Van Winkle?" The people point out a shabbily dressed young man leaning against a post. It is his own son who has grown by 20 years. His daughter comes to the inn and introduces herself. Dame Van Winkle had been dead some 18 years - she died of a broken blood vessel while yelling at a peddler. His daughter takes him in to live with her. He tells his story to all who will listen. Some think he's mad; others know the fairy mountains. Whenever thunder is heard many imagine the people playing nine pens and the other henpecked husbands wish that they, too, could sip from the elixir that Rip had experienced.

The teller in my story tells this story because, she imagines, that many people who survived lost everyone they know and, certainly, nothing around them is recognizable. She gets the people - young and old - talking about Rip and his situation while, in actuality, they are opening themselves up to talking about their own feelings of losing everyone and everything.

Next Friday I'm going to tell stories at the Tashkent International School and I'm considering telling Rip Van Winkle to tie it in to these current events.

Jason Kelly wrote a nice piece about the earthquake in Japan. You can do a search for him and find it. It begins, "The ground here is shaking as I write . . ."

These events have me considering my new place in this world. I lived relatively safely in the United States. What if a huge earthquake were to devestate Tashkent? What if the citizens of Uzbekistan held an uprising like in Egypt and Libia? I'd be in extreme danger and would likely think, "If only I hadn't come here."

I'm glad I'm here, though. I'm meeting wonderful people while learning a very interesting language. I'm taking voice lessons for the first time in years. I'm taking Uzbek folk singing lessons twice weekly. This is about as polar opposite my opera training as you can get. Some characteristics of Uzbek folk singing include: sustained notes are often pulsed with the voice - not a vibrato, but a deliberate pulsing of the air, at the end of many of these sustained notes there is a short, strong crescendo on the last beat and the vowel sound mutates as the note is sustained. Add this to the fact that I'm having to read Uzbek and it requires quite an effort. I've noticed that, as in American folk music, melodies change over time and everyone has their preferred version. Our teacher generally goes by the written notes, but not absolutely. One more complication. So I have recently decided to try to learn these songs by rote. I can hear my piano students laughing all the way to Tashkent. My teacher has recorded two songs that I am listening to over and over. First, I try to follow the melody with the vowel sounds - no words yet. Then I pull out the music to follow the words while trying very hard to not see the notes which may or may not match what he is singing. Douglas, by the way, is learning all this plus learing to play the doira, an Uzbek drum.

So I'm glad I'm here. I may come across some dangers, I may not. Same can be said with living in St. Paul.

I said this in an old blog entry from "If I Can . . ." We humans are capable of so much more than we realize. A lot of us live pretty cushy lives and have softened over time, but we are still resilient. We don't have as many "needs" as we think. I hear that in Japan, many are living off a ball of rice a day. Living. I was very heartened to hear of little to no looting and people waiting together in very long lines for basic needs. How often do people take advantage of situations like this to gain something for themselves? How often are we too much in a hurry to wait in line to buy a latte? We are soft, but, remember, we are strong.

Next time, some local holidays.