Monthly Archives: February 2018

#Never Again: The Children’s Crusade, 2/14/18

Cameron Kasky, Emma Gonzalez, David Hogg, Delaney Tarr.
Thanks to dt.common.streams

In the aftermath of the Valentine’s Day Marjory Stoneham Douglas High School shooting, the wisest, most engaged words and actions have come from adolescent survivors.

In the throes of grief, pain, fear, love, sadness, and shock, they have gathered and coalesced into the #Never Again movement.

I am a mother and grandmother of five grandchildren ranging from 14 to 26 years. The deceased Marjory Stoneham Douglas students and those students who live on could be my grandkids. Their fervor, their outrage that an assault weapon in the hands of a fellow student maimed and killed their coach, two teachers and fourteen classmates, sears my heart.

As a therapist for over 40 years, I sat with survivors of trauma. Those who suffered the worst were frozen with fear and helplessness. Speaking out, advocacy and action are essential steps in healing—for each of these young people, for their parents and friends, for the community at large.

I am grateful to watch, listen to, read, share and support their words.

Cameron Kasky, a junior, said, One of the things we’ve been hearing is that it’s not yet time to talk about gun control, and we respect that. We’ve lost 17 lives, and our community took 17 bullets to the heart. So here’s the time we’re going to talk about gun control: March 24…The March for Our Lives is going to be in every major city, and we are organizing it so students everywhere can beg for their lives. https://marchforourlives.com.

At a rally for gun control at the Federal Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Emma Gonzalez said, We are going to be the students you read about in textbooks…We are going to be the last mass shooting… We are going to change the law…We need to pay attention that this was not just a mental health issue. He (David Kraus) would not have harmed that many students with a knife.

That us kids don’t understand what we’re talking about that we’re too young to understand how the government works. We call B.S.

Yahoo News cites Delaney Tarr, a senior and co-organizer of next month’s March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C. She admitted that it’s “scary” to think that students have emerged as the country’s leading voices on the issue of gun control… To see us listed as these heroes, as these bastions of change, it’s scary, because we are teenagers… We are children.

 Speaking from the heart is what we do best, Delaney said. It is based in passion. And it is based in pain. Our biggest flaws, our tendency to be a bit too aggressive, our tendency to lash out — things that you expect from a normal teenager — these are our strengths.

I could not agree more. Delaney’s words match my experience of the potential well of passion now harnessed in the need to make a difference, to right the wrong of an AR-15 rifle ambush, which enveloped their school less than a week ago.

For those who cast doubt that teenagers can lead the way in changing our nation’s gun laws, I offer this recent post from a friend’s niece.

Anyone who thinks high school students can’t organize on their own has clearly never heard of Barbara Johns. At age 16, she lured the principal away from the school with a fake phone call, sent students to each classroom to announce an assembly, and, once the auditorium was filled, ordered the teachers to leave. She then led a student strike and walked on the mayor’s office with 450 students demanding a better school.

Barbara contacted the ACLU, and when they came to check it out, they told the teens that in order to pursue a lawsuit, they would have to convince their parents to join them. Yep — the kids had to convince the parents. You may have heard of that lawsuit. It was called Brown v. Board of Education.” For details, see https://zinnedproject.org/…/barbara-johns-leads-1951…/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At The Piano: Trusting My Instincts

Faye at piano, photo by Marv

There is no doubt that the practice of jazz and blues grounds me every day. The rhythms, the pivot of note sequences, their unexpected sounds, delight, challenge, and frustrate me.

Old habits, dormant all the years of absence, awaken as I tackle a new piece. One cannot approach syncopated rhythms or swing with the same mindset as the repetitive rhythms of a simple Bach sonata. Yet, my mind leaps in search of predictability.

What is predictable is the need for focus and effort. To become acquainted with a new piece, I sight read. I try on the piece, test my ability to follow the upper clef melody or lay down the rhythms in the lower clef. The decision to dig in and learn the piece is mine. As an adult learner, I make the choices based on appeal and intuition. Unlike the strict tutelage I endured as a child, I am as responsible for strategy and questions as my teacher.

The work is demanding, requiring inordinate patience with myself. I have been here before— at the crossroads of embracing a challenge, wondering if I have bitten off more than I can chew. The irony of learning jazz and blues is that the simplest, most basic pieces are boring.

Parts of my first book by Martha Meir, found at a local music store, were challenging enough to lead me through the frustration of fingering and counting new rhythms into a sense of possible mastery.

With increased confidence, I purchased Meir’s books 2, 3 and 4. Book 2 called out to me immediately. The piece, Misty Night Blues, infused delight like the first taste of hot fudge over vanilla ice cream. Since beginning lessons, I’ve learned to trust my instincts. Without knowing how, I make choices that work well for me.

During yesterday’s lesson, after playing a piece, Kim, my teacher, asked, “Did you notice any funky rhythms?” I had, acknowledging that I had “faked” or improvised one measure. Rendering the mix of an eighth rest, sixteenth and eighth notes all in 4 beats had frustrated and eluded me during practice sessions.

Kim reached for the music, took out her pencil and drew a straight line between every note and signature in the top and bottom measures. As I followed Kim’s mapping, my hands eased over the keys. I came away with a new keenness to tackle the “funky” parts of two other pieces. Jazz and blues demand precision. I must, in effect, contain my impulse to improvise until I master what the composer intended.

Some days, the Trump era news is so rattling, I fear I will not be able to concentrate. But once at the keyboard, beginning with a piece I know well, allowing my mind and body to merge and become entrained into the sound of coordinated rhythms, I am grateful to engage in possibility.