Earlier this month, for the 5th time, I coordinated the gathering of my union brothers and sisters (Local 1000 AFM--American Federation of Musicians) as we gathered at this amazing and historic Ashokan Center in Olive Bridge, New York.Members Jay Ungar and Molly Mason (pictured here) sang us a lovely song about living in the Catskill Mountains.
This camp is the home of the music and dance camps that they have facilitated for decades, and which gave birth to the famous "Ashokan Farewell" song that Ken Burns featured in his Civil War documentary series.
The topic of this year's gathering was mentoring.Remembering who has helped us get to where we are, and also paying attention to who we are currently helping along the way.
With my good sister, Tret Fure, I led a Crowdfunding workshop which then our other faithful sister, Erin Mae Lewis led in our Virtual Union hall meeting later in the month.
Two insights from this gathering:
First:
My friend and brother, Scott Berwick, shared this story from a classical guitar instructor who demonstrates to student visitors a piece of music, then comments:
"That was correct.
All the notes were played in the right order and with the correct timing.
But that wasn't musical."
Then he plays it again with expression and dynamics and the two performances are nearly unrecognizable to each other.
He then says to the students,
"Students come here playing guitar.
What I teach them is how to play music on the guitar."
Second is a question upon which I will chew and chew
How do we measure success?
If it is by comparison to someone or something...we'll probably never measure up. So I need (and am finding) a different definition.
This commencement address by Maria Popovich of Brainpickings Weekly, underscores that point.
Here is an excerpt:
"...I also practically live on my bike — that’s how I get everywhere — and the other week, on one of those first days of spring, I was riding from Brooklyn to Harlem. I had somewhere to be and was pedaling pretty fast — which I like doing and must admit I take a certain silly pride in — but I was also very much enjoying the ride and the river and the spring air that smelled of plum blossoms. And then, I sensed someone behind me in the bike path, catching up, going even faster than I was going. It suddenly felt somehow competitive. He was trying to overtake me. I pedaled faster, but he kept catching up. Eventually, he did overtake me — and I felt strangely defeated.
But as he cruised past me, I realized the guy was on an electric bike. I felt both a sort of redemption and a great sense of injustice — unfair motorized advantage, very demoralizing to the honest muscle-powered pedaler. But just as I was getting all self-righteously existential, I noticed something else — he had a restaurant’s name on his back. He was food delivery guy. He was rushing past me not because he was trying to slight me, or because he had some unfair competitive advantage in life, but because this was his daily strife — this is how this immigrant made his living.
My first response was to shame myself into gratitude for how fortunate I’ve been — because I too am an immigrant from a pretty poor country and it’s some miraculous confluence of choice and chance that has kept me from becoming a food delivery person on an electric bike in order to survive in New York City. And perhaps the guy has a more satisfying life than I do — perhaps he had a good mother and goes home to the love of his life and plays the violin at night. I don’t know, and I never will. But the point is that the second I begin comparing my pace to his, my life to his, I’m vacating my own experience of that spring day and ejecting myself into a sort of limbo of life that is neither mine nor his."
