6 a.m. Jogs

This week I've been getting up early and instead of checking email and leisurely browsing the internet, I've been going jogging. I wanted to see how painful this will be when I have to do it in Sado in a week or so. I cheat and actually allow myself a few sips of coffee, but then I have to find a t-shirt and pull on my running shoes and I'm out the door with my ipod. It takes me 5 minutes or so to wake up and by the 10 minute mark I'm nice and sweaty. But you know what else?

I'm cranky! That's what I am. Getting up at 6 is hard enough, but then running a couple of miles before the coffee kicks in is downright cruel. The sun isn't even up. My body is tight. My mind is foggy. I can hear my heartbeat inside my ears, and why the @*%# am I doing this again?

By the end of the jog I'm fine and my body is happy and awake and everything feels great and a part of me is saying, I should do this every morning! But we'll see. This was one of the last things I wanted to try to conquer before my big trip, and I think I'm good to go!

Hooray! I am getting really excited now!

Summer's End

It's been a long summer, and I have to say that I am pretty exhausted. I'm not even sure where summer began but what with all the Ghosts & Girls shows, my extra practice sessions, my new song, teaching two levels of taiko, visits from friends, a visit home, drum camp drama, physical training, holding down a full time job, drum repairs, several gigs, and now, the excitement of preparation for my trip to Sado (which is NEXT WEEK), I'm tired. It's more mental than anything. When my schedule is as packed as it is, I like to break things down and figure out what is coming next, and then focus and prepare for that, and then when that is over, do the same thing for the next thing. It keeps me from going insane, but requires copious list-making and concentration. It's like I build this momentum of sprinting from one hurdle to the next and I just want to be able to see the finish line for once. It would be nice to have a little break after Sado where I can go to sleep and not wake up with thoughts racing through my head about what I need to deal with next. But don't get me wrong--I love the excitement and having to prepare for things. It's that journey of having to deliver something that makes me better and more experienced.

Sado is my last hurdle, but getting here has been a long journey.

I think my next goal will be to have the leisure time to read a novel with a cup of tea or watch an episode of a TV show from start to finish.

But first, it's Sado. I've been looking forward to this for a long time.

Getting Ready

Gearing up for my upcoming trip to Sado. It's going to be fantastic. Tonight I was on the kitchen floor preparing omiyage for all the wonderful people I will encounter:The suggestion was to bring something that represented yourself, so naturally, I am bringing Moleskine notebooks. I got a bunch of the plain cahiers and I decorated the covers with vintage, royalty-free labels:
I was going for the Americana look. They're going to be rad.

Now that I have omiyage worked out, I still need to figure out my own packing. I've been putting all stuff I want to bring on a bench. I think I still need to master the whole concept of travelling light:Yes, it's still unorganized, but hey--I'm more than a week out and at least I'm thinking about these things. It's not that much stuff, actually. Plus we get to bring two bags. I'm bringing one suitcase, and one hefty, but NOT-backpack-across-Europe-sort of backpack. It's more of a large daypack (it's that orange thing under the bench). We have to divide our luggage between our initial arrival and journey to Sado, and then one bag for when we get to Sado and then back to Tokyo. I've been to Japan before, so I know that I need to be prepared to sweat, to be prepared for crowded modes of transport, and that I don't need as much clothes as I think I do. Lightweight and quick-dry ought to do the trick. I'm also bringing one pair of running/trekking shoes (for running up this semi-ficticious mountain every morning), and also my pair of trusty Keen sandals. Last time I went to Japan those sandals took me everywhere. They're the most comfortable things I own besides my birthday suit.

This is going to be an exciting journey. I'll be in good company. I'll be pursuing taiko. I'll be meeting new people and going on great adventures. I just need to figure out if there is enough room in my suitcase for all the bachi I want to bring back. . .

I LOVE the Olympics!

Yes, I love watching the Olympics, but boy is the jet lag getting me down. I love the drama and the visceral emotion of the games. I love rooting for the underdogs and cheering on who we hope is going to win, and the horrible, sore, disappointment we feel when our heroes don't deliver. I hate going to my internet homepage and seeing the results before they're actually aired on late night TV--talk about skipping to the end of a book. I've taken to eating dinner at 11 at night and staying up just a little bit longer to watch the results. This makes it really hard to wake up in the morning and function during the late afternoon stretch. Last weekend I was glued to the Women's Marathon. The Marathon, people! That's got to be the least of leastest action-packed events. But as a long-distance runner can you blame me for being glued to the screen as the commentators pour over every last bit of emotional detail that could possibly be going through the mind of someone whose event lasts two and a half hours, as opposed to, say, a diver, whose event lasts something like one one-billionth of a second? I like the mumbly sound of commentators and the roar of the crowd going off as I take a moment to do something normal like fold my clothes or wash the dishes. Thank goodness for the instant replay.

Oh, I'll be so sad when the games are over.

But hey, there's always football!

Gone Fishin'

Took a trip to LA to spend some time with my family. On the auspicious day of 08-08-08, I went fishing with my Dad on a boat out of the Redondo Beach Marina. Fishing is the closest I get to that primal feeling of killing my own food and being on top of the food chain using the ancient tools of hook and line to drag my dinner out of the sea. There is a part of me that actually likes pulling the little bait fish out of the tank and impaling it on a hook and throwing my line out to chance. Here is a leftover fish I found in our gunny sack:They squirm and fight in their own way when you stick the hook through them. For some reason, when I'm on a swaying boat with a bunch of other fisherman, I don't feel remorse for the little fish. You just cover their eyes and they stop squirming in your hand.

I caught a sand bass, which I'm told, is good eating. My friend caught a baracuda, which we're having for dinner tomorrow night.

We don't go far off the coast. On the day we went out they had us anchored just off shore where they have the oil refineries and a large boat the like I've never seen so close to shore:
One of the things that makes these fishing trips so nice are the deckhands. They know exactly what they're doing, and what you're doing, even if, like me, you don't no idea what you're doing. When you've got something on your line all of a sudden a salty, bare-chested man is at your side telling you how to pull your fish aboard and clearing the way of the other fishermen so you can get your catch on deck. They are right there with a grappling spear and pulling the hook out of the fish's mouth and bagging the beast. They're nice guys. Total dudes in every sense of the word, but nice. These fishing boats are definitely an insightful glimpse into MAN-WORLD. A neat place to visit, but not where I want to live. But fun.

When we've pulled up our lines and are heading back to the dock, they offer to clean and/or fillet your fish for you. Here is my salty deckhand cleaning our catches of the day:Knife. Muscles. Tatoos. That's MAN-WORLD if you ask me. That's my Dad to the right of him. Man of the Universe, my Dad. That teeny fish Ol' Salty is cleaning--that's my big catch of the day.

But fishing comes with its annoyances. One of the most annoying things, besides tangled lines, are the other wildlife that wreak havoc. First are the seals, which bite the bodies off the bait fish you've got on your hook. They'll leave the heads on, because that's where the hooks are, but then you have to rebait, which is a pain. The other even more annoying things are the pelicans. They're endangered, so you can't harm them, and they also love to eat your bait fish. The problem with the pelicans is that they'll eat the hooks too, so you'll have a darn bird at the end of your line. You have to pull them in and get them off your line. I saw one guy who pulled a pelican in and he just cut the line off, leaving the hook stuck in the poor bird's tongue. There was a little boy fishing who caught a pelican, and my Dad helped pull the bird in and he unhooked the bird, leaving the bird unscathed and unhooked. My Dad is a hero--to me and the pelicans. But he also said that the salt water is so caustic that the hooks dissolve in a couple of weeks, but still. I saw a pelican get unhooked and he went right back again after our bait. They're not dumb, but not particularly smart either. After I saw that I found it hard to sympathize too much with the pelicans. But still, my Dad is my hero.

Here is a video of the pelicans who followed us back to the port as Ol' Salty was cleaning fish and throwing the innards and junk into the sea:

Endangered? Really? Reminds me of an old Hitchcock movie if you ask me.

But it was a fun day. I like getting to participate in my Dad's world. Plus we get dinner tomorrow night. All you have to do is wrap the fish in some tin foil along with some salsa and cilantro and throw it in the oven for 20 minutes. Squeeze a little lemon and serve it with some steamed rice and it's delicious. Yeah, it's good being on top of the food chain.

Belly Laugh

I was being naughty and checking out Cute Overload at work today, and I innocently clicked on Dramatic Kitty and was on the floor in one those horrible, uncontrollable laughing fits. It didn't help that they posted Dramatic Chipmunk too.





Try not to hurt yourself.

Final Installment of Ghosts and Girls

Had a really great Ghosts and Girls show again at RCW. This is the last one for now. The show went smoothly with only a hiccup here and there. We messed up Kai again, but this time it didn't bother me. It wasn't so bad that we actually had to stop, but we faked it a little and there was a minute where I was like, ok, where is this going now? But we made it. Janet apologized to me but it doesn't matter. I think the experience of working on it and nailing it at Born to Drum has offered me redemption and peace of mind for the rest of my life. It's OK to mess up Kai to Ryu because I know that we can play it right.

But the crowd was great. That really makes a difference. There's a line at the end where Brenda says: I don't know how the story ends. Maybe the two lovers got back together and lived happily ever after? And it was funny because people in the audience yelled out "Yeah!" Final Rehearsal

I like the idea of happily ever after too. It feels really good that we ended this series of shows on a good note. Such great and talented people to play with. I'm so lucky and so happy.

Ghosts & Girls

I suck at self-promotion, but here it is again: Ghosts and Girls. One night only! Back by popular demand! Come check us out if you weren't able to make it last time! Get your tickets before they sell out!

Bang head here:Ah, feel much better now.

Gig

We had a gig today in Palo Alto. It was a lot of work but a lot of fun. Here is my favorite photo of the day:They gave us ice-cream afterward so it was totally worth it.

Toughening Up

I'm still thinking about what Crissy said the other night: that I need to toughen up for Japan. This morning I think I killed my alarm clock in my sleep and so I woke up late. I hate that. It wasn't so late that I was late for work, but it made me feel a little frantic all day. I'm still exhausted from last weekend. I haven't had time to catch up on sleep. Sunday went really late, considering all the things I had done just to get to Sunday. Rehearsal used up my every last bit of energy, but I still got up on Monday morning (I was so so tempted to call in sick), went to work, and then, inspired by Crissy, I went on a 5-mile jog after work.

Tonight was taiko teaching night, and I got there at 5:15, which is my own personal rehearsal time. I worked on solos and I was such a sweaty, dripping blob at 6 that I had to run to the store to get more drinks to re-hydrate for the 2 sets of taiko teaching classes that followed. My entire t-shirt was soaking wet. Wow. It doesn't even get that wet when I go running. But this is good. This is good toughening-up. I think toughening up is way more mental than it is physical. It's all about how far you think you can push yourself, and then moving beyond that and discovering that how far you thought you could go isn't as far as you actually can go. I like to read Megan's Blog and no matter how hard I think I work, it's good to know that there is someone out there a hundred times more driven and passionate than I am. It also helps to know that I'm not alone in what sometimes feels like the neurotic drive to play taiko. The other day Megan was talking about doing some sit ups, which are good and I was thinking hey maybe I ought to do more of those, but then I read on and she was doing them on an incline, and I was impressed, but then she said she was doing all that while clutching a 20-pound weight to her chest. Yikes.

But I think a more important thing for me is skills. Practice. Yes. Speaking of skills, I've been a little insistent with my students that they learn skills, and by golly, they are learning skills! I am so proud of them. One of my wonderful students said she went out and got a practice pad and some sticks and was practicing all week at home. I could have burst into tears, I was so proud and happy. And it showed too! She really rocked the basic beat we have been working on. See what practice can do?

Born To Drum 2008

Spent this past weekend at Born to Drum, a drumming camp for women. This was one of those great adventures that hits you suddenly and when you realize how wonderful it is, it's over and you can't stop thinking about it.

The weekend actually started off on Thursday night with a concert by the Born to Drum faculty at La Pena. Our plan was to play Kaitoryu. But did we play Kai? Well, not really. Kaitoryu is one of those songs that require the most extremest of extreme concentration. You can't think about anything except where you are in the song and what pattern you are going to play next. If not, you're doomed. We've been working on this song for years, and although we've played it perfectly many times before, train wrecks are still not uncommon, and they're hard to predict. They just happen. We have a 6-person version of the song and when you have that many people playing it's easier to pull the song off because chances are, a couple of you can keep it together. With just two people bad things can happen, and they did. We train-wrecked that song like there was no tomorrow. Sigh. I was so disappointed. I'm not sure why I felt so bad. After all, we were playing in front of the Born to Drum audience, who are the most loving and supportive people in the whole world. They didn't know and they didn't care if we messed up--that's the kind of love that was in that sold-out room. It was just one of those days where neither of us could play it right. But I knew that I could do better. I have worked hard on that song and spent many, many hours trying to get it right. But on one of the nights that I wanted to get it right, I didn't. I could have held the song together. I could have put us back on track. I didn't. That night I sighed and moped around until I finally went to bed at 2 am.

When I woke up the next morning, I realized that there were three options available to me:
1) I could just let it go, move on, and not obsess about it. Messing up is part of your life experience and it helps you grow and become a better person.
2) We could try playing it again and fail horribly at it, in which case I'd probably wish I had chosen option 1.
3) We could try playing it again and nail it and it would feel so good!

I contemplated this as we loaded out for Drum Camp. The good thing about our practice drums is that they are made out of plastic and are really light. The only bad thing is that they're bulky and hard to transport. We got some help from our favorite roadie, Ed. Check out what you can do with a pick up truck, rope and a guy who knows his knots:Before we left we went to grab some coffee and I surprised myself a little when I proposed the idea to Janet that we play Kaitoryu again at the big, Saturday night concert, in addition to the other song we already had worked out. I told her I wanted redemption and that I thought we could pull it off. I didn't realize until the words came out how determined I was to get Kaitoryu right. Yes. Janet seemed to like the idea and was game. Ok then!

As soon as we got to the beautiful Walker Creek Ranch in Marin, it was a race to unload and get set up before our first class. They had us in a building aptly called the "Barn." It actually was a barn, with creaky wooden floors and great soaring inside space--perfect for taiko:The skylights made the space kind of dreamy. Nice effect. We taught for an hour and a half and all the good times from previous camps came back to me. The people who attend and teach at the camp are some of the most wonderful people in the world. They bring such great spirits and energy and everyone is friendly and happy and positive. We had a good class.

After I found my room and got settled, I ran (scampered on all fours at times) to the top of a nearby hill for a bird's eye view of the camp:
And of the surrounding foothills:
I loved the location of the previous camps on the Marin Headlands, but I have to admit that the facilities here at the ranch were better suited to accommodate all of us. The camp keeps growing every year. Plus there is something about the rustling of summer grass that makes me deeply happy.

That evening we had the welcome ceremony, and by the time it was over it was a little late, but hey--this is drum camp! I ran back to get my bachi and headed back to the barn where it was quiet, and they had some strange green theater lights hitting the ceiling, and softer white light casting circles of illumination on the barn floor, and dark, wooden shadows everywhere else. I paused a moment to breathe in the cool, foggy night air, and to listen to the sound of small scampering things beneath the floor and the chirping insects calling out from their secret places in old knots of wood. It was like church. I had this entire space all to myself and it was full of taiko drums! No commitments! No bedtime! No curfew! And no neighbors who would complain, and even if there were neighbors they were all drummers! I don't know about you, but this was heaven. Yes, I'd died and gone to heaven and heaven is a barn. I played Kai over and over again, and I played drills, and I worked on diddles and noodling and learning the song Janet taught earlier that day. It was the best thing ever! I was so happy I'm sure I glowed in that sacred, beautiful darkness. When I finally returned Janet laughed and shook her head and called me obsessed. It was a compliment.

The next day was full of classes to learn all things percussion and also sharing taiko with the most enthusiastic students. When we weren't doing that we found time to rehearse. We ran Kai and Heiya, made a couple of mistakes, and ran them again. Janet kept joking that I was going to make her do it all over again if she got it wrong. Of course I never said that, but that's probably what she'd make herself do, and that's certainly what I made myself do. See why I like Janet? Badass.

When we showed up for the Saturday night concert we were surprised that they had put us first on the bill. We've never been first! We're always last. I wasn't quite prepared for that, but I had no time to worry, which was a good thing. I tied my obi, took a deep breath, and mentally embraced that lovely, lovely audience. And can I just say? We played Heiya and Kai PERFECTLY!!! I was so happy and relieved! I yelled to Janet during the thunderous applause: We did it!! And the best part was that the crowd was so amazingly wonderful. They gave us such good energy and there was no way you could feel bad about anything in the world with that crowd. In taiko you always try to project energy but to get it back that way, oh that's just love.
And so happy! I've never been happier to perform taiko, ever.

Go for Option #3, people. It is so worth it.

The next day we taught one more class and then had to pack up haul our butts back to Alameda for a gig. It was a benefit for Todd Blair, and they unveiled the most amazing wall of gears put together by various artists:Or watch it in motion:

As if a weekend of drumming, plus a gig, wasn't enough for us, we still had a 3 hour rehearsal for next Friday's gig. I was tired, but Crissy said I better toughen up for Japan, and she told me about how hard she always worked when she was over there. That gave me renewed energy and inspiration, or at least it motivated me to appear as if I had energy. I made it through rehearsal and came home a zombie, but isn't that the best kind of tired? To be so tired from doing the things you like the best?

I think you get through it because your heart is all filled up with joy. Yeah, that's what it is. That's why we do it.

I CAN'T BREATH-ID!

The only time I can breathe is when I'm playing taiko. The rest of the time my nose feels like it is imploding. Literally. It feels like the works that are up my nose are closing up like the little hole on the top of a dolphin's head just before it dives beneath the water. What is wrong with me? My body is 100% great. My nose is filled with peas! Allergies? Maybe. A cold? Doubtful. It's weird because my body has never done this to me before and it's hard to say that I can look forward to a time when this will be over since I don't even know what "this" is. Well today was a little better than yesterday. And hopefully tomorrow will be better than today.

This is going to be a very busy next few days. Tomorrow me and Janet play a gig at La Pena for the Born to Drum folks. And then Friday-Sunday we are up in Petaluma teaching taiko at the Born to Drum Camp. That's always a great event--this will be my 3rd year. The only hard part is transporting the drums, but we are getting some extra help so it should be easier. We are performing a new, 2-person version of an old song that required me to write a new, longer solo, but one that I refused to let myself stress out about. Hence, I have a new, longer solo that I am proud that I managed to pull off without the usual insecurities involved in solo-composition. This is a great leap forward for me. Then on Sunday evening Maze has another gig to help out fellow artist Todd Blair in his recovery from an accident. I can't say I know anything about Todd or his work, but I am glad that people from a wide variety of genres are coming together to help one of their own. Then the following Friday we have another gig. And then Saturday, August 2nd Maze will be presenting a second, by-popular-demand performance of Ghosts and Girls.

Phew, yo.

Claritin Clear?

I have been battling my worst bout of allergies, ever. It's probably my fault since I went running on Thursday on the trails at Mills after they have been on their never ending quest to chop down all the 100-year old eucalyptus trees and then wood-chipping them, which I'm sure releases the 100 years of pollen and dust that have been accumulating on those trees all that time. Also doesn't help that the wildfires are still sending smoke our way so that the sky is hazy. I haven't stopped sneezing since I woke up on Friday, and on Saturday I finally broke down and bought some Claritin. I don't know if you've seen the commercials, but they'll show a pretty landscape, but it's kind of blurry, and then they peel back the blur so that everything is crisp and in focus: Claritin clear! Supposedly Claritin clears up your allergy symptoms without drowsiness. But I've felt like someone has pulled over a veil of blur across my eyes. Yes, the sneezing has subsided and my head doesn't feel like it's going to explode, but I am just floating through my day. Yesterday I was like a cat and I would get up and do things, but then I would lay down on the couch and fall asleep for an hour or two, and then get up and do more things, and then fall asleep again. My friend and I went out to get a bowl of noodles and we passed the exit and I was like why didn't you get off the freeway? That was our exit! But then she just kind of looked at me funny because it wasn't our exit at all and I have no idea why I thought that was our exit.

And today at practice we would play and then we'd have a little break and I would sit down and stare and get lost in the pretty little patterns in the hardwood floor. There are swirls here, and parallel lines there, and the dark growth rings stand in contrast to the meaty centers that signify each year of life and growth cycle, the trees reaching up to the sunlight, their roots digging down into the earth, the sound of the wind through the branches and leaves, the sound of rain on the forest floor, you hear birds calling out to one another, you feel the crunch of other seasons beneath your feet, and you see and hear all these things as you follow the lines in the smooth and polished hardwood floor as they diverge and then come back together again and if you follow the lines they take you on this journey through history and then HEIYA!!!! IT'S TIME TO WORK ON HEIYA!! Huh? What? Oh, ok. It was really hard to concentrate, and all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball on the stage and take a nap. Or maybe I could fit in the drum bags. Yeah, maybe I could crawl in and then get someone to zip me up. When I got home tonight I napped again, but I kept waking myself up with my own snoring! I get soup for dinner (good for the sinuses!) and then I will float into bed, and hopefully get a good night's rest.

It's hard though. Do I run tomorrow, which is my only chance this week to put in a workout since every night is booked through until Sunday, or do I take it easy and give my body a break? I'm training for Sado, yo. Plus I'm stubborn. I think I will run. Maybe stay off the trails, but I've got to get myself ready.

Stupid allergies.

Training

I am training for my upcoming trip to Sado. I want to lose the 5 pounds that snuck up on me out of nowhere since the last time I weighed myself a couple of months ago, plus build up my upper body strength (push-ups, yo--100 a day), plus build endurance so a 45 minute run is just maintenance. Plus we did some funky yoga leg squatting things the other day that turned my quads into jelly but which must be doing something good. I have 2 months. Less than that actually. Seven weeks to a better me. I cover my ears and say Nya-Nya-Nya! when Crissy and Janet have said that things there are not that hard. No, I want to believe that they will be that hard. That's such great motivation. I hear there's this hill we have to run up every morning. Did I say hill? I actually mean MOUNTAIN. Yeah, 45% grade, uphill, both ways. I can do this.

A month or two ago a friend of mine said she wanted to run a marathon. I didn't tell her that normal people usually train intensively for 6, 9 or 12 months to get to the point where they can run a marathon. They eat and sleep in whole new ways and spend countless hours with running clubs or buddies to get to the starting line. But I know that she doesn't pay attention to those kinds of things and if she wants to run a marathon, then, eh, she'll run a marathon. There is no sense in telling someone that something isn't possible if they don't want it to be impossible. So even though I'm not training for a marathon, I can at least have the mindset that I'm training for something almost as hard.

Tired!

Played taiko for 4 hours tonight with no break! Started out working on Kai and Heiya for upcoming Drum Camp and really worked up a sweat. I wrote an extended solo for Heiya and surprised myself by playing it in front of Janet without messing up or feeling too nervous. Yes, I've been practicing it, and the thought of faking something crossed my mind, but no, when it was time for me to solo it just slid right off my bachi. Wow, that's progress. After that I went right into my Intro class. It was about 90 million degrees today, but I decided I wanted to stick with my syllabus and teach them Strong as Cow, which is a sweaty, energy-driven drill. Fun, but a workout. They were game. And then it was time for Intermediate class. I've been pushing them and they've been keeping up and in great spirit too. We're learning a new song. They're doing great.

But I'm tired. I almost fell asleep in my dinner. Bed soon.

Feeling It

We worked on kata yesterday at Maze rehearsal. My arms and legs hurt and it is a good hurt because it reminds me that there is still so much to work on, but it is also good because I don't want to lose the perspective of being a beginner. Yeah, that arm needs to go up, those legs need to sink, the waist needs to turn. You work on those things to become better. It's good not only for me, but to remember that that is what I am asking of my own students. I appreciate their work on becoming better players, and I can't forget that afterwards they probably ache a little too. I hope I don't push them too hard. But the challenge is good too. I don't get a kick out of the pain, but it reminds you that taiko is played with the whole body. That it is the body that brings expression to the music.

Hot bath. That's the best thing for afterwards.

Caught Between Two Worlds

I have been lamenting over getting one of those shiny new Mac Notebooks with all their bells and whistles and the little apple icon on the front that lights up when you open it. But on the other hand, I have always admired the timeless and utilitarian Moleskine notebooks, which as far as I know, only come with a bookmark ribbon and a pocket in the back, and which I can say, constitutes neither bell nor whistle. Fortunately, Moleskines are much more affordable than Macs, and I find it hard to imagine that the absolute joy and contentment of a completely filled Moleskine is even in the same league as filling up your hard drive. And while the notebook computer is a really neat invention, nothing can quite compare to the tactile experience of an actual notebook. I love opening them up and burying my nose in the spine and smelling that sweet, new-paper smell. I like running my hands over the smooth, new pages. It's even better when the pages are imprinted with the braille-like texture of writing, and I love the way that those pages crackle when you turn them. I like the corners when they're new and crisp, and I like them when they're softened by use and countless trips in your backpack.

Only recently have I come to appreciate the order and logic of graph-paper pages. For some reason I feel compelled to write in ALL-CAPS, which is a much more legible form than my usual scrawl. The squares also help me to write out kuchi shoga (the language of taiko where each sound represents a type of hit), and to document time easier. I used to like blank Moleskines, but there is something about opening a page filled with squares that is easier to face than a completely blank page. With squares the foundation is already laid out for you, you just have to decide what sits on top of it. With the blank page, the possibilities are endless and infinite, and consequently, intimidating.

Looking

Today we watched a video of our performance in SF. I think we looked pretty good, but of course when you're watching a video of yourself, all you can do is obsess and be critical of how you look. I think I shimmy around too much. I need to hold my kata down more. Also, no matter how into my solo I get, I should never lift my leg up off the ground, especially if I am wearing white tabi against a black background. Shudder.

Also tonight we were working on other kata issues, and Janet was trying to describe a kata thing to someone, and I was thinking, Hey this is the kata speech she gave me one time that I still don't get. So I was watching and paying attention and making mental notes, but the person wasn't immediately getting it, and all of a sudden I look up and Janet was making the strangest face at me. It was just a millisecond, kind of funny, but in that moment a little jarring, because I heard her say--heard her without her saying anything: You need to help me try to explain this right now don't just stand there I totally need your input can you try to word this differently I need your help right now stop staring and say something anything quick OMG! So I had to say something! Even though I didn't completely get it. But I think I said something semi-intelligent, even though it included the word "boing!" but I think in the end it was helpful. But this is good training. Having to describe things differently. Learning ways of teaching on the seat of your pants, on the fly, in the moment, in ways that you may not see it but maybe makes sense from other perspectives.

A couple of years ago my goal was to learn anything anyone could teach me, but now I think another goal should be to learn how teach anything anyone throws at me.

Chekere

I wish I wasn't so lazy and that I could practice chekere at home without being annoying. Because then one day I could play like these people, minus the singing:

Moment of Silence

A moment of silence in honor of Oguchi Sensei.
























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The World on Fire

The above is the little visual they used on my weather page to describe tomorrow's forecast. Usually they show pictures of the sun or rainclouds. But yep, that's a pic of wildfire, or "patchy smoke" as it's called in meteorological lingo. This whole week the air has smelled like smoke, and there's a strange morning-after campfire odor that lingers when I walk into the office every day. California is on fire, and the noontime shadows are vague and indistinct and tinged with a yellow-orange halo, and the sunsets are glamorous with their fuchsia orbs of light and color , and the distant hills are lightened by a haze that we would normally associate with fog, but it's not.

At least I don't live in Chile near the Chaiten volcano where the view looks more like this:

Busy

In the past couple of weeks I seemed to have unexpectedly and completely booked myself solid. I'm learning new chekere skills, learning a new version of a song to present to drum camp, composing my own song, working on two versions of my taiko class (plus teaching them), coming up with thoughts on where I'd like Maze Daiko to go, trying to keep up with the 30 Days to Better shime regimen (I am still a few days behind and lamenting the fact that I can't keep up), working towards re-heading our practice drums at RCW, oh and did I mention, working toward the August 2nd version of Ghosts and Girls? Plus I have to find time to do the physical training for my upcoming trip to Sado. And then I have my job. And find time to clean the house and eat and sleep (in that order???).

But I am finding that the best way to keep sane with all these goals is finding ways of making it happen while at the same time finding time to relax and not feel too stressed about it. That way when I do allot time to something then I am not stressed out about achieving a particular goal. It's all about the journey, not the destination. I wish I had time to go into all of that, but heh, it's late, and the cliche will have to do. Be process oriented, not goal oriented. There.

I am busy, but it's all good. I like it. I get so much more done with the pressure, and I like getting stuff done (does that make me goal oriented??).

But phew. It's midnight. I just finished dinner. Before that, 4 hours of taiko. I think sleep is next on the agenda. I'd like practice chekere but I know that the I am the only one in a 3-block radius of me who wouldn't find it annoying at this late hour. Plus I'd like to eventually make sleep a priority in my life. Ha.

Summer

Happy summer solstice. I love summer. It's my favorite season. I love the extremes of it: the extreme heat, the plants drying out and turning to seed and sending lesser versions of themselves out into the world in floating billowy parachutes, or many-fingered sails, or hard pods, or dried, indistinguishable fruits, or thorns that grab onto your socks and insist upon your ankles their removal. I love the sound of withered grass in the breeze. I love the idea of a blanket under a rustling oak tree in the warm tangerine slant of a 7pm sun. I love the persistent, mechanical sounds of hard-shelled insects. Warm stones. Cracked dirt. Trampled eucalyptus. A quiet tide, low or high, it doesn't matter. I love summer.

Enjoy the heat wave. I am. I think summer is smiling down on us, knowingly. The red line of my thermometer has risen past the gauge that only goes as high as 90 degrees, and still the mercury has climbed into an upper register that we mere mortals can't appreciate. Hopefully Mercury will return from its journey into higher places and will sit at our feet and tell us great stories. Maybe it will tell us what the earth looked like from afar. How it shimmered. How the stars burned themselves in the atmosphere. How the lights of cities glistened; water cupped in the hand.

I Thought I Had it Hard

Tonight as I was driving home from my taiko class I saw a man in the dark crossing the street, heavily burdened by all the things he was carrying. As I got closer, I realized that he was carrying an entire drum set--several drums and stands. Wow! You have to give him major props. It's hard enough carrying my shime and stand and bachi bag to my car--but this guy was obviously walking home from a gig! Imagine having to wheel home a josuke!

So tonight were my first Intro/Intermediate classes. That's two and a half hours of teaching nonstop--no break. Plus I get to RCW early for my own personal practice time, so all in all I'm there from a little after 5pm until after 9pm. It's good but it will be a lot of work, I know. Intro class is small yet manageable and I hope I don't have too much attrition. I might have to tweak with start times to draw more people, we'll see. But if they all stay we can work on slant stands!

Wow

I watch a lot of taiko videos on the internet and it's rare where I see one and finish the whole clip and watch it again, and again. Tonight I found this video:


I really love this version of Matsuri and then the seamless transition into a version of Yodan(?). They're doing some fancy stuff there, and lots of stuff that only looks fancy, but coupled with the energy and projection of the players, it makes for a really fun performance to watch. They've got the arm movements that I've been lamenting over for the past 5 years and you can tell they've really worked on their solos and kata and moves and gelling together as a group. I wish Maze had a song with that kind of youthful energy (but yo, Maze has its own great energy!). I think audiences really react to that style of taiko where you hit loud and hard and shake the dust out of the rafters. And although I'm a little more understated in the kind of energy I project, when I was watching this video I was like, Yeah! This is awesome!

I've never heard of this group before. They're called "Sukeroku Daiko" which, I think is completely different from the infamous Oedu Sukeroku Taiko group who are the innovators and original creators of the slant stand style of playing taiko. If you've ever played taiko on a slant stand, or naname, or Sukeroku stand, it's because of that group. But I don't think this group is that. If anyone has heard of Sukeroku Daiko or knows any of its history, drop me a note. Sukeroku Daiko's website can be found here.

I'm gearing up for new and exciting things. I have a new Introduction to Taiko series starting up next week, as well as the brand new Intermediate Taiko class which is where I hope we can start to develop more as a group, since we won't have to start over every 10 weeks and can concentrate on learning new and exciting songs. My new outlook on practice is starting to have an effect on me. Read Kris Berstrom's wonderful essay, Thoughts on Practice and I'm sure you'd be inspired to practice too, or at least it might give you a fresh perspective from which to reflect on your own thoughts on practice. And now that we've got all those Ghosts and Girls performances under our belts, Maze can look towards the future and start working towards new goals. Not that Ghosts and Girls is just a memory. We have another performance at Rhythmix Cultural Works on August 2nd, although I don't think we have a link for that yet. And KASA/Mix! I'm going to Japan in September! That's only a couple of months away! I'm getting excited. I gotta work out more.

Musical Discovery

I live a few blocks away from the UC Berkeley campus, and yesterday as I was roaming up Telegraph Avenue and wandering the paths of the Cal campus, my friend and I found ourselves under the shadow of the great Campanile. At 307 feet tall, this great monolith of stone and bell is impressive. It's visible from miles away, and it's been tolling the hours since 1914. As an alum of Mills College I have to interject here that we have our own Campanile, erected by Julia Morgan in 1904 (a full 10-years before Cal's), and was the first reinforced concrete structure west of the Mississippi (did I spell that right?). Our dear Campanile tolls every quarter hour and its quaint song is permanently embedded in my very being, since I have to hear the thing 4 times an hour, all day long. We have four bells, named Faith, Hope, Peace and Joy.

Anyhow. Yesterday we were under Cal's Campanile a little before 3 in the afternoon, and I heard strange faint music coming from the tower. It was more than just the usual Big Ben chimes, but many notes, almost a kind of noodling of sound. When 3pm came we heard the regular sort of tolling of the hour (which scared the crap out of me--that thing is loud!), but a minute later I was startled by a chorus of wonderful music. I couldn't believe my ears, but there was a full range of notes being played. It was amazing. Why hadn't I ever heard this before? This went on for a few minutes, and then stopped. Then a minute later, the Campanile busted out yet another song, and another. My friend, who had seen a segment on a local news channel said that there was an actual person up there in the tower, playing the bells! And they kept playing song after song! That is amazing!

Apparently, the playing of bells has its own name, called Carillon, and a player of bells is called a Carillonist. There are people who actually study this! And guilds and institutes and congresses!

Now, as a taiko player, I've had my fair share of disgruntled neighbors make themselves known to us when we practice. But how the heck do you practice the tolling of bells without completely driving your neighbors crazy? And making taiko drums is quite a task, but can you imagine those die-hard carillonists trying to cast their own sets of bells on the living room floor or in a corner of borrowed space? Boy, I thought we had it hard! But those Cal Carillonists are really great, and I am glad there are people who devote time in their lives to study something so archaic. There's a part of me that likes the severe formality of bells. I could imagine myself below those bells a hundred years ago striding to my lecture wearing a black gown carrying an armload of books and papers and wearing spectacles and disturbing a small flock of pigeons.

Carillon. Go check it out!

Sleep

Last night I got 2 night's worth of sleep! I lose a morning but gain my personality back!

George, Andy and Kris, oh My!

So my new friend Andy was looking at my entry about good old George, and Andy told me that this great guy Kris was offering an even more interesting practice regimen than George, so I went over to Kris' site and like OMG, Kris is way more interesting and accessible than George and I immediately signed up for Kris' 30 Days to Better Shime and I just hope George doesn't find out that Andy told me about Kris.

But seriously, hop on over to Kris Bergstrom's site for what promises to be a really great 30 Day shime practice regimen. He's also got a really great article on his thoughts on practice. I already missed the first week but I'll do my best to try to jump in and keep up. Thanks for the tip Andy!

Shiny

Have I ever told you how much I like shiny things? Shiny and silver really does it for me. Those who know me know that I'm a sucker for anything green. If you're trying to sell me something, make it green and I'll consider it. Try to sell me the Golden Gate Bridge and no deal. But the Vincent Thomas Bridge? Even though it's smaller and less spectacular than its big sister to the north, the Vincent Thomas is green, people. Get me a pen, I'm writing out a check for that baby.

Oh, but make it silver and shiny and I am sold. I've been wanting a Mac forever. Ask my Dad. He's been telling me to get a Mac since college. I grew up with the good old Apple IIc. And though we've come leaps and bounds since the IIc, I'm still enthralled with the idea of a Mac. I won't even consider the plain old black or white mac books. It's gotten worse since I've been reading up on Garage Band and those pesky ipod commercials aren't helping either. But really, I am in serious need of an upgrade. This is no lie: my current laptop has a 2-gig harddrive. I've got a smokin' 56k modem on that baby and even if I were patient enough with downloading off of i tunes I don't have enough storage left to even fill up my shuffle.

There was a point in my life where I was like, I'll just go with PC's because it's easier to go with the flow. Less hassle. But really. All the cool people use Macs. They just work. Yes, I'm quoting. But I was talking to someone and she was like, yeah it really does just work.

I want a Mac. Sigh.

My Friend George

This is my new friend, George. I like his boots but I think that kerchief is a little over the top. He's kind of dull and monotonous and he has no sense of humor but if you stick with him you'll get some killer skills in your box of tools. Spent an hour yesterday with my shime and metronome in the space just doing drills by myself. It was so nice. I'd like to do more work on small drums, but I guess before I can do that gotta practice on the fundamentals. I never learned how to do a proper roll, much less a 7 or 9 stroke roll. I don't know if rolls and bounces are in the general taiko vocabulary. I'd like to learn those next but me and George are still working on single-beat sticking drills and he insists I learn those before moving on. Guess I better listen to him.

PINE, R.I.P.

Saying goodbye to the PINE email service tonight. For you youngsters out there, PINE was how you accessed email way back in the day, when email was still a novelty and the internet was new and scary and downright small. This bit of nostalgia is coming from someone who used to loathe technology and who still favors post (as in the post office--you know, the company who takes your messages written on paper and folded neatly in envelopes and affixed with those quaint squares of paper called postage stamps, and actually hand-carries those envelopes to their destinations anywhere in the world) as her favorite form of communication. PINE is (was) quick and, although considered archaic, a wonderful program. You have to use strange commands to access folders and send and compose messages, but it's fast and to the point. Viewing images and web links and attachments and those dumb e-vite invitations are out of the realm of good old PINE, but who cares. PINE is an old friend. My first user name was thrynnie. Sigh.

I just wrote my last email message (to myself) using PINE. RIP old friend.

Sigh

I so don't feel like going to work today.

G&G

Ghosts and Girls was another great show. We sold out and during the day people would wander by asking about tickets, but we sadly had to turn people away. I think our transitions went fairly well. During the first song Janet flung a bachi in my direction. She did that when we played in SF, and I'm never sure whether to stop playing to pick it up or not. Carolyn always picks them up for her, but whatdoya do? I guess I was inspired by her mid-performance bachi flinging because I did the same during Kanki no Wa. I am so glad it was after my solo, and a kind audience member handed me the bachi back during the song. I would have been ok without it, but I was very relieved nonetheless. That was the first time I've ever lost a bachi during a performance, yo. Just for the record.

Mark and Brenda were fabulous. I got to sit out in the audience area a little during rehearsals to observe and I think they put on a great show. Sometimes I wonder what Maze looks like but sometimes I see little bits of video and can't stand to look at myself. Not that I'm horrible, but it's like hearing a recording of your voice. I sound like that? Or rather, that's what I look like when I play???

Today I have taiko hangover. I couldn't fall asleep until 1:30am and I woke up at 9 this morning, my mind doing all kinds of thinking even though I still wanted to sleep. Rolled out of bed and went out for some really great Burmese food and then went back to sleep later for a few hours. My head is kind of foggy-- that happens after big performances. I don't know if I'm physically tired or emotionally tired or both.

We do it all again on August 2nd in case you missed out.

Ghosts and Girls 2.0

Ghosts and Girls is tomorrow. I can't believe it. It kind of snuck up on me. We had a run-through last night and tonight I'm going in to help with lights. It's a challenge staging this in the new venue. Lots will be visible that hadn't been before. We have to be more graceful with better stage presence. We have a minuscule backstage and one teeny tiny wing which means that no matter how interesting and engaging Brenda's story is, the audience's attention is going to be on us when we're lifting drums onto slant stands and clanging around with equipment. The space holds a little under 100, and I heard a rumor we were at about 70 tickets sold, so if you were planning on coming, you ought to get your tickets online now.

[ADDED 5 MINUTES LATER]:
The website says we are sold out! Woo hoo! But if you haven't gotten your ticket, go anyway and I bet you they'd be able to squeeze you in. Or if you can't get in, contact me and I will get you into the next show in August.

Practice Makes Perfect

Worked out a little time to get into the RCW space before my class on Tuesday nights to practice. I think practice is so important, no matter what it is you're working on--diddles, rolls, doro tsu ku's. I practice them at home in my closet (the chasm) on a practice pad, but nothing really compares to actually getting some time on a real drum. Janet gave me the go-ahead to make noise in the performance space, and let me tell you--it was such a luxury and gift to be able to practice on my own. I almost didn't know what to do with myself, but pulled out my snare drum work book and did some diddles, and then worked on some Chikara timing issues and then I played Kai to Ryu five times in a row just to see if I could! I did (!) and after the fifth time I collapsed, but it was good. Last Sunday they made me play it over and over and laughed and said they were torturing me, but eh, I say I'm better and stronger on Kai now. Ha on them! And now I have this little bit of pre-class time that I will savor every minute of.

We have our next show coming up really, really soon. Our shows always seem so far away, but I think I'm just doing a mental psych-out to myself so that the nerves don't flare up. Ghosts and Girls with Brenda Wong Aoki and Mark Izu, yo. It should be a good show. I know it will be a good show. I say it over and over, but it really is wonderful to work with those folks. It's like magic every time they come by. Things always seem to come together and when they do you just get the goosebumps. RCW is way smaller than our venue at the JACC, but that just makes it more intimate. Think of it as your own personal command-performance. Get your tickets soon though.

Taught my class tonight. I am so happy with my students. They've dwindled down to 7 or 8, but they're all really great players and I hope they all continue. New sessions start in less than a month.

I Learned How to Use Bullet Points, So THERE!

I feel like I should have something interesting to say, but all the big events in my life are taiko-related, so here is the bullet-point version of my life.

• STAGE RE-CONFIGURATION: Last Sunday we had to reconfigure the stage at RCW into riser-seating. This was fun. Well, fun in a masochistic way. We had to take apart the stage and move it. Might I add that the stage, modular as it is, is freakin heavy. Janet handed me and Crissy allen-wrench types of tools and let us get at it. Maybe Crissy and I have a similar sensibility about embracing the whole teamwork-sweat-muscle-and-gristle sort of attitude, but she and I were ripping apart that stage like wolves. Everybody was sweating, and thankfully Janet fed us, and we all sat there quietly inhaling delish sandwiches before our real rehearsal could begin. We get to do it all again this Sunday.
  
• MOSQUITO BITES: Ouchie. I have two. I want my mommy.
• NEW TAIKO CLASS: I have agreed to offer an intermediate version of taiko classes. Part of me is like, why the heck did I sign on for this? and the other part is really relieved because I can focus on the good stuff and work on drills and kata and stick control and new songs without fear of boring my wonderful students. Plus I won't have to start over every ten weeks and teach people which side of their bachi is up and how to stand and reassure them that yes, your leg muscles will get used to standing like this. But I find that I really like doing those first lessons. I like the excitement and challenge of it. I like getting my students excited about it. I'm just glad that my faithful returning students won't have to keep sitting through those lessons and can finally move on. Now I need to start thinking about teaching Mokuyobi, which is a song that is ingrained in every muscle of my body. I have to mentally start over and think about how to teach sticking and timing and stage presence and movement. But I'm excited about being able to teach that song.
• ALLERGIES: I've never had allergies growing up. But each year around this time, I get the sneezies, and they're getting worse as time goes on. I spent all afternoon sneezing and blowing my nose. I know this is not a cold. Why me? On a side note, read Parasite Rex for an interesting explanation of allergies, and trillions of reasons why it is unwise to go swimming in rivers or lakes.
• KASA/MIX TOUR 2008 TO SADO ISLAND: Hooray! I'm going to to study taiko with Kodo in Japan! I finally got the OK from the bosses, so sign me up because I'm ready to taiko my butt off with the best of them. And when I say best of them, I mean, best of them. I still haven't realized the fullest extent of my excitement yet. It will keep growing as time goes on. More updates on that later.
• It's time for dinner! Oyasumi nasai, yo. I'm having pizza.
  

New Show

We are mounting Ghosts and Girls at Rhythmix Cultural Works, our home base, and we spent today figuring out the logistics of new transitions of the show in our space. We don't have the luxury of the wings stage left and stage right and a lot of the transitions will be visible to the audience. A new challenge, but we did important work tonight. We also won't have the youthful vibrance of KK or the beautiful shakuhachi work of Christopher, but all that is being worked out.

Part of the challenge of working out taiko transitions is moving the taiko with dignity. It's very easy to bend over and give the audience a great view of your backside, or clamboring and making a great deal of noisy distraction to get a drum on a slant stand. It's the small adjustments making sure that a drum sits snugly on its stand that is so very important, but how do you do that in front of people while making it look smooth and effortless? My goal this week is to spend at least 15 minutes figuring out how to put my drum on a slant stand in one easy move. Ha!

Oh, and if you're intersted, there are some very wonderful photos of the Ghosts and Girls show on the First Voice website.

Visiting Day

Woke up early this morning and drove up to the small town of Crockett, the town my good friend Mary spent a good part of her childhood in. She was up here for a short weekend visit with her family, so we took advantage of what little window of opportunity we had to hang out. I'd visited Crockett with her way back in the college days, so it was nice to go back. It's a wonderful small town in the big city sprawl of the San Francisco Bay Area. I could see myself living out my old age here. I like it because it's small and quaint, with quiet streets and old brick buildings and sleepy art galleries and little parks, surrounded by the Bay and the Delta and nestled in the crook of the sleeping arms of the East Bay Regional park system. Urban life imposes itself conspicuously with such things as the impressive Carquinez Bridge and the massive C&H Sugar factory, which is more picturesque than urban:

Since I only ever get a few hours here and there with Mary, we decided to go for a nice hike through the regional park. Unfortunately it was closed. I'm not sure how you close the great wide open spaces of a regional park, except with those cow fences that swing open and shut and are built like ladders anyway. So we just ignored the "No Trespassing" signs and hopped over a couple fences here and there and made our way down the great swaths of road that serve as fire breaks. We walked through rolling fields of thistle and foxtail, past stands of poison oak and little man-made ponds filled with thick green and brackish water. We saw the ostrich-like flash of a wild turkey as it fled, saw deer stand absolutely still on a distant hillside, tracking our way past with its ears. At one point Mary jumped straight up in the air when she realized she had just stepped on a snake, but they both scared each other off, and I had a nice laugh. The hills rose and fell around us, great green swaths of light and color. The live oaks with their new green and jagged leaves gave us a place to rest under. In the distance was Suisun Bay with its rusting battleships laying in their hazy graves, waiting to be scrapped or consumed by oxidation.

At one point we eyed a hill, large and hulking, the back of a whale that we clamoured up, disturbing crickets and small beetles and butterflies, and we were rewarded by a great view. It sat over a road frequented by Saturday morning motorcyclists, and was covered by prickly grasses that are just beginning to turn golden in anticipation of the long, hot summer months to come: In the distance were radio towers, placed at the intersection of where old military installations fought old wars--real and imagined--and where radio signals from the City begin to lose their reach and are boosted to the further places. Who knows what tales were ever broadcasted or broadcast still:

We rested on that hill for a while, enjoying the sunshine and the mutual good company and we traded stories and talked about life and sat also in that silence that only old friends have, beneath the crackle of the radio waves and above the drone of motorcycles and amidst the calls of crickets and the hard-shelled insects that tick and wind themselves up as if they were expanding and cracking open.

Our time was up too soon and we headed back, more slowly than we had come.

After I dropped Mary off, I was driving back home, only to get a phone call from another friend from my college days. She lives just across the Bay, but such a short distance creates bigger divides to cross. The stars must have been aligned today because we made plans to go see an art show her friend was in. It was good to see her, and after seeing the show we went and sat down with glasses of Merlot and loud music and caught up with our lives and had a nice little talk. It's good to check in on old friends. We made vague plans to make my Mother's tamale recipe, since we both love to eat and we both loved my Mom's tamales--which are notoriously delicious, by the way.

It was a good day. I'm such a home-body but every once in a while it's nice to get out and be in the world and with the people who have joined you along the way. Tomorrow I pursue my future again. We have another installment of Ghosts and Girls coming up at the end of the month. Never too early to start plugging.

My OTHER Obsession

When I'm not playing taiko, or perhaps as a distraction from it, my other OCD hobby is growing and propagating African Violets. Seriously, if you added all the minutes that I spend just staring at my violet projects, they would add up to hours and hours. Watching plants grow isn't the most action-packed hobby one could have, but again, I have OCD.

The vast majority of my stock comes from the few plants I rescued from back home. These were all my mother's violets, and at first my goal was to try to keep them alive and healthy and happy. But then I started doing some research on the good old internet and I realized how easy they are to propagate and make new violets from. African violets (AV) are surprisingly hardy. In fact, I am discovering that they try very hard to cling to life and will thrive if you just give them the essentials: dirt, water and sun. You can grow violets from their leaves, or some will offer "suckers," which are baby plants that sprout out of the trunks of mama plants.


Yes, it's as simple as plucking a leaf and sticking it into some moist soil:
I've given my Mom's plants names to keep them straight. The plant above I call "Mom's Afro," since when I first repotted it, it grew giganto and large and full, and um, like an afro. I nearly killed it out of love, and though the mama plant is still thriving, the leaf I plucked from it and stuck in soil is still growing babies. It grew two sets of babies that I have since transplanted, and after I stuck the original leaf back in the dirt, it's growing more babies! Wow!

Here are the first set of two babies from Mom's Afro (the one in front and the one in back):

The two in the middle are called "suckers" which are plants that grow from the main stem. You just pluck them off and stick them in soil and hope for the best. I gave a plant to my friend but it kind of floundered in the low-light environment she had it in, so I re-adopted it and now it grows suckers like crazy. I repotted the thing and now it's a sucker-maker-mama-maniac! Look at the new suckers:

And here is another example of suckers. This one came off a beautiful variegated plant. Apparently plants with variegated blossoms are hard to propagate back into their variegated state. I'm hoping this sucker grows the variegated flowers, but eh, if it survives then that is victory:

But my saddest violet was the one that struggled the most. It's leaves were always curled, so I nicknamed it "Curly." Extensive research informed me that it probably had mites, which are really bad news for violets. I put it in AV intensive care, only to have the result be this:
Doesn't that just bring tears to your eyes? That is one dead plant if you ask me. But luckily before I transplanted it to the AV ICU I plucked a leaf and stuck it in soil, more as an afterthought than as anything to invest hope into. But now look!:Babies! There's twins or triplets growing there! I really hope they survive! Here is before and after:There are other stories too. If I can remember to bring my camera to work I will have beautiful flowering plants to show you and I could also tell you about the Miracle of Miracles that I rescued from the garbage can (literally). And if you have the stomach for it, I will have to show you the gnat eradication system. But that's for another entry.

Process vs. Goal

I think I used to be a very goal-oriented person. There's nothing bad about that. Delivering what you set out to do is a good thing. It's productive. It makes you feel good that you've accomplished your goals. But now that I've been in the position to have delivered many things, I think that the process of what you do to deliver whatever it is--a speech, a solo, a lesson--I think now that the most important thing is the process. Often times the process is a struggle. Goals are destinations that don't come easy. That's why they're goals, and not a to-do list. You have to sit down with yourself and write the speech, or the solo or the syllabus. It's in those moments when you fight with yourself that you gain the most. It's when your doro tsu ku's are sloppy and off-beat with the metronome that you learn your greatest lessons. That's when you learn the most about yourself. For this past weekend's shows for instance, I had to work on drum rolls. I'm not the most accomplished musician in the world, and I got really frustrated with myself when my rolls went from nice and even and slow, to faster, to a soggy mash of spaghetti. But then that's when I realized, hey, I've got limitations. In order for me to deliver really great drum rolls, I have to learn to not try to play beyond my limitations and instead work with what I've got. So I stood up there in front of an auditorium full of people and played my rolls to the upper limits of the speed I could play a drum roll before it turned to spaghetti. And they sounded great. They weren't Kodo great, but I worked what I had to the utmost. I learned: a) that I needed to work on my drum rolls a lot more, and b) that what I already had in my set of tools would work if I would give it the chance. I didn't need to be Kodo; I needed to be myself. That's quite a lesson, don't you think? That's a giant leap and bound--to accept who you are, to embrace yourself, and to be willing to improve it, while at the same time, not crucify yourself because you're not something else--something unattainable.

I'm sure a couple of years ago I never thought I'd be here, be where and who I am. But there are a million small steps. Each step is not toward a goal, but each step is part of what makes the goal a journey. I cherish each challenge put before me. I never thought I'd have my own taiko class, but look at me now. Two or three years ago I was in the audience of one of Brenda's shows just admiring everything and now look what I've got under my belt! I never thought life had such lessons to teach me. Or that it could be quite as exciting as it is. I look forward to each day.