On Beginnings of a Sort

Everybody would like to play a musical instrument, but not everybody likes to practice. Or, more precisely, not everybody likes to practice enough to do it. It's like physical health, in a way; everybody would like to be healthier but not everybody likes to exercise.

I have a few advantages in this regard. One of them is that I do not have children, which I want to acknowledge up front is a big advantage in terms of available free time and energy.

Another advantage, one that is especially useful for my instrument, is that I played for a number of years as a child, though I put it down for many years afterward. In my school district, fifth grade was when "Orchestra" became an option. Early that school year the orchestra teacher, a very sweet and patient lady, came into our class and talked about the orchestra and gave us a quick primer on the violin, viola, and cello.

I do not remember that, exactly, nor do I remember this next part although my mother assures me that it is true. Apparently little Arthur got home that day and loudly announced "Mom, I'm going to play the viola." Mom was surprised, but not displeased, and in short order I had a beginner viola from the local music shop, with the standard hard plastic case. I do remember which were the first songs I ever learned, being Mary Had a Little Lamb and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, basically the classic first songs for beginner stringed instrument players.

Not that original case, but functionally identical.

The reason why it is especially useful to have played as a child, with bowed stringed instruments, is that when you are starting out you sound truly horrible. All the jokes about screeching cats are true, as anyone who has been forced to sit in a room with a beginner will tell you.

The main reason for this is that the bow hand, the right hand that holds the bow, has to do three things before you can make a decent sound:

1. Provide steady but gentle pressure down. Too little and you get the sad cat noise, too much and you get the infamous nails on the chalkboard screech that is the bane of parents and siblings everywhere.

 

This is too little pressure, and the noise it made just now was not pleasant.

2. Move at a more or less steady pace back and forth. Again, too slow or too fast produces sounds akin to distressed animals and ill-used classroom equipment. If you move too slowly and push down too hard, you make really terrible noises.

3. Prevent the bow from sliding up the string. What happens is that your thumb acts as a pivot when you're holding the bow. 

Only the thumb is on the near side of the bow, which makes it a pivot. Especially when drawing down, the pinky and ring fingers tend to pull in.

If you pull in too much with your pinky and ring finger down there at the bottom of the bow, the top of the bow goes flying up the string towards the top of the instrument. Pretty much everybody does this at least a few times while they are drunk learning, and it doesn't make a godawful noise really, it's just embarrassing.

This is basically correct and/or sober.

This is how it slides if you pull with your pinky and ring finger too much.

That's a lot of motor control to deal with before you can consistently play non-painful notes. Consider, by contrast, the piano. You hit a key, it makes a note. It doesn't matter if you hit it softer or harder or whatever. Unless you're doing something truly insane, you will never get a piano to make the cat-on-a-blackboard noise that I can still very easily produce on the viola. This, I think, is one reason why little children all love the piano so much. The notes may be in cacophony with one another, but they are still good, clear notes, and little kids love that.

In any case, when you learn an instrument with a steep initial learning curve as a child, you usually can't tell just how bad you sound, or at the very least you don't really care. And even though I put the viola down for many years, when I picked it back up again I still had enough in me to avoid the cats and chalkboards and make something that sounded vaguely like music. This meant that, as an adult, the act of practicing was already at least moderately pleasant right from the start.

Coda

The only people I know of who, as beginners, may have it worse than the bowed string instrument folks are oboe players, which instrument has always seemed to me like blowing into the narrow end of an angry tentacle. It requires some combination of mouth formation, jaw tension, air pressure, and using your own lips to shield the reed from your teeth so you don't literally destroy the thing while playing it, in order to get a decent note. If you mess up, it sounds like a duck being tortured. Comparatively, I think my parents lucked out with their little viola player

With Someone In Mind

Thursday is the rainiest day we've had all year. Some areas flooded, even, and I know of at least one place where an underground water line ruptured, making the flooding problem all that much worse. But my neighborhood is toward the top of a hill, and one advantage of that is we don't flood much.

This particular Thursday is also a very wistful day for me, for reasons not worth going into. Someone very special to me has suggested there might be a kind of delivery to my home today, and I seriously consider sticking around for it. Ultimately, though, I want to be out in the rain, especially in the cemetery, though I have other stops to make. So I prop the front gate inconspicuously ajar and head out.

Piedmont's mood is cheerful and warm, in spite of the cold and wet. One tiny dog is going for a walk wearing a wee little rain poncho, and another tiny dog anxiously checks out every puddle as if it has never seen a puddle before. Umbrellas are everywhere. The smoked meat place on the corner still has their smoker out (determination), with its own patio umbrella strapped on to keep it dry (adorable). 

I spot the umbrellas of two ladies who are walking down the street standing very close to one another. They lean in slightly together, and for a moment it looks like they are cuddling rather than walking. They both have umbrellas, the taller lady holding hers up higher, umbrellas right above each other, green-and-white over black, to make it easier for the ladies to stay close to one another.

I feel happy to see them, and at the same time a little sad to be alone, but also ok with being a little sad. Most days, given a choice, we will choose to be happy. But some days are different, and today is one of those different days for me.

In the exercise studio, three robust looking women jog on the treadmills at the front window, and behind them is what appears to be a lady on an elliptical machine still wearing her rain coat. Like, she never bothered to take it off, and is now exercising with her rain coat still on, is what it looks like. I have to know.

I cross the street and, sure enough, there is an older lady, maybe mid-60's, wearing a powder blue rain jacket over her sweats, hood still up, ellipting away. It seems strange and admirable. One of the ladies on a treadmill up front gives me a knowing smile. Apparently I am not the only person oddly pleased by the rain jacket wearing old lady on the elliptical machine. I smile back, make a mental note that I should exercise more, and walk on.

There is lots to like, here. The yarn store has a small Christmas tree in the window, with little custom knit stocking ornaments on it. The bead store seems more than normally busy, which makes sense. The holidays are a good time for crafty gifts and all. And as I go by Sweet Cheeks Skincare, I cannot help but think boyish thoughts of someone I met recently, because sometimes I am just a boy.

But now, walking up toward the cemetery, there is a funeral procession coming up the street behind me, slow moving and maybe seven or eight cars long. I cannot decide if rainy weather is good for a funeral or not. I wonder where in the cemetery the burial will happen, or if it is a burial at all, and I resolve to keep my eyes open for them. First, though, I must make a detour.

And so I visit the now closed storefront, tucked down an alley and up a flight of old wooden stairs, that used to be Chez Simone. Here was one of the most beautiful meals of my life. Simone was lovely, and aged, and spoke with a thick French accent as she moved about the kitchen and the small handful of tables inside. As we were finishing up the meal, I snuck out to the florist at the mouth of the alley and bought flowers to leave behind for our dear hostess. A couple of moments after we walked out, Simone came bustling out of the cafe with the flowers, thinking we had forgotten them, and we called back with all joy "No, madam. For you! They are for you!" and she cried "AH!" with delight.

The sentiment lingers fondly, if also sadly, as I come up to the cemetery at last. Here are some construction workers clearing out mud, and over here is a lone jogger in a bright green rain jacket, grim and determined looking. The rain is still coming down steadily and the air is almost but not quite a fog. You can see your breath, not so much because it is cold but because it is so incredibly humid that the extra moisture has nowhere to go, like pouring water into an already full glass.

Being in the cemetery in the rain is probably as good an indicator as any of what it is like to have a funeral in the rain. My best guess is this: If that's your mood, as it is mine, and if you can get inside of that feeling, then you'll be alright. I am reminded of one author, who described the trip of Abraham and Isaac up the mountain as "a rather long and gloomy walk." Either you are ready for a gloomy walk, or you are not. Today I am, though I catch myself wondering if the delivery guy has shown up at my place.

Inside the large mausoleum I find a mother kissing a child. Outside, the sphinxes look more stern than usual somehow. An angel who was wearing a Santa cap last week still has her cap, but looks sadder today. Up the hill, I see distant motion and a light, which is probably whatever is left of the funeral, and I adjust the planned path of my walk to make sure I get up there.

If the cemetery as a whole is rendered more subdued and, frankly, more morbid by the grey and the rain, the ducks do not give a crap. The ponds have risen at least three feet since the last time I was here, and as far as the ducks are concerned it is party time. I spot three separate duck couples paddling around together on the freshly risen water. It's like they are checking out the new digs, and liking what they see. I do, too. We have needed this rain very badly.

Walking on, and the first sign that I'm at the funeral site is a flatbed full of gravel, with a heavy steel towline going straight down the hillside. Cresting the rise and looking down, there's a dozer, two of the cemetery's utility carts, and three guys moving some plywood and dirt around. The family is gone. It's all over except the slogging, basically.

I think of C. Doughty and her description of the funeral business. That's what this is, right here, and it is as unpoetic as three guys filling a hole in the ground can be. The funeral itself must have been pretty brief. There's some flower wreaths on the ground beside the hole, and at the side of the road not even down by the grave but here by the garbage can, some candles are still burning. The incense has long since gone out. It doesn't seem "mournful" exactly, as much as just "sad."

I wind my way out of the cemetery, making only one unusual stop at the marker for Kenneth V. De Haven. There are decorations on the markers next to him, but not on his. He is my last stop in the cemetery today. I do not visit him often, and almost never with friends. Do not ask me to take you to see him.

On my way home, I stop at the flower shop that is just down the street. It is very close to where I live, and I make a brief inquiry, but the nice gentleman inside informs me that no, they have no orders of the kind I describe. I thank him and head back out toward home. I have been outside long enough that I am damp all over, and I am ready to be dry and warm again.

Still, a little boyishness remains, even now. As I get close to home I see that across the gutter is a stream of water maybe three inches deep and two feet wide, running to a grate far down the street. I smile quietly and do not step around or over it, but hike up my trousers a little bit as if that will help, jumping in with both feet and making a tremendous and very satisfying BLOOSH. As I walk the remaining two blocks, my feet make the familiar squishing sound of completely and totally soaked shoes and socks.

I do finally get home, and there by the door I see that the delivery has arrived after all. They are red and yellow and green and full and beautiful, and I remember that it is possible to be happy and sad at the same time, because I am both right now. Flowers. So many flowers. I take them inside, get dry, make some tea, and think about things for a long, long time.

Oakland, CA. Piedmont Ave, Eric Garner Protests

The internet tells me that the protesters in Oakland have split up a bit, and some of them are heading for Piedmont Ave. That's my neighborhood. I put on my coat and hat, grab my umbrella, and head out.

The Piedmont strip is still doing business, wet with rain and no sign of protesters. Except, across the street, the police have left one of those customizable street signs that now reads "LOCK VALUABLES IN TRUNK." I have literally never seen that here before.

The street itself is on a long, slow incline, the bottom facing toward downtown Oakland and the top up by the cemetery. The protesters could start downtown and come straight up, or they could loop around to the top of the hill and then come down, or both. But I can't track both, so I decide to head straight downtown, as the most likely approach.

Lots of these stores are still open as I walk past. The reused baby clothes and toy shop has a couple inside looking around, and further down a guy is getting his after-work haircut in a barber window. The boutique shop with special sizes of bra is not only open, but the door is literally propped open in welcome as I go by.

I make brief eye contact with everybody, still a habit. Pretty much everybody looks briefly and then away, basically the same thing I'm doing. Except, as I come up to an intersection, a woman makes eye contact with me and holds it. She appears to be mixed race, black and white, with a freckle on the cheek beneath her right eye, and she is quite beautiful. I nod a little as I walk toward her, still heading downtown, and she smiles and nods back. Eye contact does not bother her, and maybe she knows where I'm going.

Still further down, waiting at a light, I am beside and just slightly behind another woman. She is white and in sweats, with a little pack strung across her back, and she looks nervous. She keeps glancing obliquely at me. I have no interest in making anyone scared or unhappy, so I step to be slightly ahead of her, so that I cannot see her, and she can keep an eye on me easily.

Onward, faster, and the rain picks up again as I get closer to downtown. I have no idea where any protesters are. In the distance, I hear what maybe sounds faintly like a group of people chanting through the falling rain and the now familiar helicopter sound overhead. There is the sound of water rushing into a drain, and just past that a car is playing something very loudly with the windows down in spite of the rain. And then I am past the drain and the car, and there are people. A hundred of them maybe, coming up the street, chanting.

I do the quick count where you space five and then replicate that space over the crowd. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, and get up to about eighty five at the back of the crowd as I fall in, marching up the street with them.

This next part is hard to describe. I do not feel like a protester. I do not feel like a part of this group even though I am now walking side by side up the street with them. I feel like an observer, and I feel like weeping. I just have to be in this street right now.

My foot hits a puddle. I am not weeping, and I am not fainting. There are brake lights ahead of me. A man takes cell phone pictures. It sounds like the audio of the world has been turned way down. I am furious, and incredibly sad. I have decided not to cry here, but I want to so much. There is a helicopter overhead. We have walked one block. My foot hits a puddle that looks to me exactly like the other one did. I know that can't be right.

I am broken out of my reverie by a change in the chanting which, until this moment, has mostly been "The people united can never be defeated."

Now, from behind me, a woman is loudly shouting "The people united can never be DIVIDED." She is trying to correct the chant so that it rhymes, roughly. My senses rush back to me. Her chant is also kind of a tautology. As long as you're united you can't not be united, that's true. My brain is doing this thing now. The irony of disagreement over a chant about being united also percolates.

Almost everybody is ignoring her and still chanting "The people united can never be defeated." She gets louder, and sounds increasingly annoyed.

There is a guy to my left. He is Latino, wearing a hoodie, and is boyishly good looking. He could model, and will probably get carded late into his 30's. He also looks amused, with this big grin on his face, and in a lull between chants he breaks loudly into the same chant, but in Spanish. In Spanish, see, it not only makes sense, but it rhymes too. "El pueblo unido jamás será vencido." Nobody else says anything.

He says it again, louder. A street full of people listen to him yell in Spanish, with a kind of joy in his voice "El pueblo! Unido! Jamás será vencido!" It is so much more beautiful in Spanish than in English. Someone hugs him. The crowd finds a new chant, and walks on. We are getting closer to my neighborhood.

There is brief siren burst from behind us. We are very close to a hospital, and an ambulance is trying to get through the crowd. The protesters move out of the way, quickly, and at the same time there is some sort of discussion. I cannot hear exactly, but it sounds like there are two groups and this one is now trying to rejoin the other group. It occurs to me that the second group must have gone up to the top of Piedmont, to come down it. I wonder if that's what happened.

I also really take notice of the police for the first time. I moved to the sidewalk to get out of the way of the ambulance, but on the side of the street away from where the others are standing. I am the only one over here. No, wait. Not the only one. Looking up at me from his squad car is now a police officer. I make eye contact and he makes it right back.

I find I am not worried. If the police wanted to take action against the protesters, probably that would have happened already. I nod at him and he nods back. Also I have something special memorized. I look around, and see that no, the police are actually clearing a path way out in front, while simultaneously trailing in a line behind. I stop and look at everything except the protesters. The police are forming a moving safety ring that keeps traffic out, and is close at hand if things turn ugly. Cars, motorcycles, foot police, and the helicopter are all more or less chaperoning the protesters up and down Oakland.

As we go on, there is a Y-intersection, with the right fork leading to Piedmont and the left fork leading away. We take the left fork, away from Piedmont. I notice this and say out loud, to nobody in particular "Piedmont is that way."

"Oh THIS group could NEVER make it to Piedmont," comes a voice to my left. I look, and here comes a kid with blond feathered hair, a thin nose, and a high nasal voice. He points to his sweatshirt. It says "Stanford" on it. He says "I'm from Palo Alto." He points again. "So I know about suburban cops." It occurs to me that he doesn't know shit about shit. I do not say this, but just shrug and walk on.

We do not get terribly far, though, before we spot the other group, coming down toward us. There are cheers on both sides, and the chant goes straight to "The people united can never be defeated," again. Friends hug one another in the street. The few officers who were out in front of our group, and the officers who were out in front of the other group, have hastily gotten out of the way. There is a kind of little reuniting celebration.

The groups merge and shift a little and mingle, then kind of collectively make up their minds, turning and meandering back toward downtown, back the way we came. I wait a moment, not going with them. The kid from Stanford notwithstanding, it is totally possible that the other group came down Piedmont, then shifted to this other street to meet us. I have to know, which means that I have to find someone to ask. Also, I want to see the police line, as the cops shift ranks to match the shift in the protesters. I want to scrutinize our chaperones. I follow along, but slowly.

The reunion of the two groups took place in front of a parking garage used mostly by the hospital staff. Now that people have started to clear out of the street, the garage attendant is giving the ok for cars to start exiting the building, but there is also pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk. I'm still thinking, so I stand aside and gesture all clear to the car that's trying to get out.

"Thank you," says a bitter, hateful sounding voice. My attention zooms. It is an Audi, the seats are leather, she is blond with an expensive stylist and her skin is tan in spite of a week of overcast weather. On her right wrist is what actually looks like a diamond tennis bracelet. I am sure without seeing it that there is a large diamond on a ring on her left ring finger. Her teeth are nearly perfect and they are clenched. "I. Have been waiting. Long. Enough."

I remain out of the way, and gesture again toward the now clear and open street. She drives off, and while I do not wish her ill, exactly, I do not quite wish her well either. I let a few more cars go, then hustle after the police line, now half a block away already. As I get closer, I see an officer on a motorcycle, parked on a side corner, just waiting there until someone tells him to move again.

I go over and say "Excuse me, but do you know if the one group made it to the Piedmont strip? I live up there."

He says "Yeah. They went up Grand and Pleasant Valley to the top and came right down through Piedmont, then over to meet those other guys." He gestures at the spot where the meeting happened. I mull it over.

"That's a nice hat," he says. "Looks sharp." He gives me a genuinely friendly nod and a smile.

"Thanks," I say back, but I am already making decisions. I'm pretty sure I know how this one goes with the protesters. The rain kept away the people who are just out for kicks, who think that smashing stuff is a good time. The people who are here tonight are, for the most part, the ones who really care enough to march in spite of the rain. They are the ones who care. Probably they'll go downtown, keep at it peacefully for a while in the rain, and then go home.

Also probably nobody did anything on Piedmont, but I have to know. It's my home. I thank the officer again and head up that way.

Things are ok. No broken windows, no looted cars. There's still some people jogging on treadmills in the exercise place, and a couple of the people I saw in the coffee shop earlier are still in there. The boutique bra shop is closed, but the owner is still inside, apparently doing paperwork.

I do not know for sure why I am so fond of the shop that sells unusual sizes of bra. I have literally never been inside there. It is true that I have a pretty standard hetero-male fondness for boobs. It is also true that the shop had a kickstarter that was supported and cheered on by many of my friends here, some of whom apparently know the owner at least by reputation.

But, and this may sound corny, but I have also been an uncomfortable and odd fit, in a way, many times. Often. All my life, almost. And as the protesters make their way back downtown, where they will go on to stage an apparently loud but basically up-beat protest in front of city hall, I consider how I have nestled into this pocket by the bay, and seem, almost, to fit.