some people are music
i was rifling through pages of scribbled notes, preparing to host the last call of my online workshop. A sentence caught my eye.
“When hosting a workshop, always show up with a full cup”.
my cup felt full already - with fresh air from a long walk and dramatic endings, a morning chat in the woods where the penny dropped and i trimmed my sail, decided my temples needed another name.
anyway - that was daytime.
i prepare to tune myself further - flip out the yoga mat.
music. I need something to muffle a little the banter of one-of-three yoga videos I follow. I know by heart every joke as the sunny banter guides me to stretch and twist and hold and breathe…
“hmm. something with birdsong in the background.”
then of course it has to be AJ hickling and i’m guessing he must be gone now.
It was 4 months ago.
On the morning before hosting another workshop…
4 months already?
the recently dead and born make time fly with their dramatic air traffic.
…That morning 4 months ago i was still barely awake in David’s house. wrapped around a mug in a blanket in the biting chill left from yesterday’s snow.
i opened my laptop to talk to participants and happened upon his farewell to the world on social media.
“Well friends, thanx for epic times!! Apparently I'm nearly done. Advanced pancreatic cancer. Meh! Who'd of thought... Ah well. Its been an absolute honor. Love big.”
I laid there eyes streaming, cradling the loudspeaker spilling his piano in the cold morning light, taking it with me in the shower and group room as i removed traces of my night-camp, feeling much the toddler with a blanket as i toted his music into every room in the giant house for the twenty minutes that were just mine, before putting away my feelings and putting on my game face to welcome people into their bodies.
since then the honey sweetness of his piano is also a memento mori. it was already magnificent - a raindrop of aotearoa rainforest, the smell of sunsets whipped with seaspray over the lid of his traveling piano-on-wheels that lived outside, imbibing the view and the people.
Some people play music.
Some people are music.
We shared a brief hello once. A small concert hall in Auckland. He’d bought his little bed-lamp from home to light his face, his hands on the keys. He didn’t want the big bold stage lights. They killed the intimacy of the moment.
My mouth curls up, my eyes moisten as i breathe with my hands in prayer position, eyes closed, and feel my every bone hum with intention.
my body rises and falls with warrior pose. light. Balanced.
the piano lifts with my arms and the tuis chirp as serenity diffuses through my cells…not serenity no.
a sense of grace that’s not round and diffuse but sharp, silver as a kiss of moonlight on a knifeblade.
this glint of a moment.
some days this moment feels dull, slippery, my mind yammering endlessly about tomorrow. But not today.
the music crescendoes on downward dog.
Today, this moment, is a fat black cherry on my tongue. Its juicy flesh parts between my teeth and topples the stars from the sky.
I give silent thanks to my teachers for the reminder to connect to vastness before hosting. A wider part of me takes the stage as I step down from the mat.
Holding a golden thread to the transience of all things.
This call is about endings…
And I am ready.
photo credits unknown