Life & Spirit | mulberryshoots

April 16, 2012

seeing red . . .

As some of you know, I’ve been a little disheartened lately. Today, as I was driving along a country lane, a huge, dark red cardinal flew across the front of my car from right to left, his crimson wingspan fluttering in full view. I gasped and thought to myself, “all is not lost,” because I think of cardinals as good omens. Feeling a little better, I picked up my cell phone to call G. While I was describing the red cardinal flying in front of the car, ANOTHER ONE, this one a lighter, golden color, a female this time, flew alongside the right side of my car for about fifteen feet and then winged off into the woods. Two in one day! I began to feel better in earnest.

As I continued driving up to the North Shore, I reflected on what these twin sightings might signify. I asked the Universe silently, “what does this mean,” as I drove up Route 128. All I heard in reply was “everything will be all right” and then a little more softly, “cheer up.”

At the cottage, I ferried things into the house: foodstuffs, bedding, clothing, flowers. The kids are planning to join us tomorrow for the week, then a luncheon for friends next weekend: a busy time. The sky was clear, the sun out, a small red speedboat bounced along the surf, making loud popping noises as it hit the water in its hasty traverse across the horizon. A lovely day.

Returning to the car, I decided to go and fill up with gas so it would be all set for the week. As I edged the car down the rocky lane, I spied a flicker of red in the high bushes to my left. I stopped the car and peered upwards, spying my third cardinal for the day, a male, dark red and pretty large in size.

Seeing red three times today was convincing evidence that it’s definitely time for a change.

For the better!

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April 14, 2012

who knew? . . .

Guess what? I’m Chinese. I’ve been Chinese all my life too, ever since I was born in Chungking during a Japanese air raid, as the story goes. For awhile, I lived with my paternal grandparents in their ancient house in Peking. My grandfather was Dean of Religion at the University and was also active with the World Council of Churches. I came to the States when I was five and landed in a country where the three dialects of Chinese that I spoke didn’t apply anymore. I learned English on the fly and also how to take care of myself because everyone around me had lots to do on their own.

Growing up during the McCarthy era was a challenge. So much so, that I grew an invisible set of armor that saw me through most of my life, like Colgate’s “Gardol,” an invisible shield to protect teeth from cavities. Even though I was subject to name calling, that kind of overt racism was easier to take than the covert kind. You know, those people who want to accept other ethnic groups but can’t seem to let go of their own sense of superiority. When I was visiting my first husband’s family in the Midwest, a woman in a grocery store remarked to my future father-in-law that “she has such nice teeth,” as though I were a horse or some kind of livestock at an animal auction.

I wouldn’t even be talking about this in a post except that it happened to me again this week. A former classmate from the Ivy League school I went to came for lunch at the cottage and managed to be so rude as to puzzle me afterwards. During lunch, she mentioned that even though she knew that blacks, gays and lesbians were socially acceptable nowadays, that she couldn’t get past the “training she received as a five-year-old.” She sounded like she didn’t really want to outgrow racist attitudes and even sounded like she was a little proud of it! Later on the drive home, it occurred to me that her behavior might have been an outgrowth of wanting to be superior to me because I happened to be a minority ethnic group. Or maybe it was something else, I have no idea. It did bring back how isolated I had felt so many years ago as a scholarship student among a bevy of well-to-do princesses.

The more I thought about this, the angrier I became with myself. For being so naive and trusting as to ignore the possibility that this kind of covert discrimination had been ever present all my life. Or that who I was as a person and my abilities were insufficient to offset this kind of prejudice from people I thought were my FRIENDS. On the other hand, what good would it have done to acknowledge it then? Maybe I might have seen rejection more clearly. Anyhow, I am writing about what has become a very uncomfortable realization: that life is not fair and that people do care about what your race is.

Who knew?

8 Comments

April 7, 2012

before and after . . .

Some of you know that I’ve practiced the piano for a long time. My teacher, Basil Toutorsky, taught me how to practice: read the notes for the right hand, then the left hand. Look at the phrasing lines, the dynamics and then play both hands together. Study only one bar at a time until you can play it accurately three times in a row before you move on to the next bar. Slow and steady. Rigorous. Then, speed it up a little. Practice with the metronome so that your rhythm is accurate. Once this process has been followed for one page, stop there. Go back over that page until the notes and the playing start to make musical sense. Play the entire page three times in a row without mistakes before moving forward to the next page. If you make a mistake on the third try, start over again. This was the drill.

Fast forward to today where my facility for sight-reading sometimes gets in the way of patient study habits. Lately, I’ve been drawn to pieces either transcribed or composed by Franz Liszt. This is a kind of anomaly for me because my favorite composer is Bach. One Liszt piece is called “Liebeslied” when it was written originally by Robert Schumann as a wedding gift for his wife, the concert pianist, Clara Schumann. The melody and the harmonies are simple and very touching. It is also called “Widmung” for reasons I’m not aware of once Liszt took it, added sections and embellished it with his usual fanfare of rolling arpeggios and movie-like thematic blow-ups. When Van Cliburn won his tumultuous victory at the Tchaikovsky competition during the Cold War, he played this piece as an encore. A young Asian pianist, Aimi Kobayashi who looks to be about eleven years old, also played it recently as an encore in Russia. (Click her name for a link to listen to this piece on YouTube.)

Anyhow, back to practicing, there’s usually a point in time, a tipping point if you will, when a piece morphs from a study exercise to a piece of music. This phenomenon happened to me recently, a couple of days ago while playing this piece. It went from a period of time over several months, reading the various sections of the piece and playing all the notes. . . to suddenly playing it with a more intuitive grasp of the piece so that the music flows on its own.

In a way, I was thinking about this as a “before” and “after” — from notes on pieces of paper that are transformed into sounds capable of arousing a listener’s emotions. Even if you’re not a pianist, don’t play a note, or, if you think you’re tone-deaf and can’t listen to music, you’ll get it when you listen to this music and it connects with you.

Nothing better.

8 Comments

April 1, 2012

making a difference? . . .

Yesterday, we were having lunch with a friend when the conversation veered to someone we were all concerned about. It soon became apparent that there were two vastly different world views which we felt strongly about. One was, “who am I to judge, criticize or interfere with someone else, even if they are being self-destructive?” The other was, “how can we sit idly by and not try to help in some way?” The former was to strictly mind our own business while living and let live. The other was to take action in some way to make things better, to influence or intervene for a positive change.

Let me just say that during this conversation, we also voiced past examples where no manner of intervention worked to stop someone from doing something self-destructive, whether it be throwing their health away or other worldly goods. So, even trying to do something didn’t necessarily make a difference.

These two vastly different views about our role in life also serve to polarize our society politically, it seems to me: those who want to be left alone to sink or swim on one’s own efforts; and those who feel it is an obligation to help “those in need.” I didn’t realize until now how different these basic attitudes were and how strongly they are held in our present society.

One of the CEO’s I worked with in biotech years ago liked to say: “There are only two kinds of people in the world: simplifiers and complicators.” That adage, I think is true. The one above is more complex and grey rather than black and white.

Nobody likes to be told what to do, and not everyone wants to see things differently, that’s for sure. So where does that leave us?

3 Comments

March 29, 2012

helpers . . .

Yesterday, I thought about looking for a used high chair on Craigslist. When Josie comes to visit (she’s 18 months old now,) it’s handy to have her sit up to the table with us and she’s coming to visit in a couple of weeks. There was a very cute one advertised in the next town over and I made an appointment to see it. The night before, I had mentioned to G. that the ever-so-slight hiccuping sound in my Subaru when it cruised at 60-70 miles an hour was still noticeable after a few months of driving (including a service tune-up,) and that sooner or later I was afraid something further might happen.

On the way to see the high chair late in the afternoon, I noticed a number of traffic stoppings by flashing police cruisers on Rt. 290 so I stayed in the right hand lane and reduced my speed to about 60 mph. I then went on Rt. 495 south when suddenly, the car gave a sighing sound and all the lights came on on the dashboard. It felt like the car had seized up and had a stroke. I steered the car over into the Read the rest of this entry »

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March 28, 2012

in bloom . . .

in bloom, march 26, 2012

We have a weeping cherry tree in the front yard that usually blooms around the first three days of May every year.

These photos were taken, Monday, March 26th, on the second day of the tree’s blossoming. Last night, it was 26 degrees outside. So let’s enjoy these gorgeous images while they last.

Follow-up photo taken, Thursday, April 5th, on the 10th day (still) in bloom!

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March 27, 2012

perspective . . .

bittersweet

The other day, our family went to our favorite restaurant for a Sunday lunch. We have had meals there on Christmas Eve afternoon and the last time was a brunch with my daughter, C., which had been fabulous. Much to our surprise this time, we were served overcooked dishes with what tasted like leftovers from the night before. Not wanting to spoil our time together, none of us mentioned it. Later, I wrote a review on “Yelp” about our disappointing experience. Shortly thereafter, the GM of the restaurant responded personally to my review in a very sincere and candid manner, apologizing for the sub-par meal that we had had there. I wrote back that we would be glad to return again and hoped the high quality we had gotten used to would be consistent in the future.

This incident made me reflect about the difference between being defensive and taking ownership for something and then apologizing. Have you ever noticed that some of the most entrenched (e.g., angry) attitudes appear when people feel defensive about something they might have done wrong? Nobody likes to Read the rest of this entry »

March 23, 2012

fortune . . .

It was eighty-four degrees outside while I drove back from Brookline after my shiatsu treatment yesterday. It’s the third week in March and it felt like the middle of May! Since it was so warm outside, I decided to swing by one of my favorite Chinese restaurants in Framingham and pick up something for dinner on the way home. I ordered three cold appetizer dishes that weren’t on the regular “take-out” menu: drunken chicken, pickled szechuan cabbage, braised bean curd skin and some brown rice.

When I arrived home, I opened my mail, and in it was a beat-up paperback translation of the “Tao te Ching” dating to the 1960’s that I had found online by chance. I browsed Read the rest of this entry »

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March 20, 2012

charmed again . . .

happy spring!

So from today’s events, I am wondering if I might be having a lucky streak. This afternoon, I told G. that I was going to do my food shopping for our supper at the Vietnamese grocery in town because it was so much cheaper than going to chain stores. It’s not in the safest part of town, but I drove the back way going by the local college a few blocks down from the shop and found a parking space directly across the street. It had suffered a fire a few years back and it’s been awhile before being rebuilt and back in business again.

Inside, I bought a few things: a pack of fresh chicken thighs, a couple of slender Japanese eggplants, a head of garlic, a bunch of scallions, a dozen jumbo brown eggs and 8-10 very large shrimp to stir fry with garlic, scallions and ginger tonight. That was enough fresh ingredients for two dinners and then some. When I was checking out, the cashier gave me a broad smile and started chanting at me, “You very lucky! lucky! lucky!” I was mystified but then she told me my total bill was $11.11. She kept going, “very lucky! four eights or four ones together: very lucky!” The other customers around me smiled too.

Walking back to my car, I thought about this little bit of hoopla and chuckled to myself. Maybe I am lucky, I said to myself. We’ll see. It’s hard to believe so many high quality ingredients could be had for just $11.11, let alone that the numbers symbolized good luck, don’t you think?

5 Comments

March 19, 2012

charmed . . .

freed at last

Have you ever had something that you thought was bad happen to you, and it turned out to be something really good instead?

The other day, I was preoccupied, driving on a country lane while measuring distances to put onto directions for a friend who would be visiting soon. I passed a police car on the side of the road but thought little about it until he pulled me over about a mile past where he had been sitting. Turns out I was going over the 30 mile an hour speed limit. I was annoyed with myself and also resigned as I opened the glove compartment of the car to give him my registration. Turned out that the registration was out of date too. Fortunately, my husband, G. had taped a “State Troopers Are Our Friends” placard on the window behind the driver side. I guess this has saved him from getting a ticket in the past. It seemed to work this time Read the rest of this entry »

Category: Life & Spirit