Quiet music

   I can''t say that I am easily shocked by much besides the intensity of my feelings at times, but when I think a bit about how some of my tastes have changed about music, I am surprised. As an example, I remember thinking that I'd never listen to folk music unless it had an important connection to my past (an example might be a song from a record that my father played when I was growing up), and while my interest in some of this music ebbs and flows, I do listen to it, despite my past absolute belief to the contrary.
   Along these lines would also be included jazz, which I had no interest in or experience with, only the complete disdain for. I now often listen to a jazz radio station in my car when I drive, and have begun exploring more of this genre, listening to it at home as well on occasion.
   While jazz can often be quite uptempo and vibrant, both of these forms of music could for me be put in the category I would call "quiet music" (or at least quieter music than I used to listen to).  I find that music which is less aggressive and forceful provides not only a calming respite, but also just seems to go better with my temperament at this time in my life. It's not that I am so much calmer and relaxed as a person in the world, but I seek to have these qualities more now, and that is a change, albeit a gradual one. I have not found that being more relaxed is necessarily easier as I get older, but feel that doing something concrete to create that environment around me seems more vital.
   Not only do I prefer a quieter music these days, but more tranquil surroundings as well. I now would choose visiting a beautiful park or forest over visiting a city on almost any occasion, as I've grown to accept, through experience, that places without a lot of commotion help to calm my internal commotion. Because I feel like a savage beast at times, I turn to quiet music for it's charms, to paraphrase the famous quote.

 

Immigration policy

   I have been thinking quite a bit recently about my relationship with immigrants, and how it informs the ways that I think of myself ethnically and culturally. As an adult, I have often found myself living in neighborhoods with high minority populations, so have often felt like the outsider culturally there. Although I probably have been the minority in those enclaves, I imagine that it has been those residents that has felt that way in the wider society, yet even in that larger culture, I still tend to feel something like a tolerated guest at best.
   I should mention here that although I am white, I am ethnically (though non-religiously) Jewish, and that fact has tended to make it difficult for me to fully identify with other Caucasian people; like the pork industry states about their product, I feel like the other white meat.
   This feeling of being this other in a majority population is a confusing place; like an entity that is forever in between other things, I can't quite figure out to whom or where I belong, and although I have never wanted to belong to groups (most likely as a way to try to verify my uniqueness to myself), I suspect that I in fact don't feel like I belong, rather than not really wanting to belong.
   I recall on multiple occasions seeing programs on television about life in prison, and when prisoners talk of the need for 'staying with your race' for one's own safety, I become puzzled; I suspect the 'white' groups (the apparent group for me) would have neo-Nazi tendencies, and then what place would I have there?
   Born in New York City and a resident there for fourty two years, I had always thought of myself as a "New Yorker", even for some years after living in my current state of California. I now think of myself as a person from New York, and although I try to think of myself as a Californian, I'm not sure that I believe myself.
   Here in the United States, there has been a lot of discussion about immigration over the last few years, and it has given me pause to think about my own policy; am I allowing myself to emigrate, or shall I forever be the 'wandering Jew', remaining the diaspora that I may or may not want to be?

Preparing for possibility

   This is the time of year for babies around Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park. There are ducklings and goslings, to name just a couple, while other birds are preparing for their newborns, including herons and small back birds whose name I do not know, but who do a great job of harassing squirrels and human passersby who venture too close to their nests.
   Most of the people that I see on my daily walks marvel at the infant and juvenile animals there, but I am much more interested in the gathering, building and waiting than the 'finished products'. I first started to realize this when on multiple occasions I saw a large bird (a heron) clumsily land on a branch some distance from the tree it's normally associated with, and a minute or so l later taking flight again, this time with some sticks in its mouth. There was something about this image that stuck with me.
   It would be easy to surmise that I appreciate and feel more comfortable with process than with ending, but the reality is that little could be farther from the truth. I am very uncomfortable with unfinished things, and do all I can to avoid them as often as possible.
   One could also say that I am drawn to the building and construction because it is a creative endeavor, like an artist whose art is only meaningful for them as an act of creation. That wouldn't be true for me, either. I have some history as a visual artist, and there too, I generally preferred finishing the artwork to the making of it, though there were times that the creation aspect was fun and educational.
   It's strange then to me that what I'm drawn to here at the lake doesn't strike me as preparation as much as something else, something more like readying for possibility. This notion feels like freedom to me. In it lies the hope that I can feel more unencumbered by limits, and more filled with the excitement of possibility.

The home base of the small, harassing black birds.