I was delighted and daunted, to receive an over-sized blank book as a gift. Leather-bound with semi-precious stones and hand-made paper, it waits for me to breathe life into it. And waits. My husband, Charles, who encourages my dabbling in an array of interests, thought the book would provide inspiration. On the other hand, I worried that I'm not good enough to exhibit my poetry, prose, or sketches in such royal packaging.
My niece, Holly, said that being good enough is not the point. She shared an anecdote from Kurt Vonnegut, one that apparently everyone else has heard or read, except me. Here it is:
Kurt Vonnegut wrote: When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of "getting to know you" questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What's your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don't play any sports. I do theater, I'm in choir, play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes. And he went WOW. That's amazing! And I said, "Oh
no, but I'm not any good at ANY of them."
And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: "I don't think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you've got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them."
And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn't been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could "Win" at them.
I tend to listen carefully to what Holly has to say so I gave her missive some thought.
Holly jumps into life, flip flops first, and eyes wide open. Holly grew up with nerve and charm to try anything, and to laugh hard at herself by chance she failed. She grew into a fascinating young woman and I learned to pay heed to what she preached and practiced. Holly markets the concept that anything is capable of bringing you joy. Holly wore $1 flip flops as if they were designer shoes, years before it was popular to do so.
I have a memory of being jammed into a Nepali taxi along with my husband and son, my mother, and Holly. As the taxi driver worked his way through tight Kathmandu traffic, he bemoaned how poor he was, hoping for a large tip, and verified his condition by saying he could only afford flip flops, taking his foot off the accelerator to show us. Holly, wearing flip flops, leaned through the opening in the front seat to tell him how lucky he was and the myriad advantages of flip flops over shoes. Holly, I found, has something worth saying. We still gave him a nice tip for the entertaining exchange between him and Holly.
Here are photos of Holly taking a rickshaw in Bangladesh, sharing popsicles with her new friends, and standing with my Mom in Nepal, just after they stepped out of the taxi.
I have so many interests and have pursued them one after the other over the years, taking a class here and there, to see if I had any actual talent. I found no evidence of a latent gift but hoped that something would unfold if I kept trying. The truth revealed was Vonnegut's lesson that trying out a lot of things made my life interesting, and gave me experiences to share that perhaps made me a little more interesting to others. Besides, I enjoyed doing them. So Holly's lesson, "being good at something is not the point," is well taken.
Reflecting further, I think I learned one more thing worth sharing: Trying new things opens doors to interesting and talented people who might never have crossed your path. By setting up scheduled lessons or attending workshops, I guarantee time with mentors over months, even years, and in many cases they have become close friends. I am surrounded by stellar friends, people with gentle hearts and extraordinary talents. I don't just see them in brief moments from time to time; instead, we meet to dive into shared interests–book club, art group, and excursions at home and abroad that add layers of depth to relationships. I get to bask in their sunshine which warms my spirit and enriches my time on earth.
I have many interests that are strong enough for me to spend time doing them daily or weekly. I devote time to writing my blog, fiction and poetry; graphic journaling, botanical illustration, Zentangle, piano, dance, swimming, gardening, feeding friends, beading, and reading to learn and escape. I'm working on bird and shell identification, and I like to walk on the beach and forested dunes near my house or bike to check out the neighborhood. I am a closet introvert so I could dabble in these alone, but I push myself out of my comfort zone and seek out friendly experts to do them with me. By trying new things, I met people whose paths I might never have crossed, people who upgrade my life beyond measure. I'll share some examples:
Wind moves the tree branches and dance moves me. The tree and I have no choice. I remember sitting in my high school auditorium watching a performance from the NC School of the Arts. Through tears of joy and envy I could see that these talented dancers were my age. I wondered how they even knew that such an opportunity existed. I wished I had been born in their ballet shoes.
I determined to make dance a part of my life. As an adult, I splurged on season tickets for the American Dance Festival held at Duke University in Durham, NC, where I lived at the time. I became familiar with modern dance companies. One of my favorites was the Chuck Davis Dance
Company (African American Dance Ensemble) that draws its choreography from West African dance.
I saw an article in the dance press that Chuck Davis offered master classes in Durham during the weeks of the Dance Festival. Having no training, but passionate interest, I signed up. And when I went to class I entered a dream world. I danced with professional dancers and I met a teacher with a huge heart and patience to teach me to dance and appreciate a complex African art form where movements tell stories.
Meet the teacher that inspired my love of African Dance by watching this You Tube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4y4pZ1t53k
Chuck Davis fueled a passion in me for African dance. Four years later, we were living in La Paz, Bolivia. I heard that a Brazilian African dance teacher offered weekly classes near my house. Classes were held in a glass walled studio that looked out to red canyon walls with stunning vertical formations as might be made by giant mud daubers. This beautiful setting and full-of-life teacher didn't make me a proficient dancer, but it brought me joy and new friends.
After Bolivia, we moved to Ghana, and I was able to attend performances by the Ghana Dance Ensemble of the National Theatre. In my work and travel, I also watched village dancers and began to identify the origin of the movements I learned in Durham and La Paz.
Francis Kofi Akotuah was the lead dancer and choreographer with the National Theatre. He was also one of the best drummers and drum makers in the country. We got to know him personally through Kathy Burgess, a professor from Mount Holyoke College, who was in Ghana on a Fulbright Fellowship studying spiritual choir music. She wanted her own children to learn traditional drumming and dancing and arranged for Kofi to teach drumming and dance at the American Club.
Francis Koffi Akotuah now resides in Oakland, California. Enjoy several videos of his performances on You Tube.
Also check out this YouTube video of foreigners learning to dance and drum in Ghana with Ekome tours in 2008, similar to my own experiences, for which I do not have photos or video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA7wHmB1jec
I began studying dance with Kofi and commissioned him to make a drum for each of our children who were ages seven and twelve. He brought the drums to our house and gave the children lessons. The drums were made from a hollow tree trunk, stretched with leather, tuned with pegs and strings and played with different parts of the bare hand in order to achieve different sounds.
Bronwyn and Chas lacked basic interest and determination to learn the language and skills of drumming, but we all loved Kofi's visits, and became social friends with him and his wife. Kofi explained the methods of talking drums and he told us a folk myth from his family.
In many parts of Ghana, drummers are the keepers of ethnic histories. Talking drums can imitate language with different tones and tempos. Because of this, the Ghanaian drummers can convey messages and tell stories without using words. As children grow, they learn their tribal language when spoken and also as conveyed by a drum.
You can check out a talking drum story on this making noise blog from wordpress.com. https://makingnoiseblog.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/the-drum-that-talks/
In another You Tube video, watch female members of the Ghana Dance Ensemble playing on gourds and dancing. These are the type of performances I watched and practiced.
Africans say that the drum contains three spirits. The belief is that the djembe drum, like the ones Kofi made for our kids, contains the spirit of the tree from which it was made, the spirit of the animal whose skin is played, and the spirit of the one who cut the tree and made the drum. Until a Ghanaian gets to know you well, they do not reveal stories of juju and magic that are core to their family legends.
I will share his story best that I can remember it:
Kofi told us that his grandfather, who was deceased, had magical powers. As a small child he wandered into the forest and was lost. After several years he reappeared and told his astonished family that he had been raised by forest pygmies. He carried with him a set of miniature drums that were gifts from the pygmies. Kofi's grandfather said the pygmies gave him magical powers to play the drum.
The villagers were astonished to see him and hear his story. They gave him a drum to demonstrate. To their amazement, he played rhythms they had never heard. Others from nearby villages also came to hear him play. Kofi's grandfather became known as the best drum player in that region. He grew into an adult, married, and had seven daughters and one son, Kofi's father. Kofi's grandfather taught Kofi's father to craft drums and to play. He gave him the magic drums as he lay dying.
Kofi's father's drumming talents were well-known and he was invited to play at festivals in Accra and Cape Coast. The British Ambassador saw him perform and organized a performance tour for him in the U.K. Kofi was then offered a scholarship to attend University in the UK, the first of his village to leave the country.
For some of the villagers this was a source of great pride, and for others, a foundation for jealousy. When Kofi's father returned to Ghana, several village men took him out drinking. He walked alone back to his hut and fell dead. His family believed he was poisoned. His drums were missing, and Kofi's family never saw the magic drums again. However, his Grandfather's village still holds an annual festival in honor of Kofi's grandfather and the magic drums.
By trying to learn something that interested me, even though I was way out of my league (not good enough) I attained meaningful experiences, relationships and life stories.
Once we retired from international development work and landed in Beaufort, I looked for opportunities to dance. Someone mentioned this new thing, called Zumba, so I tried it out. I met a young man in the class named Jonathan Alley. He was studying to be a Zumba instructor and on some occasions he led the class.
Eventually he started his own classes, and bit by bit we became close friends. I am energized and inspired by his love-everybody personality and remarkable personal story about how dance enabled him to overcome two major life hurdles. I am encouraging him to write his story as an inspiration to others as it has been to me.
When I think back over the people I've met from exploring my interest in dance, I am simply amazed. I didn't allow not being good at dance to provide reason not to try, proof of Holly's point, and illustrating my own, that pursuing interests opens doors to extraordinary people and an enriched life. New skills, new friends, and even a cat's affection.
I met Molly, the big-eyed cat, because her human, Karen Baggott, teaches me piano. When Charles's mom, Sara Grace Llewellyn, died in 2002, we inherited her baby grand piano. Her parents gave it to her on her twelfth birthday realizing that her talents deserved a special instrument, and indeed she went on to win Arkansas' state competition and a scholarship to Julliard. Perhaps you read the story I wrote about my extraordinary mother in law in a previous blog.
Since childhood, I longed to play the piano but had no opportunity. As an adult, I had Grace's beautiful instrument and the ability to pay for classes, but worried I was too old to learn, not good enough. In spite of trepidation, I started my search to find a pianist to teach me, but to no avail. I occasionally attended a Unitarian meeting and asked the pianist if she knew of a piano teacher. She said she would give it some thought. I followed up the next time I attended a service, but she drew a blank. I pleaded, "Don't you know anyone?"
She glanced up at a woman, Karen Baggott, who was standing in earshot. I knew Karen, but not well. "How about you?" She asked Karen. Would you be willing to teach Deborah? Karen looked at me, considered the request and answered, "I guess so."
Karen was a skilled pianist who sometimes played meditative pieces at the Unitarian Church. She had previously taught piano years back to supplement her income as a high school mathematics teacher. Now, retired and living in Morehead, NC, she became a nature photographer. It was my great fortune that she carved out time to give me an hour lesson at her home, once a week, and she was flexible enough that she would still take me after interludes of being out of the country for work.
When I went to her house, I got to look through her latest photographs and witness the art in nature that she saw through her lens. Piano lessons were coupled with an art gallery visit, both her work and that of her husband, Jerry Heiser.
Karen and Jerry initially migrated to our area from East Hampton when he was hired to develop exhibits for the NC Maritime Museum in Beaufort. As a hobby, and eventually, full time, he made whimsical sculptural art. His work was astonishing due to his command of raw materials and clever ideas that often caused viewers to wonder what it meant, and then burst into laughter when they figured it out.
Photos of Jerry and his work:
Elliot Cleared for Landing,
Jerry standing next to The Birth of Elliot (with a bit of wing and roller skate protruding from the ostrich shell), and some pieces from Jerry's chess set.
Jerry's art was an instrument of joy for onlookers and his optimism carried him through a long painful battle with agent-orange related cancer, his souvenir from the Vietnam War.
During his illness, he completed a large puzzle replicating Michelangelo's mural on the celling of the Sistine chapel. (You can see part of the completed puzzle mounted on the wall behind Karen's photo above.)
And because he couldn't help himself, Jerry created a small sculpture of himself working from a scaffold, like that used by Michelangelo, only Jerry is holding a puzzle piece instead of a paintbrush.
After Jerry died, Karen moved to a condominium, with a Walden-like pond that draws loons, egrets, herons and wood ducks, an ever-changing landscape for her photos.
She also adopted a kitten named Molly. I experience extreme allergic reaction from cats but decided to up my allergy meds in order to continue my classes with Karen. I avoided Molly, but Molly quickly discovered the woven basket I use to carry my music books to class. Each visit, she picked at it for a while, shaped it into a nest, and napped. I resented Molly tearing up my basket and spreading cat dander on my basket, so after a few lessons I hung it on a door knob out of her reach. She looked at me with wide-eyed disappointment and slipped away. I hardly ever saw her when I came for class. Suited me fine.
One day, my heart opened to Molly's big eyes, and I decided to give the joy of destroying and nesting in my basket back to her. The pleasure it gave her over-rode my selfishness. So once again, I lay the basket on the floor poised for her to perform her ritual of picking and nesting. At first she didn't come, still miffed, at me, but eventually she made her way to the basket, looking up at me cautiously as she started to pick it like a violin. Now when I arrive for class, I not only chat with Karen about nature, music and her community work, but we also take a few minutes to go oogley over Molly as she destroys my basket. Molly seems to know when we are admiring her. She looks from me to Karen and back again, then purrs.
These days, Molly runs from her hiding place to greet me when she hears my voice at the door. She looks up at me with the sweetest eyes, waiting for me to scratch the fur around her ears. When I remove my sheet music and place the basket on the floor, she pauses to thank me, and then starts her dance with the basket. Ever so slowly, I have fallen in love with a cat.
Karen is a gentle soul, and like her birds in the pond and her big-eyed cat I have received blessings because I stepped out on a weak limb of not being good enough and was caught in free fall by an artist and a cat, who make my world a better place.
Passions don't pay bills, raise children, fold the laundry or hold a bed pan for aging parents. I know this to be true but also know that if you don't carve time to pursue something that brings you a moment of joy in the throw of hard life realities, then you will be left without worth to yourself or others. Take time to identify something that interests you and find a special person to teach you. Doing so, like electrolytes for dehydration, will restore your energy to live.
So this takes us back to the beginning, being good at something is not the point. The point is, "Just do it!" It will make you and your life more interesting, while you also gain inspiring new friends.
Don't take my word for it (or that of Nike's). Paraphrasing quotes from some great life guides, consider advice from Gandhi and Mr. Rogers-all you have to do is light the candle being given to you. And Big Bird, to quote another life ambassador, said, "Don’t worry that you aren't good enough for anyone else to hear, just sing, sing a song".
That's plenty wisdom to end this blog and convince me it's time to open that leather book with linen paper and write.
GAHHHHHHh! I loved this blog so much. Thank you, Deborah!