"Genius" is not a word I apply lightly. It's a rare thing, and I know it when I see it. Even as a Berklee professor teaching at a college where there is an abundant amount of extraordinary young creativity, I have only come across genius once among my many students.
I first encountered Kata Kozma in my Reading 2 lab at Berklee. We got to talking about Diana Krall, Oscar Peterson, and jazz piano/singing in general, and I learned that she had an extensive background in classical piano. What astonished me was her jazz piano playing ability--she could swing harder than any student I had ever heard, and had excellent technique and improvisatory skill. She was extremely modest about this, and expressed her admiration of Diana Krall, who was her role model at the time.
I did not see Kata again for a couple of years. When she was a senior, I was pleased to have her as a private lesson student. Before this, I had heard that she was selected by a panel of famous jazz pianists (including Joanne Brackeen, who also had Kata as a student and has very high standards) to perform in a concert featuring young female jazz pianists at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. I watched the video of the concert and I am not exaggerating when I say that she was by far the best of the performers. I also listened to tracks she made of her own performances on both piano and vocals: she performs both standards and originals in a very original way
By the time she became my private student, I wasn't sure there was anything I could teach her. Yet she insisted that she needed help in learning how to replicate open position jazz voicings with tensions, so we worked on that. She and I made some informal recordings of us playing jazz piano duets and vocal duets which are amazing. Also at this time (2010) Kata helped me revamp my website, designed new business cards, and took professional photos of me. It was then that I discovered that Kata is not only a brilliant musician but also a painter and graphic designer, and a phenomenal photographer who could be a professional--she even made an aging and unphotogenic college professor look beautiful and glamorous! She and I share a love for Lady Gaga (at least as she was then) and I had a secret hope that with Kata's help I might become the Lady Gaga of jazz. It hasn't happened yet, and I'm afraid the jazz world already has its over-the-top diva in Haromi. But you never know...
Kata is a young woman who could excel in several different fields. By the time she graduated, she was more interested in being behind the scenes (producing) than she was in performing. I was a little disappointed because she was such an extraordinary jazz player/singer. But I wanted her to follow her dream, and I believed she ought to be in New York. I told her so, as did many other people, and at first she was not convinced, but now she realizes that New York is where talent like hers belongs.
I have been following Kata's career with interest on Facebook. In a remarkably short time, she has established herself as a writer/producer with her own production company in New York and has created a jingle-writing collective. She produced Sanura's first CD and is currently producing CDs for several up-and-coming neo soul artists. She is the hardest-working person I know.
There is no young musician I know who is more deserving of an artist's visa than Kata Kozma. Someday the world will take notice of her and give her the acclaim she deserves.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Saturday, April 6, 2013
First post in 2013
It has been almost 6 months since my father's death in October. His demise was followed not long after by the decline and passing of my Uncle Buddy, beloved patriarch of a large family with 6 great-grandchildren, husband of 60-plus years to my Aunt Joan, who has suffered a crippling loss.
Of course death has been on my mind these many months. And instead of becoming less depressed, I become more and more energyless and despondent. I have forced myself to deal with matters concerning Dad's estate: the minutiae are endless and they have robbed me of any creative spirit I might otherwise have had. A composition I began months ago sits on my desk with a note on it saying "Edit in Finale," but I don't have the energy to work on it. I'm not practicing much due to tendinitis in my right elbow which doesn't go away. I used to deal with this by practicing with my left hand only, but now it's easier just not to deal.
On weekends I lie abed late in the morning. This morning I awoke at 11, full of free-floating anxiety about what needs to be done, even though it's Saturday, not even a business day. My faithful cat is nestled beside me hoping I won't get out of bed. His mute empathy (or so it seems) is the one thing that comforts me, and I close my eyes and go back to imagining various final episode scenarios for The Mentalist until I fall asleep again briefly. I wake up again a few minutes later trying to think of a good reason to get out of bed. I'm not hungry, so it won't be necessary to cook breakfast. Curtiss, who never sleeps much, is already up and at his computer.
Finally I pull myself out of bed and go into the kitchen to confront the huge pile of bills and other paperwork that I have been avoiding. Not only must I pay my own bills, but there are my father's bills too--the cable/wireless, electric, and the $700/month oil bill that gets deducted from the new estate bank account I set up two weeks ago. The other day, the new credit card was rejected when the oil company ran it, and I had to run to the bank to activate the card by using the ATM. I expect things like this to happen. This morning I find an email from my father's accountant saying she still needs some more papers to file my father's return by April 15, which is looming. I have to wait until Monday to get any business done, and I already have several to-dos on my iCal for that day. I make a note of the phone calls I must make, then make a call and leave a text trying to track down a "handyman" who has been using my father's garage as a storage facility for two years. My father, in a weak moment, apparently agreed to allow him to do this. The man is said to be an alcoholic and utterly irresponsible. The good news is, he's apparently come to take away some of it. The house is being shown, and it doesn't help to have the garage stuffed floor to ceiling with junk.
Then there's the contractor I've been playing phone tag with. The hall light ceiling fixture in dad's house has filled with water and no longer works, and there is water leaking from the roof in another part of the house according to our house sitter, Tasha. I can only hope that the house doesn't need a whole new roof. As Dad's gambling habit grew worse, he neglected repairs to the house. The landscaper who mows the lawn and prunes the trees said that Dad had neglected the grounds for years because he didn't want to pay for the care that would have prevented the property from becoming overgrown.
There is about $6000 in the estate account. This has to be enough to pay for remaining expenses, or I will have to dip into my inheritance money which is supposed to be for our retirement in France or Ecuador, whichever will take us with the least problems. (To that end, I am reviewing my French and learning Spanish online, also reviewing my Italian since it's there--this has become a daily distraction from the bureaucratic black hole I have been sucked into.) Of course, the sale of Dad's house will enable us to pay any unpaid bills, but who knows when or if that will occur? There have been at least 3 showings but no offers. The beautiful old 18th century house with its barn, guest house, and garage on 3.5 acres of land enclosed by extraordinary stone walls, with ancient trees and my mother's perennial beds which still survive 28 years after her death. Selling for $220,000 asking price, which means we will be lucky to get $210,000. It's a travesty--the house was assessed at $350,000 just a few years back. But Connecticut is in a depression. The state is out of money, so the Town of Mansfield levies taxes on every possible thing, including the privilege of taking your bulky and large trash to the dump. The Holts' Georgian mansion, furnished with antiques, now a bed and breakfast, is still on the market, down to $800,000 from the original listing price of $1,000,000. Mrs. Holt is the heiress to the Holt, Reinhardt, and Winston publishing fortune, and if her mansion were in Newton, MA, it would be selling for 2.5 million.
I have come to believe that I am unlucky as far as money is concerned. It's not because I don't manage money well--I do--it's just that my father gambled away the money my grandfather meant my brother and me to have, and Dad just assumed we'd recoup the money when we sold his house. He also thought that when he hit the big jackpot at the casino his kids would be set for life. Instead, if he ever won any money, he just gambled with it again. And lost. He died without any winnings.
No one compelled me to become a musician. In my 20's, I thought with the arrogance of youth that I would make a lot of money some day. Instead, it meant a hand-to-mouth existence my entire adult life, always worrying that I would not have enough money to pay the rent or later, the mortgage. What I feared most was ending up on the street, a bag lady muttering to herself. While this has never even come close to happening, I have had to budget strictly. I have not bought a new car since 1999 and I paid cash so as not to have loan payments. Even then, I had to beg my father to give me the $12,000 I needed along with $3000 I borrowed from Barbara. My own condo needs repairs that we cannot afford. Curtiss, who generously gave me a lot of money (when he had it) to do repairs on the house, is now on disability. I am 60 years old and have no pension--I am part-time, paid by the hour, lucky to have health care thanks to the Berklee union. I have been functioning this way since 1995. I will probably not be able to retire--they say you need at least 1 million saved up. I work very hard, am always exhausted, and make very little money. I have a lot of company. The corporate culture has created this scenario for the majority of my generation. And now they are taking away our Social Security, which in any event will be a pittance and not enough to retire on.
I remind myself every day that there are things to be grateful for.
my eyesight: saved by Dr. Sang, one of the best retinal surgeons in the country
my son: doing well at his job in Ecuador, planning to go to grad school along with his girlfriend, whom I also love
Curtiss: one of the few people who always have my back, who is getting well slowly but surely, and talking about getting a job
Barbara: another of the few who always have my back, still my loyal friend after all these years
my other girl friends: Debbie, Fay, Jeri, Phyllis, Lori, Yanni. They keep me sane.
my little students: Gavi, Ella, Ally, Sarah, Ava, Pete, Aashini, and Pranati. Learning to play the piano, improving, getting ready for a recital in May! Their drawings have covered a wall behind my piano.
my cat Sparky: a lap cat, doglike, he follows me around trying to console me in that mute animal way
my Aunt Joan: who also has always had my back, now needs me to have hers. I have never seen her cry before until she lost Buddy. Like me, she is embarrassed to cry in front of others and usually manages not to. At 83, she is hanging onto her health, talking optimistically about coming to visit me in June or July and having me show her around Berklee. She still goes to work every day as a counselor. She is strong and courageous, but she has been crippled by this loss. Something of her energy may have been lost for good. She used to be relentlessly optimistic, cheering me on through my darkest hours; now her optimism is still there, but for the moment it is eclipsed by grief. We spent some time with her in NJ and Curtiss made a video of her talking to me. I am afraid of losing her, too, and if she dies this year I will be overcome with despair. But I have to face the possibility. Not be prepared, because no one can be prepared for the death of someone you love. Death will always drag your loved one to the unknown. No matter how hard you hold on, your grip will be broken and Death will win.
One day I will open my arms to life again and stop thinking about death. I must embrace life or I will never perform or write music again. Life is what gives us the ability to create. At the moment, I am just getting through each day. I sit in front of the TV night after night, anesthetizing myself as I multitask with Facebook, email, word games, language lessons, and various web sites so I don't have to feel the pain. I feel guilty about being a slug, so I forced myself to go to my personal trainer on Thursday and signed up for a once a week session for a month. I'm not exercising as much as usual, and eating sweets and other unhealthy carbs. It's not that I don't care anymore--I just have to muster the strength to care.
Of course death has been on my mind these many months. And instead of becoming less depressed, I become more and more energyless and despondent. I have forced myself to deal with matters concerning Dad's estate: the minutiae are endless and they have robbed me of any creative spirit I might otherwise have had. A composition I began months ago sits on my desk with a note on it saying "Edit in Finale," but I don't have the energy to work on it. I'm not practicing much due to tendinitis in my right elbow which doesn't go away. I used to deal with this by practicing with my left hand only, but now it's easier just not to deal.
On weekends I lie abed late in the morning. This morning I awoke at 11, full of free-floating anxiety about what needs to be done, even though it's Saturday, not even a business day. My faithful cat is nestled beside me hoping I won't get out of bed. His mute empathy (or so it seems) is the one thing that comforts me, and I close my eyes and go back to imagining various final episode scenarios for The Mentalist until I fall asleep again briefly. I wake up again a few minutes later trying to think of a good reason to get out of bed. I'm not hungry, so it won't be necessary to cook breakfast. Curtiss, who never sleeps much, is already up and at his computer.
Finally I pull myself out of bed and go into the kitchen to confront the huge pile of bills and other paperwork that I have been avoiding. Not only must I pay my own bills, but there are my father's bills too--the cable/wireless, electric, and the $700/month oil bill that gets deducted from the new estate bank account I set up two weeks ago. The other day, the new credit card was rejected when the oil company ran it, and I had to run to the bank to activate the card by using the ATM. I expect things like this to happen. This morning I find an email from my father's accountant saying she still needs some more papers to file my father's return by April 15, which is looming. I have to wait until Monday to get any business done, and I already have several to-dos on my iCal for that day. I make a note of the phone calls I must make, then make a call and leave a text trying to track down a "handyman" who has been using my father's garage as a storage facility for two years. My father, in a weak moment, apparently agreed to allow him to do this. The man is said to be an alcoholic and utterly irresponsible. The good news is, he's apparently come to take away some of it. The house is being shown, and it doesn't help to have the garage stuffed floor to ceiling with junk.
Then there's the contractor I've been playing phone tag with. The hall light ceiling fixture in dad's house has filled with water and no longer works, and there is water leaking from the roof in another part of the house according to our house sitter, Tasha. I can only hope that the house doesn't need a whole new roof. As Dad's gambling habit grew worse, he neglected repairs to the house. The landscaper who mows the lawn and prunes the trees said that Dad had neglected the grounds for years because he didn't want to pay for the care that would have prevented the property from becoming overgrown.
There is about $6000 in the estate account. This has to be enough to pay for remaining expenses, or I will have to dip into my inheritance money which is supposed to be for our retirement in France or Ecuador, whichever will take us with the least problems. (To that end, I am reviewing my French and learning Spanish online, also reviewing my Italian since it's there--this has become a daily distraction from the bureaucratic black hole I have been sucked into.) Of course, the sale of Dad's house will enable us to pay any unpaid bills, but who knows when or if that will occur? There have been at least 3 showings but no offers. The beautiful old 18th century house with its barn, guest house, and garage on 3.5 acres of land enclosed by extraordinary stone walls, with ancient trees and my mother's perennial beds which still survive 28 years after her death. Selling for $220,000 asking price, which means we will be lucky to get $210,000. It's a travesty--the house was assessed at $350,000 just a few years back. But Connecticut is in a depression. The state is out of money, so the Town of Mansfield levies taxes on every possible thing, including the privilege of taking your bulky and large trash to the dump. The Holts' Georgian mansion, furnished with antiques, now a bed and breakfast, is still on the market, down to $800,000 from the original listing price of $1,000,000. Mrs. Holt is the heiress to the Holt, Reinhardt, and Winston publishing fortune, and if her mansion were in Newton, MA, it would be selling for 2.5 million.
I have come to believe that I am unlucky as far as money is concerned. It's not because I don't manage money well--I do--it's just that my father gambled away the money my grandfather meant my brother and me to have, and Dad just assumed we'd recoup the money when we sold his house. He also thought that when he hit the big jackpot at the casino his kids would be set for life. Instead, if he ever won any money, he just gambled with it again. And lost. He died without any winnings.
No one compelled me to become a musician. In my 20's, I thought with the arrogance of youth that I would make a lot of money some day. Instead, it meant a hand-to-mouth existence my entire adult life, always worrying that I would not have enough money to pay the rent or later, the mortgage. What I feared most was ending up on the street, a bag lady muttering to herself. While this has never even come close to happening, I have had to budget strictly. I have not bought a new car since 1999 and I paid cash so as not to have loan payments. Even then, I had to beg my father to give me the $12,000 I needed along with $3000 I borrowed from Barbara. My own condo needs repairs that we cannot afford. Curtiss, who generously gave me a lot of money (when he had it) to do repairs on the house, is now on disability. I am 60 years old and have no pension--I am part-time, paid by the hour, lucky to have health care thanks to the Berklee union. I have been functioning this way since 1995. I will probably not be able to retire--they say you need at least 1 million saved up. I work very hard, am always exhausted, and make very little money. I have a lot of company. The corporate culture has created this scenario for the majority of my generation. And now they are taking away our Social Security, which in any event will be a pittance and not enough to retire on.
I remind myself every day that there are things to be grateful for.
my eyesight: saved by Dr. Sang, one of the best retinal surgeons in the country
my son: doing well at his job in Ecuador, planning to go to grad school along with his girlfriend, whom I also love
Curtiss: one of the few people who always have my back, who is getting well slowly but surely, and talking about getting a job
Barbara: another of the few who always have my back, still my loyal friend after all these years
my other girl friends: Debbie, Fay, Jeri, Phyllis, Lori, Yanni. They keep me sane.
my little students: Gavi, Ella, Ally, Sarah, Ava, Pete, Aashini, and Pranati. Learning to play the piano, improving, getting ready for a recital in May! Their drawings have covered a wall behind my piano.
my cat Sparky: a lap cat, doglike, he follows me around trying to console me in that mute animal way
my Aunt Joan: who also has always had my back, now needs me to have hers. I have never seen her cry before until she lost Buddy. Like me, she is embarrassed to cry in front of others and usually manages not to. At 83, she is hanging onto her health, talking optimistically about coming to visit me in June or July and having me show her around Berklee. She still goes to work every day as a counselor. She is strong and courageous, but she has been crippled by this loss. Something of her energy may have been lost for good. She used to be relentlessly optimistic, cheering me on through my darkest hours; now her optimism is still there, but for the moment it is eclipsed by grief. We spent some time with her in NJ and Curtiss made a video of her talking to me. I am afraid of losing her, too, and if she dies this year I will be overcome with despair. But I have to face the possibility. Not be prepared, because no one can be prepared for the death of someone you love. Death will always drag your loved one to the unknown. No matter how hard you hold on, your grip will be broken and Death will win.
One day I will open my arms to life again and stop thinking about death. I must embrace life or I will never perform or write music again. Life is what gives us the ability to create. At the moment, I am just getting through each day. I sit in front of the TV night after night, anesthetizing myself as I multitask with Facebook, email, word games, language lessons, and various web sites so I don't have to feel the pain. I feel guilty about being a slug, so I forced myself to go to my personal trainer on Thursday and signed up for a once a week session for a month. I'm not exercising as much as usual, and eating sweets and other unhealthy carbs. It's not that I don't care anymore--I just have to muster the strength to care.
Friday, November 9, 2012
My father's students
I have been getting emails full of praise for my father from his former students. They are eloquent in their grief and in their recounting of the worlds of great literature that my father introduced them to. They were as deeply affected by his charm and kindness as by his erudition. It's good to know that he transmitted his excitement and enthusiasm for knowledge to so many people. We all have a wider influence than we know upon the lives of others.
As a teacher myself, I am acutely aware of the responsibility I have to nurture the gifts of my students and to mentor them. I have viewed their successes with satisfaction, knowing the important role I played in their development as artists. I remember my father's pride at being the advisor to such writers as Anne Beattie and Elaine Scarry. He must have felt a pang of envy at times, because the one thing he was unable to accomplish was writing a book. I believe that he was paralyzed by the inability to write a first draft--he was a perfectionist and wanted his work to spring fully formed from his mind like Athena from the head of Zeus.
After writing my first book, I realized that I had accomplished what my father failed to do.
Somehow, I overcame my fear of failure and worked doggedly at draft after draft, occasionally reluctant to include the suggestions of my editor. I spent every spare moment of 2011 writing. Whenever I am tempted by the idea of writing a second book on improvisation, I remind myself that the amount of work required would take me the better part of a year to complete. Though maybe the second book is easier, like giving birth to the second baby. Sometimes I want to quit performing entirely and devote myself to composition and writing about music.
Dad's work required a certain type of performance--some teachers (and I am not one of them) take the stage as they address their classes. They challenge, bait, provoke, pontificate. They are very much like the conductor of an orchestra. These are the born teachers. My father was one. I am not. I had teaching thrust upon me with no formal training in it. I had no advanced degrees. Fortunately, I had a long performing career by the time I applied to Berklee, which trumped my lack of formal academic credentials.
An impatient person by nature, I had to cultivate patience for years. It is my firm belief that no teaching can be effective without patience. And so I am loath to give up on any student, even one who does not practice and skips class. I have seen many students respond to my approach. The courses I teach are generally not inspirational--I have more success with teaching lessons one on one. My manner is not flamboyant, but I convey my love of music to each student.
I wonder if the ability to teach is inborn. Not everyone is a good teacher. I think I inherited some of my father's teaching genius, but I am not in his league. To this day, students from 30 years ago and more remember him and mourn his loss. This is a major achievement. He never boasted about it, and I suspect he did not value it. He once told me he felt fraudulent because he never wrote "the book" and because he got his PhD from Columbia without taking his oral exam (he did write a thesis, which I have been unable to find among his papers.) He was so nervous that he developed severe stomach trouble (ulcers?) and since he was so highly regarded by his professors he was excused from orals. But this hardly constitutes fraud. After all, it was they who made the decision.
He had to live in the shadow of Lionel Trilling and Jacques Barzun, his teachers. Even so, he was universally regarded as brilliant and as a star teacher. But like Leonard Bernstein, who did not value his greatest achievement, West Side Story, because it isn't "serious" music (and he wanted to be another Mahler) my father never realized that being a great teacher is just as great an achievement as writing a book.
My piano teacher, Charlie Banacos, was a brilliant jazz player and prodigy who gave up performing while still young and devoted his life entirely to teaching. He never wrote a book, but his many students became his disciples and used his teaching methods, keeping the tradition alive. He said he didn't have to "prove" anything to anyone, and refused every plea to perform in a concert or at a club. Charlie was a genius and he probably knew it, though he never acted conceited and certainly never boasted about his teaching.
I wish Dad had been more like Charlie--proud of his status as a great teacher.
I hope Dad didn't feel like a fraud when he died. The nature of his final decline was such that I was unable to discuss serious matters with him. I told him many times that not only wasn't he a fraud, he was an exceptional teacher whose students will never forget him.
As a teacher myself, I am acutely aware of the responsibility I have to nurture the gifts of my students and to mentor them. I have viewed their successes with satisfaction, knowing the important role I played in their development as artists. I remember my father's pride at being the advisor to such writers as Anne Beattie and Elaine Scarry. He must have felt a pang of envy at times, because the one thing he was unable to accomplish was writing a book. I believe that he was paralyzed by the inability to write a first draft--he was a perfectionist and wanted his work to spring fully formed from his mind like Athena from the head of Zeus.
After writing my first book, I realized that I had accomplished what my father failed to do.
Somehow, I overcame my fear of failure and worked doggedly at draft after draft, occasionally reluctant to include the suggestions of my editor. I spent every spare moment of 2011 writing. Whenever I am tempted by the idea of writing a second book on improvisation, I remind myself that the amount of work required would take me the better part of a year to complete. Though maybe the second book is easier, like giving birth to the second baby. Sometimes I want to quit performing entirely and devote myself to composition and writing about music.
Dad's work required a certain type of performance--some teachers (and I am not one of them) take the stage as they address their classes. They challenge, bait, provoke, pontificate. They are very much like the conductor of an orchestra. These are the born teachers. My father was one. I am not. I had teaching thrust upon me with no formal training in it. I had no advanced degrees. Fortunately, I had a long performing career by the time I applied to Berklee, which trumped my lack of formal academic credentials.
An impatient person by nature, I had to cultivate patience for years. It is my firm belief that no teaching can be effective without patience. And so I am loath to give up on any student, even one who does not practice and skips class. I have seen many students respond to my approach. The courses I teach are generally not inspirational--I have more success with teaching lessons one on one. My manner is not flamboyant, but I convey my love of music to each student.
I wonder if the ability to teach is inborn. Not everyone is a good teacher. I think I inherited some of my father's teaching genius, but I am not in his league. To this day, students from 30 years ago and more remember him and mourn his loss. This is a major achievement. He never boasted about it, and I suspect he did not value it. He once told me he felt fraudulent because he never wrote "the book" and because he got his PhD from Columbia without taking his oral exam (he did write a thesis, which I have been unable to find among his papers.) He was so nervous that he developed severe stomach trouble (ulcers?) and since he was so highly regarded by his professors he was excused from orals. But this hardly constitutes fraud. After all, it was they who made the decision.
He had to live in the shadow of Lionel Trilling and Jacques Barzun, his teachers. Even so, he was universally regarded as brilliant and as a star teacher. But like Leonard Bernstein, who did not value his greatest achievement, West Side Story, because it isn't "serious" music (and he wanted to be another Mahler) my father never realized that being a great teacher is just as great an achievement as writing a book.
My piano teacher, Charlie Banacos, was a brilliant jazz player and prodigy who gave up performing while still young and devoted his life entirely to teaching. He never wrote a book, but his many students became his disciples and used his teaching methods, keeping the tradition alive. He said he didn't have to "prove" anything to anyone, and refused every plea to perform in a concert or at a club. Charlie was a genius and he probably knew it, though he never acted conceited and certainly never boasted about his teaching.
I wish Dad had been more like Charlie--proud of his status as a great teacher.
I hope Dad didn't feel like a fraud when he died. The nature of his final decline was such that I was unable to discuss serious matters with him. I told him many times that not only wasn't he a fraud, he was an exceptional teacher whose students will never forget him.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Ophelia?
In a moment of short-sightedness, I gave away my set of Shakespeare's plays. I don't know what kind of madness or idiocy possessed me to do it. If there is anything a literate person ought to own, it is a complete set of Shakespeare. It's probable that there is more than one edition somewhere in the plethora of books in Dad's study, so I will bring them home with me after my next trip to the house. The plan was to go to the house in Connecticut this Sunday and Monday, but a super-collider perfect storm of historical proportions is said to be bearing down on the entire Eastern seaboard. Sandy, as she is called, is currently a hurricane moving north after destroying parts of Cuba and Florida. She may be downgraded (we can only hope) to tropical storm status by the time she reaches New England. The prospect of yet another tree limb falling on my father's car or roof is not one I care to contemplate. My first and automatic reaction to the weather news was, What about Dad? Do I need to go and get him if the power goes out, as it always does in Mansfield/Storrs during a hurricane? But then I remembered that Dad was no more, and instead of feeling relief, I felt pain at the loss of him.
To return to Shakespeare: After my father's death I found myself trying to remember Ophelia's speech upon discovering that her father had been slain. I could only remember the last few words, so I am about to look it up on Google.
He is dead and gone, lady,
White his shroud as the mountain snow.
They bore him barefaced on the bier;
And will he not come again?
His beard as white as snow,
To return to Shakespeare: After my father's death I found myself trying to remember Ophelia's speech upon discovering that her father had been slain. I could only remember the last few words, so I am about to look it up on Google.
He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.
(Act IV Sc. V, Lines 29-32)
White his shroud as the mountain snow.
Larded with sweet flowers;
which bewept to the grave did go
which true-love showers.
(Act IV Sc. V, Lines 37-39)
They bore him barefaced on the bier;
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
And on his grave rains many a tear,-
Fare you well, my dove!
(Act IV Sc. V, Lines 164-166)
And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead,
Go to thy death-bed,
He never will come again.
His beard as white as snow,
All flaxen with his poll:
He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan:
God ha’ mercy on his soul!
(Act IV Sc. V, Lines 23-26)
As it turns out, it is not a speech, but a series of songs that the grief-maddened Ophelia sings. Some of them are (strangely) bawdy, describing a maid who loses her virginity. (This may be a reference to Hamlet's rejection of her love.)
But most of the songs she sings refer to the death of her father, the foolish old man Polonius, the object of Hamlet's contempt, but whom he never intends to kill. Believing that his uncle was concealed as he was listening behind a curtain, Hamlet runs his sword into the interloper, only to find out that it is Polonius he has killed.
I am not going mad with grief, but I am not in my right mind. At times I wish I didn't have to go on living. Teaching has become an almost impossible task, and practicing is sporadic at best. I have the feeling that I might blow away in the breeze, similar to Holden Caulfield's fear that he would step off the curb to cross the street and disappear. My therapist, whom I saw this morning, assured me that there is no pathology in my behavior. It's simply normal grief. My anxieties are not likely to convert to mania, as I have been fearing.
My father's image (as he used to look, fortunately) repeatedly springs to mind, as does his voice, speaking remembered phrases such as,
I am working on my Magnum Opus, which, sadly, was never completed. He was a thinker, a talker, and a gifted teacher, but he was not a writer. At least, not a writer of books. He wrote extensive notes in the margins of books, on the backs of envelopes and scraps of paper, and in blue examination books--I found a foot-high stack of them under his desk, and more still thrust between books on the shelves. I collected all of these notes in case someone wanted to put them all together in a volume called The Literary and Philosophical Genius of Jack Davis, or something of the sort. Jerry Shaffer would be the obvious choice to put together the observations and ruminations of my father. But he took one look at the rapidly mounting stack of my father's papers and demurred. Still, they must be saved for posterity. The task of editing and publishing them will not fall to me, as I have my own writing to nurture.
"The first sentence of Pride and Prejudice, the first sentence of Anna Karenina, and the first paragraphs of À la recherche du temps perdu are among the greatest in literary history." They are as follows:
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
For a long time, I went to bed early.
My father loved to read aloud--he was a frustrated actor and would use different voices and accents, especially when reading Dickens, as he did to my brother and me as children, and to my mother, to whom he also read the complete works of Proust, Trollope, and Colette. When I was about ten years old he began to read Jane Austen, George Eliot, and other classics such as Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Way of All Flesh, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Vanity Fair, and Madame Bovary in translation (I read it in French years later in college as a French major.) He also read aloud the poetry of Wordsworth, Blake, Keats, Shelley, Coleridge, Shakespeare (sonnets and plays) Auden, Yeats, e e cummings, T.S. Eliot, and Emily Dickinson. All of these readings were accompanied by explanations of the text, which more often than not contained concepts foreign and difficult to a child, as well as vocabulary words not found on my fifth-grade spelling tests.
Dad also insisted that I learn Latin, starting me out at twelve with Latin grammar, followed by Latin class in junior high right up to my junior year in high school, by which time I had read Cicero, Ovid, Catullus, and Virgil's Aeneid. He also supervised my study of French and Italian, the latter language prior to our family trip to Italy in 1967. You could say, as my brother observed at the memorial last week, that we were both home schooled. It's true that certain subjects such as math, science, and social studies were neglected in favor of art, music, literature, foreign languages, and some history. At the time (especially during my teen years) I was less than thrilled and grateful for this intensive education, but as an adult I realize how unusual and valuable it was.
Thank you, Dad.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Requiem for my father: Jack M. Davis, 1924-2012
Last Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2012, at the age of 88, my father expired after a brief illness.
I use the word "expired" because I hate the expressions "passed away" or "passed on," and I cannot bring myself to say "died." I don't know what it is about that four-letter word that sounds so rude and abrupt. "Expired," however, cannot be used in everyday conversation without the speaker sounding hopelessly pretentious.
I sat beside my father's sickbed for five days as the life gradually withdrew from his poor wasted body, fragile and small like a baby bird. Stage four lung cancer ravages the body. Only two weeks before, he had been walking around, thin, gray, but communicative and alert. Then, two weeks ago, he couldn't breathe one morning and called 911. He was kept in the hospital for a couple of days after they drained the fluid from his lung. Then he was released to come home to hospice care and a 24/7 nurse's aide whose job it was to turn him, deal with his incontinence, feed him, and administer morphine, sedatives, and oxygen. Thanks to this care, he was comfortable, not in pain or suffering from fear and anxiety.
Dad's doctor, who is also head of the hospice in his area, assured me that he would suffer no pain. She advocated for him to be released to hospice instead of a nursing home, for which we were all grateful. A hospital bed was moved into the front room, a cheerful, sunny room with a picture window framing the bright autumn leaves on the trees outside.
He lay there surrounded by his books and music, in his sanctuary, as his visiting nurse put it, where he felt safe and comforted by the familiar.
Once I became used to Dad's dramatically changed appearance, I was able to read to him and listen to music with him. I also spoke to him with the assumption that he heard and understood. I was determined that there would be no further assaults on his dignity--having to rely on Depends was bad enough--and as long as he was still alive I was going to speak to him as if he was a human being. I read Wordsworth and Blake to him, and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, one of the first poems he read to me as a child. Not only did he read it (he always said that poetry was meant to be read aloud) but he also explained why the language was so great. I read Jabberwocky and the chapter in Alice in which Humpty Dumpty declares that words mean what he wants them to mean, and goes on to define the silly words in Jabberwocky with even more ridiculous definitions. Dad loved this chapter. He also loved Pride and Prejudice and Emma (the latter, he said, was Jane Austen's greatest work, containing the deepest moral profundity, but I could never choose between P & P and Emma.) He read all of Jane Austen to me and all of Dickens. And lying in a morphine-induced haze, he was still able to move his lips along with poems by Delmore Schwartz as my brother recited them.
I read the first chapter of P &P to him, then closed the book. "The Bingleys move in next door," I heard him mumble. This, in fact, is the next occurrence in the book. When his friend Jerry came to visit one day and asked, Jack, do you know who I am? he answered, "An eminent philosopher." Close enough. At another time, he had a hallucination of "a woman's leg coming out of Jerry's mouth."
I had wanted to read Proust to him in French and English, but there wasn't time.
Company tired him out quickly. I had the sense that he was waiting for his son to arrive, and sure enough, he was much more aware after Joe arrived. He asked for ice cream twice and fed it to himself. I have no doubt that he knew who we both were.
I use the word "expired" because I hate the expressions "passed away" or "passed on," and I cannot bring myself to say "died." I don't know what it is about that four-letter word that sounds so rude and abrupt. "Expired," however, cannot be used in everyday conversation without the speaker sounding hopelessly pretentious.
I sat beside my father's sickbed for five days as the life gradually withdrew from his poor wasted body, fragile and small like a baby bird. Stage four lung cancer ravages the body. Only two weeks before, he had been walking around, thin, gray, but communicative and alert. Then, two weeks ago, he couldn't breathe one morning and called 911. He was kept in the hospital for a couple of days after they drained the fluid from his lung. Then he was released to come home to hospice care and a 24/7 nurse's aide whose job it was to turn him, deal with his incontinence, feed him, and administer morphine, sedatives, and oxygen. Thanks to this care, he was comfortable, not in pain or suffering from fear and anxiety.
Dad's doctor, who is also head of the hospice in his area, assured me that he would suffer no pain. She advocated for him to be released to hospice instead of a nursing home, for which we were all grateful. A hospital bed was moved into the front room, a cheerful, sunny room with a picture window framing the bright autumn leaves on the trees outside.
He lay there surrounded by his books and music, in his sanctuary, as his visiting nurse put it, where he felt safe and comforted by the familiar.
Once I became used to Dad's dramatically changed appearance, I was able to read to him and listen to music with him. I also spoke to him with the assumption that he heard and understood. I was determined that there would be no further assaults on his dignity--having to rely on Depends was bad enough--and as long as he was still alive I was going to speak to him as if he was a human being. I read Wordsworth and Blake to him, and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, one of the first poems he read to me as a child. Not only did he read it (he always said that poetry was meant to be read aloud) but he also explained why the language was so great. I read Jabberwocky and the chapter in Alice in which Humpty Dumpty declares that words mean what he wants them to mean, and goes on to define the silly words in Jabberwocky with even more ridiculous definitions. Dad loved this chapter. He also loved Pride and Prejudice and Emma (the latter, he said, was Jane Austen's greatest work, containing the deepest moral profundity, but I could never choose between P & P and Emma.) He read all of Jane Austen to me and all of Dickens. And lying in a morphine-induced haze, he was still able to move his lips along with poems by Delmore Schwartz as my brother recited them.
I read the first chapter of P &P to him, then closed the book. "The Bingleys move in next door," I heard him mumble. This, in fact, is the next occurrence in the book. When his friend Jerry came to visit one day and asked, Jack, do you know who I am? he answered, "An eminent philosopher." Close enough. At another time, he had a hallucination of "a woman's leg coming out of Jerry's mouth."
I had wanted to read Proust to him in French and English, but there wasn't time.
Company tired him out quickly. I had the sense that he was waiting for his son to arrive, and sure enough, he was much more aware after Joe arrived. He asked for ice cream twice and fed it to himself. I have no doubt that he knew who we both were.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Yesterday (Sat.) and today (Sun.) my father appeared energized. I believe that it was the anticipation of seeing my brother Joe that caused my father to gather his faltering life energy and begin to talk and eat again. He even fed himself. He talked to his visiting friends.
Today he was not as talkative and was confused at times, asking me if he was in his own bed, saying he wanted to go home, hallucinating ("There is a woman's limb coming out of Jerry's mouth") and attempting to get out of bed. He said he was "going upstairs" to find a poetry book. We searched in vain for a book of poems by Thomas Moore because he wanted to hear me read a certain poem. I ended up reading him some other poems, asking if he remembered reading them to me when I was very young. He seemed pleased by my reading of "I wandered lonely as a cloud" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." We also listened to Tristan und Isolde. I'm not sure how much of his mind is still operating. I suspect that it comes and goes like the sun appearing and then disappearing behind the clouds, as it was doing all day today.
Amazingly, he is still sharp as a tack at identifying poets. Joe was testing him by reading poems at random from the Norton Anthology. He got it right every time. His love and vast knowledge of poetry still shines through the increasing fogginess of his other mental capacities.
I am going to stay another day and will revisit him tomorrow. I am afraid to leave lest he die after I go. Joe will stay with him indefinitely, which may keep him going for a while.
Meanwhile, my aunt Joan has a fever of 102 and won't go to the hospital. Uncle Buddy is also unwell and I worry that no one is caring for them. They are in Florida and I can't intervene.
Getting old, ill, and dying are inevitable and part of life, but I can't get used to it.
The one exception to the law of the excluded middle in logic is that we are all simultaneously living and dying. My father is still living, although he is also dying. Even people on the brink of sixty like myself and my brother are heading slowly toward death, though no one would describe us as dying. It's not meant to be understood. It just is.
Today he was not as talkative and was confused at times, asking me if he was in his own bed, saying he wanted to go home, hallucinating ("There is a woman's limb coming out of Jerry's mouth") and attempting to get out of bed. He said he was "going upstairs" to find a poetry book. We searched in vain for a book of poems by Thomas Moore because he wanted to hear me read a certain poem. I ended up reading him some other poems, asking if he remembered reading them to me when I was very young. He seemed pleased by my reading of "I wandered lonely as a cloud" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." We also listened to Tristan und Isolde. I'm not sure how much of his mind is still operating. I suspect that it comes and goes like the sun appearing and then disappearing behind the clouds, as it was doing all day today.
Amazingly, he is still sharp as a tack at identifying poets. Joe was testing him by reading poems at random from the Norton Anthology. He got it right every time. His love and vast knowledge of poetry still shines through the increasing fogginess of his other mental capacities.
I am going to stay another day and will revisit him tomorrow. I am afraid to leave lest he die after I go. Joe will stay with him indefinitely, which may keep him going for a while.
Meanwhile, my aunt Joan has a fever of 102 and won't go to the hospital. Uncle Buddy is also unwell and I worry that no one is caring for them. They are in Florida and I can't intervene.
Getting old, ill, and dying are inevitable and part of life, but I can't get used to it.
The one exception to the law of the excluded middle in logic is that we are all simultaneously living and dying. My father is still living, although he is also dying. Even people on the brink of sixty like myself and my brother are heading slowly toward death, though no one would describe us as dying. It's not meant to be understood. It just is.
Friday, October 12, 2012
It's October and the year is slowly dying. So is my father, the victim of lung cancer at 88 after a lifetime of smoking. He is at home, visited by hospice nurses, with a 24/7 home health care aide named Ted who is from Poland and has a nearly unintelligible accent. He seems to be a nice enough fellow.
The day began with a sun shower, with light raindrops like tears falling from a blue sky with absurdly puffy white clouds. Orange and yellow leaves were falling everywhere.
The rain stopped, and the weather became extremely cold. Curtiss and I arrived at Dad's house a little before 4 pm.
The sofa had been moved to the opposite side of the room and in its place was a hospital bed in which my father lay like a fragile broken doll. He had shrunk to half the size he'd been only two weeks ago. Lying on his back, he had a tube running from his nose to an oxygen tank which quietly whooshed, the only sound in a dark and silent room. His eyes were barely open, closing to narrow slits. His breath was labored when we arrived, but became quieter and more even. His upper dentures had been removed, and in combination with the morphine and tranquilizers he was getting made it impossible for him to speak. He was able to nod or shake his head in response to yes or no questions. He tried to embrace me once and seemed glad that I was there (though unsmiling) At times he seemed to be making an attempt to smile, as when Jerry told a "philosopher's joke."
Curtiss put some Bach on the stereo, Gould playing the WTC, and later some Haydn. I wanted Dad to hear some of the music he loved. Music also alleviated the unbearable silence of the room. I tried to speak normally to Dad but found myself referring to him in the third person and apologizing--when someone is semi-conscious, you naturally fall into talking about him rather than to him. I was sad for Jerry, his faithful friend who discussed philosophy with Dad every evening, and who now sat in quiet grief in a chair across the room, as if he couldn't bear to sit close to his dying friend. I was sad for Joe Cary and later for Bill Moynihan, who were both trying unsuccessfully to hide their grief.
There was an odd smell, not pleasant, probably an antiseptic. The smell of dying. I still have it in my nostrils and clinging to my clothes. It's hard to bear this odor--it's not overpowering, and I can't identify it, but I know that it will linger in that room after my father is gone, and it will pierce my heart with relentless persistence.
Tasha is devastated. We embraced when I went to the store. This young woman has a close friendship with my father and is finding his illness unbearable. She's not sure she will be able to sleep in the house after he is gone, but mournfully observes that she has nowhere else to go. We have appointed Tasha the steward of Dad's house--we are grateful for the loving care she provided until hospice took over. She is an exceptional young woman and I am glad to be able to provide her with a rent-free place to live.
Aunt Joan is supporting me over the phone and saying that I am the "greatest" for handling everything. I have power of attorney, and I often wish that my father had not bestowed it upon me because of the sheer amount of onerous responsibility it entails.
I have been hearing Joan's voice in my head all day telling me what to do next--it's almost like telepathy. On the phone, she advises me to go outside and take a walk, get some fresh air. She apologizes for not being there with me--it's only because her doctor has said that she is not allowed to fly. She is not one to show her pain to others--I know she needs to talk to me, which is how she grieves. We have always understood one another without having to say a word: two Aquarian women, very alike in many ways, as an aunt is like her niece, even physically, but very unlike in others--still, we know each others' minds and always have.
Curtiss has been crying from time to time and is ashamed; I told him that crying is appropriate and he should cry all he needs to without worrying about incurring my displeasure (I am a no-crying-in-baseball person, unfortunately, and I tend to regard tears as a sign of weakness even though they are not.) I cannot normally cry in the presence of others, but today a tear slipped down my nose as I held my father's pinched hand, blue from broken veins where many IVs had been inserted.
When I went outdoors for a walk around the grounds, I sought out a tree that I used to climb as a child. It still stands with its huge branches like arms extended, alongside the moss-covered ancient stone wall. I climbed onto the wall, put my arms around the branches, and allowed some tears to fall where there was no one to see but the birds and the neighbor's barking dog.
It seems very cruel of Nature to produce such a beautiful fall day with its slanting late afternoon sunlight, just as though my father were not on his deathbed. It seems strange that life around me continues as usual, unaware that another old man is about to leave this world. There are, after all, thousands of old men the world over dying at this very moment. There are thousands of daughters going through the agony I am now experiencing. The experience of dying and of being a survivor is universal, and of course this thought provides no comfort. No thoughts are providing comfort. Deathbed scenes from literature keep flashing into my mind: little Nell from Old Curiosity Shop, Barkis ("Barkis is willin'") from David Copperfield, little Paul from Dombey and Son (Dickens was a master of the deathbed scene) and of course Beth from Little Women. Deathbed scenes in books are, as it turns out, quite unreal. There are no heroics, no inspiring last words. Only the gasps of a soul struggling to keep a failing body alive.
I believe that my father is trying to stay alive until after my brother Joe arrives tomorrow.
I have heard it said many times that a dying person will wait until all the grieving survivors leave his bedside, and then let go with relief, as though dying can only be safely accomplished when one is alone. Crying alone, dying alone: connected, perhaps.
It would be lovely to be cared for right now. To be getting a massage, somewhere far away from my father's sickbed, to be annointed with fragrant oil, to be wrapped in sweet-smelling warm blankets, to be served tea and scones on a silver tray. Lovely to be in bed with my cat lying next to me, silently faithful like a dog. I must allow people to care for me, but I am not good at allowing this. I am not good at allowing anything. I want to control, take charge of everything, even death. I want to command the angel of death to leave my father's house until my brother has said farewell. But there is nothing like death to remind us how powerless we really are.
The day began with a sun shower, with light raindrops like tears falling from a blue sky with absurdly puffy white clouds. Orange and yellow leaves were falling everywhere.
The rain stopped, and the weather became extremely cold. Curtiss and I arrived at Dad's house a little before 4 pm.
The sofa had been moved to the opposite side of the room and in its place was a hospital bed in which my father lay like a fragile broken doll. He had shrunk to half the size he'd been only two weeks ago. Lying on his back, he had a tube running from his nose to an oxygen tank which quietly whooshed, the only sound in a dark and silent room. His eyes were barely open, closing to narrow slits. His breath was labored when we arrived, but became quieter and more even. His upper dentures had been removed, and in combination with the morphine and tranquilizers he was getting made it impossible for him to speak. He was able to nod or shake his head in response to yes or no questions. He tried to embrace me once and seemed glad that I was there (though unsmiling) At times he seemed to be making an attempt to smile, as when Jerry told a "philosopher's joke."
Curtiss put some Bach on the stereo, Gould playing the WTC, and later some Haydn. I wanted Dad to hear some of the music he loved. Music also alleviated the unbearable silence of the room. I tried to speak normally to Dad but found myself referring to him in the third person and apologizing--when someone is semi-conscious, you naturally fall into talking about him rather than to him. I was sad for Jerry, his faithful friend who discussed philosophy with Dad every evening, and who now sat in quiet grief in a chair across the room, as if he couldn't bear to sit close to his dying friend. I was sad for Joe Cary and later for Bill Moynihan, who were both trying unsuccessfully to hide their grief.
There was an odd smell, not pleasant, probably an antiseptic. The smell of dying. I still have it in my nostrils and clinging to my clothes. It's hard to bear this odor--it's not overpowering, and I can't identify it, but I know that it will linger in that room after my father is gone, and it will pierce my heart with relentless persistence.
Tasha is devastated. We embraced when I went to the store. This young woman has a close friendship with my father and is finding his illness unbearable. She's not sure she will be able to sleep in the house after he is gone, but mournfully observes that she has nowhere else to go. We have appointed Tasha the steward of Dad's house--we are grateful for the loving care she provided until hospice took over. She is an exceptional young woman and I am glad to be able to provide her with a rent-free place to live.
Aunt Joan is supporting me over the phone and saying that I am the "greatest" for handling everything. I have power of attorney, and I often wish that my father had not bestowed it upon me because of the sheer amount of onerous responsibility it entails.
I have been hearing Joan's voice in my head all day telling me what to do next--it's almost like telepathy. On the phone, she advises me to go outside and take a walk, get some fresh air. She apologizes for not being there with me--it's only because her doctor has said that she is not allowed to fly. She is not one to show her pain to others--I know she needs to talk to me, which is how she grieves. We have always understood one another without having to say a word: two Aquarian women, very alike in many ways, as an aunt is like her niece, even physically, but very unlike in others--still, we know each others' minds and always have.
Curtiss has been crying from time to time and is ashamed; I told him that crying is appropriate and he should cry all he needs to without worrying about incurring my displeasure (I am a no-crying-in-baseball person, unfortunately, and I tend to regard tears as a sign of weakness even though they are not.) I cannot normally cry in the presence of others, but today a tear slipped down my nose as I held my father's pinched hand, blue from broken veins where many IVs had been inserted.
When I went outdoors for a walk around the grounds, I sought out a tree that I used to climb as a child. It still stands with its huge branches like arms extended, alongside the moss-covered ancient stone wall. I climbed onto the wall, put my arms around the branches, and allowed some tears to fall where there was no one to see but the birds and the neighbor's barking dog.
It seems very cruel of Nature to produce such a beautiful fall day with its slanting late afternoon sunlight, just as though my father were not on his deathbed. It seems strange that life around me continues as usual, unaware that another old man is about to leave this world. There are, after all, thousands of old men the world over dying at this very moment. There are thousands of daughters going through the agony I am now experiencing. The experience of dying and of being a survivor is universal, and of course this thought provides no comfort. No thoughts are providing comfort. Deathbed scenes from literature keep flashing into my mind: little Nell from Old Curiosity Shop, Barkis ("Barkis is willin'") from David Copperfield, little Paul from Dombey and Son (Dickens was a master of the deathbed scene) and of course Beth from Little Women. Deathbed scenes in books are, as it turns out, quite unreal. There are no heroics, no inspiring last words. Only the gasps of a soul struggling to keep a failing body alive.
I believe that my father is trying to stay alive until after my brother Joe arrives tomorrow.
I have heard it said many times that a dying person will wait until all the grieving survivors leave his bedside, and then let go with relief, as though dying can only be safely accomplished when one is alone. Crying alone, dying alone: connected, perhaps.
It would be lovely to be cared for right now. To be getting a massage, somewhere far away from my father's sickbed, to be annointed with fragrant oil, to be wrapped in sweet-smelling warm blankets, to be served tea and scones on a silver tray. Lovely to be in bed with my cat lying next to me, silently faithful like a dog. I must allow people to care for me, but I am not good at allowing this. I am not good at allowing anything. I want to control, take charge of everything, even death. I want to command the angel of death to leave my father's house until my brother has said farewell. But there is nothing like death to remind us how powerless we really are.
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