Moonlight Sonata

I have vague memories from my youth of weekly trips up to the University of North Texas to take jazz piano with a PhD student named Steve. I remember sometimes the drives, how long they felt in traffic, and the shame of sitting down having not practiced enough, and of course the recitals, the nerves, heart beating out of my chest, walking up in a collared shirt tight on my neck, playing a dumbed down classical tune in front of a crowd. But from right around the time I started high school, all those memories disappear, because I didn't play a single time for what feels like forever, until the moment I rediscovered my old keyboard at my mom's house a few months ago and decided to bring it back to D.C.

That decision was one of the best I've made, and when I look back at the tumultuous time that was COVID-19 and all the many hours spent alone indoors, one of the absolute best silver linings has been music entering my life again. It's shocking the degree that it is still in my fingers, rusty, like riding a bike, but all of it still there, the muscle memory, the rhythm, and to some extent the strength. This all elicits so much from me each time I sit down, one part daily meditation and another the satisfaction of working towards a long-term goal. Like books, I look ahead and see an ever-expanding list of sheet music I want to fumble with and bring to life. Tiersen, Chopin, Debussy, Schubert, Mozart, and that catchy tune from The English Patient are all on the agenda somewhere down the line. They call out to me, ringing softly in my ears.

And then there is Beethoven. For several months I sat with Moonlight Sonata, my first big undertaking upon returning home, slowly moving forward note by note. When I finally played from memory that haunting six minute melody from start to finish, it felt for a moment like all I needed from this period to be happy, hearing this song - written over two hundred years ago for a women he loved but could not have - fill a room by way of my own hands. That is a connection forged across time and space that few mediums can accomplish. But I realize now this undertaking represented something more to me, something deeper and personal, that I think only can be described as immense gratitude - the kind that comes when you regain something you loved but thought you lost forever.

A new home

Of all the details and amenities and selling points that the leasing agents of the world highlight when walking you through a new apartment, it's the nook I gravitate to most in my new Shaw home. The windows extend from floor to the ceiling, and project out by probably three feet, so there are actually three sides of glass and more bright light than I've ever known in a house. I put my yellow chair in one corner, and my old farm desk in the other, and so far, I tend to sit in either depending on the mood or the task, flanked on all sides by plants. I love being still and looking out and seeing the horizon, monitoring the many DC helicopters flying by at night, the unmoving silhouettes of the various landmarks, the lights of Reston flickering in the distance, and the people scurrying about below making big city noise. I try to set aside a few moments each day without phone or computer, right as the sun begins to set, now earlier and earlier in the fall, as a form of simple meditation. I think it's important to stop and notice the many ways no two sunsets are alike.

Recently, occasionally, I've begun thinking about what a move out of this city might look like. Perhaps it is time to finally venture up to New York City, or go further afield again? These are normal, restless thoughts, I expect, given my history, only tempered these days by the chaotic state of the world and a general desire to remain cocooned in your sanctuary. The Samuel Johnson line stays with me: Yet it must be remembered, that he who continues the same course of life in the same place, will have little to tell. 

But recently I drove a Jeep out of the city in the early morning light, passing by the monuments and the Potomac River as life was just beginning to stir, and breathing in that air, I felt in my core that at the very least, I would be lucky to live another year in this place. In the long winter ahead that promises new struggles, I take comfort in this privileged nook, a place to settle, to sit with good words, to have a drink with the best people, and to contemplate the trails walked and the trailheads yet to come as the city forever flickers outside. 

Hawaii, in retrospect

Targeted advertisements radiate outward these days from the state of Hawaii, begging tourists not to come. I'm reminded of the place, one that hasn't strayed far from my mind now comfortably in the rear view mirror. It was a wonderful foray, right on the cusp of the pandemic, just before you wouldn't take a such a trip. The ecological paradise, an island covered in flowers and green, peppered with a constant drizzling rain, was a reminder of the power of the sun on your skin, of daily sweats, and of a fresh breeze that whisks up thousands of miles of open ocean kissing softly your skin.

I'm struck by the story of Hawaii, one of the planet's great treasures. In its isolation, humans have only known it for a fraction of the time we've been here, and boarding a plane tells you why. Four and a half hours after noting San Francisco Bay below at 500mph and 30,000 feet, you finally see the heights of Mauna Kea out your window, realizing nothing but open ocean lies below. In the other direction, it's even farther to any real form of mainland. How does one begin to conceptualize that much water in every direction, and how far down it goes?

I think it is life's hard journey, its resiliency, that is most moving. It invites in me all kinds of questions. How long must seeds travel on open ocean, battered by waves, caught in currents, to eventually wash up on shore. What keeps them potent, still allows them to sprout? How far must birds fly to finally land exhausted on Hawaii's hardened lava flows? This is to say nothing of humans, cumbersome and awkward, out of our element on the open sea. Who were these men and women that set off from an island like Tahiti in small wooden outrigger canoes, not knowing where they were going, not knowing what they would find, and after more than a month at sea guided only by stars, unknowingly becoming the first inhabitants of these islands active and alive. It's another one of history's small mile-markers, spawned by those brave, foolish, desperate in exile, or a mixture of the three.

The place has evolved with time, of course. It exists now in the 21st century, joining the infinite ranks of places like Niagara Falls and the festivals of San Fermin. Popular, beautiful locations are just ruined by people, far too many of us desiring far too much. Waikiki, with its mixture of tourists from east and west, is unbearable, flanked by shopping malls and resorts and an aloha culture I'm not sure ever actually existed. The military footprint is ever-present, cargo planes taking off and F-16s breaking sound barriers high above. Virtually every light on the island is powered by sweet crude oil emitting somewhere their noxious gasses. To the north sits the great pacific garbage patch, absorbing and expanding by the day.

All that's true. But driving far out down some of the roads that hug the water, maybe with the convertible top down, you still cannot help but be moved by its beauty in isolation. Old waves crash against volcanic rock, watched over by lush cloud covered peaks. Coral reefs grow and die off. Islands millions of years in the making rise and sink. If you look hard, you'll see that connection with the passages of time, the countless difficult journeys, the few that succeeded and the many that did not. You'll appreciate the geological accident in the middle of the pacific that gave us the tallest volcano on earth. You'll appreciate the inclination of life to survive. The Michener dedication written decades ago by a now dead man I expect will always ring out true: to all the peoples who came to Hawaii.

A note on the pandemic

The world continues to shut its doors, its great cities grinding to a halt as a virus barrels its way from country to country in a way no wall or travel ban can stop. This is the globalized world we have stumbled into in 2020, where the same grand power that allows London to New York in five hours paves the way for the exponential spread of a microscopic threat. Uncertainty leads to fear and onward to distrust. If you've read one novel about a pandemic-infused apocalypse, you have read them all. It's the humans you have to worry about when the world falls apart.

Perhaps what I find most peculiar is the reaction of millions now forced to stay inside. These reactions are public now thanks to countless bits and bytes buzzing through the ether and displayed across our phone screens every time we will them on. Deprived of the world's most photogenic sites, its suitors must compromise. Photos of places they once went but now cannot. Photos of expensive meals they once had but now cannot. Photos of fun they once enjoyed but now cannot. Anything possible to ensure their self image, whatever that is, does not grow tarnished in the public's eye by a simple lack of content. "You're not stuck at home, you're safe at home," a new well-meaning thread states, as if being stuck at home is an unconscionable chore requiring a Herculean act of sacrifice. "Bored" and "stir-crazy" are words I'd be happy to never hear again in my life. In the background, thousands battle for their lives in emergency rooms around the world.

The other day I took my bike out and rushed down barren streets at 30mph, past a blooming tidal basin walled off by police and national guard troops. It was a perfect spring day, the new sunshine warming my skin, the gentle breeze rustling past my ears, the ducks swimming away in the Potomac. Awaiting me at home were the ingredients for a new recipe, one where if you put the right things together in a pot and add in a little heat, a miracle manifests, food, the essence of life. Later, I looked to the books on my wall - more than 700 volumes I counted recently - much of it the best stuff there is. Da Vinci, Hemingway, Melville, Dostoevsky, all begging to be opened and read, its ideas pondered over and conversed with until you come out more thoughtful, something better. Never in my life will I understand how people can walk the earth so unable to be with themselves without distraction, unable to be moved by curiosity and the possibility of everyday life. There is just so little time in the big scheme of things to consume it all. By no means did it start here, but a pandemic puts it out in the open, stress testing the extent of our own collective vanity, our discomfort with ourselves in the quiet spaces.

There has never been a pandemic that has not come to an end, and this one too will run its course. I fear our inherent short-term memories will leave us much like we were before. An impossible number of planes will return to the sky turning jet fuel to greenhouse gases. Politicians will return to their relentless election cycles. And the world will step back into its daily commute, having lost a glorious opportunity to breathe, to connect, to catch up with themselves, ask hard questions, and discover the joy that can come when no one is watching, all in spite of, not because of, what's going on outside.