No Wisdom Here

Well, well—so here it is, the end of May and, astonishingly, nobody has asked me to give a commencement address. Isn’t that weird? Surely, surely, there has to be some school out there—for dental hygienists or nail technicians, anything, really, will do—that needs to hear my words of wisdom!

Of course, I tell you this since I have just watched Joyce DiDonato address the 109^th graduating class of Juilliard (video below). So that made me think: do I have any wisdom—wanted  or not—to give the world? Could I do as well as Joyce did, which, in a word, was excellent? After all, she covers a lot of territory in her four points, which are (and sorry to be a spoiler):

1.     You’ll never make it (that is, perfection in the arts is unattainable, so do what you do for the journey, not the destination….)

2.     The work will never end

3.      It’s not about you

4.     The world needs you

Point four, in fact, was something that I had just learned from Lucía, the lady who serves me great coffee in exchange for two dollar bills: a trade I’m always willing to make.

“You made me feel so much better last week,” said Lucía. “It was finals at the university and I was totally stressed out. So I just came and hear you play Bach suites, and I totally chilled out.”

OK—I play every day, and guess what? It’s no big thing for me, the sound of my cello is a familiar to me as the sound of my voice. So I don’t have the experience of someone never expecting to find a cellist in a darkened corner of a shop playing Bach from memory. But I frequently get comments like, “hey, that was fantastic,” or, in the case of the high school kid who drifted in and listened for twenty minutes, “hey, you play really well.”

My reaction?

Damned right I do!

There’s no vanity in it, as there would be if I had anything to do with it. Well, OK—I do have to show up, the cello does have to get stuck somewhere in front of me, and yes, I put in the famous 10,000 hours of practice that pretty much will take you where you need to go. But here’s the thing: I have had complete conversations with Lady while playing the cello and not missing a note. So somebody out there tell me: who’s playing?

(Note to Joyce—Hah! Bet YOU can’t do that!)

That, in fact, is another element of point number 2: it’s not about you. Joyce meant, I think, that we’re servants, of the listener, the play-goer, the opera fan, whoever has chosen to reward us with their time and, in some cases, their money. But I think there’s something that every one of us knows: when you’re in a flow—that magical, mystical moment when everything is happening just right—the paradoxical feeling (at least for me) is that I’m not doing anything. And I have had the feeling, by the way, while writing, as well as while playing the cello.

Today, no—flow isn’t something that I can turn on and off. Although it has to be said, it can be courted, lured, coaxed almost. The first thing to do is to decide, it’s OK to have a Piatigorsky day:

Let me explain: The famous Russian cellist played once for Casals, and how did it go?

Terrible.

And how did Casals react?

Extravagant praise and hugs.

So Piatigorsky left, thinking ‘hypocrite.’ And then, a couple of years later, the two met, and Piatigorsky asked the maestro why he had praised the terrible performance he had given.

“You played the triplets in measure 371 of the Dvorak in a way that I had never heard, never even imagined. And as an artist, I have to be grateful for and value every beautiful note or phrase. Let the others count up the mistakes, our job is to count the successes.”

(Note—the above is my, perhaps faulty, paraphrase of Casals’ actual words….)

The point? Having a day when it’s just average, whatever it is you’re doing, is perfectly OK. And that, by the way, is the open door through which flow, well, flows in.

“It’s about showing up,” I tell Montalvo, who has explained that he’s blocked, he can’t write, the muse isn’t speaking. So I tell him: this is what writing is. Then what do I do? Pound an imaginary keyboard on the table.

Montalvo is almost fatally 21 years old, which is by definition “high-risk” time. And Montalvo, having stolen a 3,000 dollar blue macaw, needs to get his act together fast, since he’s on probation, and in a drug rehabilitation program. So I’m doing adventures in paternity, which is a new one for me. So what did I tell him, what were my points of wisdom? What, in short, was my commencement address?

1.     You don’t have to fight every fight

2.     You should think before you speak

3.     You should get a schedule and stick to it, especially if you’re not working

4.     You should do something that enriches you (listening to music, exercise, whatever) the first thing in the morning

5.     If two or more people are telling you something, they’re probably right

6.     “Slow and steady” wins the race

7.     Everybody is the hero of their own life

8.     Nobody, on their deathbed, has ever said, “I wished I had worked harder:” it’s always about love and relationships

9.     That said, what you achieve and what you have are relatively unimportant

10.  If it’s a choice between doing what you “should” do and having fun, seriously think about having fun….

OK—confession: I really had to stretch for ten points. Hmm—could it be that it’s just, as well, this curious lack of invitations to give a commencement address?