Love shook my heart like wind

Love shook my heart like wind
on a mountain punishing oak trees
-Sappho

Joy is small. When the whole world is raging and out of control, joy sneaks quietly in on the back of a kitten climbing the window screen at 4am or in the fragrance of an unexpected rosemary bush on the way home. The other day, joy found it's way into my hand in the form of a tiny orange scrap of construction paper, a worthless item by all accounts, but a gift that held the worth and generosity of a laughing little girl. Will I now be carrying around a small piece of orange paper? Perhaps for a while.

Joy is in the quick flash of a dimpled smile from a little boy so newly safe. Joy is a child fast asleep on the floor as the others sing and dance like banshees all around. Joy is a child's pride at coloring in the lines or singing all the words to a Shakira song. Joy is in the hands of a pudgy toddler attempting to play my ukulele while holding a hard boiled egg.

Joy is in a small man with grey dreadlocks who quickly and competently dives in to stop a fight, yet later brushes all aside with a quiet smile. Joy is the process of trying to untangle the tiny yet surprisingly unyielding row of braids that a pair of giggling girls wove throughout my hair. Joy is in a bag of dried chickpeas, even if they are an admission that the sweet man who gifted them, really just doesn't know how to cook dried chickpeas. 

Joy is in the embrace of a thin woman with a short afro and graceful hands. Joy is in her inward soft smile as she sings with me and the others. Joy crinkles at the corners of her eyes. In my many years of being a musician, I have never met anyone who found such joy at simply singing a song.   Her gift of joy to me is greater than anything I have to give her.

The world rages, but.. well..  there is joy.

In Time of Storm

Brightness

and with good luck

we will reach the harbor 

and black earth

We sailors have no will 

in big blasts of wind,

hoping for dry land

and to sail 

our cargo 

floating about

many

labors

until dry land

-Sappho

A woman's fragmented words echo across two and half millennia, words which remain unanswered and yet answered in countless incarnations shouted and whispered back to her through time.  She is a gift to us, this Sappho, the first voice of a strong woman elbowing her words between those of Plato and Aristotle. And despite a separation of over 2500 years, her words still accurately paint Lesvos and the world today. 

Rumored home of Orpheus' lyre (and his head...) The island of Lesvos has served as a stepping stone between eastern and western culture as far back as the Iron Age. From the shores of it's capital, Mytilene, the not so distant purple mountains of Turkey reflect the light of a setting sun. Tucked into the crook of Turkey's arm, this small island of sturdy people with golden skin and weathered lines, has been alternately Priam, Roman, Macedonian, Byzantine, Genoese, Ottoman and finally in 1912, Greek. (though many would argue that Lesvos has ALWAYS been Greek...) 

In 1922, at the height of the brutal Greco-Turkish war, the city of Smyrna (present day Izmir) was taken by the Turks. Ethnic Greeks and Armenians fled with only their lives, piling into boats, crossing the four mile Mytilene strait and pouring themselves onto the shores of Lesvos. Nearly a hundred years later, over half of the islands 86,000 inhabitants are said to be the the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those desperate refugees. The Asia Minor Mother, a statue of a mother sheltering three children, stands guard on the shores of Mytilene, her back to the sea and her seeking eyes looking to her new uncertain future.



Despite the Greek debt crisis and a crippling depression, the residents of Lesvos stand on the front line of a nearly unprecedented humanitarian crisis. As large swathes of Africa and the Middle East erupt into turmoil, hundreds of thousands of refugees have paid traffickers and stumbled into over crowded questionable boats. For the many citizens and new arrivals, this tiny island of olive trees and ouzo has come to conversely represent safety, shelter, purgatory, prison, familiar and foreign. But despite all, there are still open arms on the beaches, arms that pull the troubled out of the water and into their hearts. 

If you ask me where I come from,

If you ask me where I come from, I have to converse with broken things

-Pablo Neruda

 A man, strongly resembling Shel Silverstein, demonstrates how to throw clay on a wheel as eager eyes look on and curious fingers reach forward. Small hands pound and shape clay; a bowl, a cup, a clay man, a spoon, a mortar and pestle. Practical hands belong to these children who have been formed in the midst of struggle. Clay is shaped and reshaped countless times before the promise of lunch is able to coax young artists into surrendering their sculptures. 

A young Yazidi girl with pale skin and thick hair, talks of her home and of the dog she used to have. As she chats, she unsubtly smuggles most of her lunch to the scraggly, stray dog under the table.  

"Do you think you were made in Heaven, that you are better than us?" An Afghan boy quickly crossing into manhood, shakes with impotent rage and wounded pride as he is called out for not wanting to stand next to a little black girl. 

A little boy from Congo cries silently, his eyes overflowing through every daily activity. He wants to be involved, he wants to come to each activity, but he just simply needs to cry. And perhaps one day, when he has cried the entire sea that he has crossed, his heart will be dry and finally safe. 

A young girl, all lanky arms and legs, with chalky knees and dusty feet, wraps her slender fingers around the neck of a violin for the first time, her smile is open and free. 

A hot container crammed with stinky staff and kids giggle through the chorus of "Shake it off," Taylor Swift sounding her best through the filter of multiple accents and laughter.

A pair of shoes is left behind, dusty and torn. There are plastic bags shoved into the toe of each shoe, enabling little feet to walk, falsely leaving the imprint of an adult. 

A little girl, perhaps 5 years, wanders the camp all day going from container to container. She has the wide eyes of a Dr. Seuss character and an innocent face, but this child is destruction personified. She listens to no one and breaks anything that she can get her hands on. She breaks much the same as she has been broken by a system that does not love her. She looks like me. Who will take her hand?

And then there is a night when the moon hides behind her hazy veil, children laugh and parents hush. In the relief of the cool evening air, the mournful wail of a child fighting against sleep echoes faintly. There is a makeshift table comprised of a cracked board on a bucket, set outside a tiny container, a minuscule home, one home in a row making up another row, forming a patchwork grid of community drawn together by desperation and hope.  Crooked chairs surround the humble table as chai is liberally sweetened and set before an unexpected wide-eyed American guest. Conversation floats comfortably over the smell of cinnamon and the sea. And as night eases into calm, the women begin to sing.

 

What you see depends on where you Stand.

Getting to Lesvos was hard. I endured Chicago traffic, an 8 hour flight to Dublin, a 20 hour layover, a 4 hour flight to Athens that left just before dawn, a 6 hour layover in Athens, a 50 minute flight on a teeny propeller plane, after of course getting off a previous plane with a broken engine and all of these little miseries, I endured while lugging around a massive suitcase crammed with 10 ukuleles, 30 music books, 15 egg shakers (which caused people to eye me strangely as I walked by..) and other countless items found in a typical music teacher's tools box. I arrived exhausted and poured myself into bed despite not having eaten dinner. Getting to Lesvos was hard.

Getting to Lesvos was hard. A refugee may have fled in the night, risking hypothermia and dehydration in the Sinjar mountains, a risk preferable to certain slaughter in the valley. A refugee may have fled a bombed city, finding the way on foot, with everything that can be carried or nothing at all. A refugee may have walked a thousand miles through hostile territory, broken up by months or years in a refugee camp. A refugee may have boarded an overflowing shameless excuse for a boat, perhaps alone or perhaps clutching tightly to a hand of a loved one. A refugee may have watched in terror as large waves crested over the sides of the boat. A refugee may have stumbled cold, hungry and exhausted onto the muddy shores of Lesvos, knees giving way in grateful relief. Getting to Lesvos was hard. 

The choice to come here was absolutely political. I sat fuming into the small hours of the night on January 27th, my husband out of the country and my president signing an executive order to ban the travel of those who needed our compassion the most. I was enraged and ashamed and my first defiant thought was "well if they can't come here, then I must go there." I scoured the internet for ways in which I might help, even if just a little bit and I stumbled on a tiny posting for a voice teacher in the Kara Tepe camp on the Island of Lesvos. I sent off a resume and within days, we were talking of potential dates. And now I am here, for what seems a frivolously short span of a month to try to organize, teach and share music to the best of my ability. 

This is where my part in the story ends and I begin to simply share the vignettes and pictures being gifted to me. It is a privilege to stand in a new place in order to see.

20 Hours, a Friend and Guiness

When one must endure a 20 hour layover in Dublin, one must be thankful for a willing friend and last minute host, a beautiful evening walk and a pint and a half of Guinness! I am ready for the 5 am flight to Athens! 

Song Cycle

I

Tell me a story

the warm wind ruffles 

the curtains of our calm.

weave your story in

the strands of my hair,

Of caravans and crackling fire,

of Druids swaying,

arms lifted balancing heaven,

of errant heroes

retrieving stars and swords,

Of God’s passion 

and Man’s taste.

The night wraps us 

in an indigo bedspread.

build cities to house doubt,

light a match, 

burn them down.

Fill oceans by touch,

Navigate cool forests of

comforting fear,

feet bare on the pine needle floor.

Tell me a story,

rest your dark head

against my chest,

your breath

damp prayers

whispered against my heart.

II

The light turns red

strong hands brake as her body curves into his.

The engine warm against 

bare legs cooled by night air.

She wraps her arms around him,

her hands pressed to his chest.
He reaches behind to tug her hair,
he lifts her visor, 
touching her face.
They turn to each other
knocking helmets 
but still, mouths meet 
dueling smiles curve lips.

The light turns green,
He shifts gears
they race away
her laughter trills
lingering desire on the wind.

                                     Lost in a memory and waiting to cross,
                                     I have missed my light
                                     missed my turn.

III

Please, let me borrow 

a teaspoon of your happiness

I seem to have misplaced mine.
Did I forget it in the pocket of my jeans 
and run it through the wash,
is it mixed in with the dust on my piano?
Perhaps it is under the seat in my car
mingling with sticky change and crumbs
or in the couch cushions
with much the same company.
Did I leave it folded 
in a stack of sheet music
or use it to mark the page of a book?
Did the cat lick it off my nose
in her midnight bid for food?
Did I use too much in the stew I made last week?
It WAS delicious.

Did I misplace it in my travels,
Is it currently hitchhiking across America 
or kayaking in the boundary waters?
Did I drink it as a shot of Pisco in the Andes,

or mix it with a morning cafe in Galicia?

Did I set it on a side table in a little house in Italy?
Has someone else picked it up yet,
Smiling and laughing?
I hope so. 

IV

I count breaths
late into the night,
When all is quiet
I count the breaths of the one near me.

When wind assails a settling house
and stars play tag 
with clouds
I count

When all with sanity
have long since slept 
and daily plans meld with dreams
I count

Stealing moments of time
existing to no one but myself
I count

Thousands of breaths

a millennium of moments

Desire, restlessness

sadness

love, hope, 

fear,

I count