Imagination dust up

‘You don’t start at the top if you want to find the story. You start in the middle, because it’s the people in the middle who do the actual work in the world.' 
Malcolm Gladwell, What the Dog Saw

A painter friend asks, ‘why paint?’  I answer, ‘because you must - and it brings you comfort.’ Now, Freud and I slipped ‘why pain?’ into the equation first time around. Why indeed.

Peter the Great, my poet friend of large heart, sent me an article about Springsteen, Brubeck and company - the peak parade - receiving honors at the White House. At a reception, Clintons H. and B. toasted their greatness. Bill included a story about hanging a signed song chart for Blue Rondo a la Turk Brubeck had sent him on his music room wall. Peter liked this especially because he’d basked in a Brubeck concert as a younger man. I like it too; imagine the rich and famous pinning the rich and famous’ masterpiece to the wall. Intoxicating stuff.

I asked Colleen what her dream job would be. She combines dance and yoga in her drug-prevention work with at-risk kids. ‘Pretty much what I’m doing right now,’ she said. ‘I love dancing with kids. You never know what they’ll come up with.’

At the aforementioned East Room reception, Springsteen said this about his honor:

‘It's an acknowledgment that you've kind of threaded your way into the culture in a certain way. It's satisfying."

And then there are the people in the middle, like my painter and poet and dancer friends and me, who thread our way into the culture less publicly.

Colleen and I’ve been touring together in Lorain, Ohio, doing residencies with first graders who are learning to read.  I’ve heard John McCutcheon credit his work in schools with preparing him for the concert stage (he figured seventh graders were as good as a bar’s best patrons for honing his act).  Since I’ve put that stage on hold for now, diving into schools full tilt, I’ve discovered a wild truth quite the opposite of McCutcheon’s.  The craft I honed in front of adult audiences prepared me for this, the real story.

You never know what kids will do, but in one way, they don’t surprise you.  They do themselves, really well.  This is a life enhancing drug like no other, with side effects you may be unprepared for.
Imagination dust, seeping into every pore.

Photo credit Hans Lachmann