Newly-conferred Tricenarian Thoughts: Peace of Mind
Around 2017, I finished the biggest part of my degree - my senior recital. At the time, I also worked out a deal with the part of the admin office that makes sure all the credits and grades and whatnot are all hunky dory. I completed basically all my coursework for my degree except the private lessons part. Before the deal, I would have needed another semester of 30 minute private lessons. But they allowed me to condense it into a semester of hour lessons instead. Since my recital happened towards the beginning of the semester, the rest of my lessons that semester were basically conversations with my teacher and me picking his brain for an hour.
One of the biggest discussions we had for that hour that had the biggest impression on me was the discussion of mental health, struggles, and a notion called "peace of mind".
He told me about a moment in his life where he looked up to a higher power that he had doubts about believing at the time and said "God, you can take my house. You can take my wife. You can even take my Model A. Just give me peace of mind".
At the time, I didn't really understand what he meant. I mean, logically it was sound. To be in a state where you can experience peace, a sort of zen where extreme emotions have no place. No fear, no anxiety, no worries. Seemed too good to be true.
Fast forward 8 years later. I am now 30. And, for the first time, I think for the first time I finally get what he was talking about.
I remember for years and years I used to be bitter about my birthday. I used to drone about how the people I consider friends never sent me a message. I used to think these depressive thoughts about how the world was against me. I used my birthday as a way to really amplify the bitterness and darkness I had in myself. As much as I tried to be hopeful, it took time to get back to that normal state every year.
But now, looking back at it and the entirety of my 20's, I finally feel at peace within myself. For the first time in my life, I feel stable. I feel confident. I feel like whatever happens going forward I can handle it. To adapt and to know my strengths to where I understand my limits and ask for help when I need it. I feel that I have a support group, even if it is small, that can back me up or just be a way to vent or be my silly self. Oh, and I finally feel that I really understand who I am as a person.
I feel that I, at the ripe age of demand in my 30's, have found my peace of mind. It took years and cycles of depression and bitterness, along with bouts of joy and happiness, and everything in between. Tie that together with all the life experience I had in my 20's - too much to sum up. You get a man who found his zen. And who knows, maybe somewhere along the lines things can change. Tomorrow isn't promised. But, I can finally say that I truly experienced what I think it is to be at peace with myself. If I lose it, I know that I can work towards finding it again.
I want to take a little time on my birthday letter to thank that saxophone teacher, we'll use JL for his name. I first met him in the audition of the college I ultimately enrolled in all the way back in around 2013. I went into that room with three people, played my two pieces, and right after JL came up to me and my music. Apparently, he studied with the teacher who edited the book I was using for my pieces. He decided to take me into his office across the hall into the other building. He asked my about my teacher, what my goal was for auditioning, and about the little chin hair I had that I was growing out. He taught me the basics of vibrato, and he took me to his computer to find out who where the other two saxophone professors at the college I was auditioning elsewhere. He had comments about one and didn't know the other too well. Ultimately, he told me that I should study with him. Not knowing what to say, mostly out of anxiety, he led me upstairs to my music education interview and exchanged plesantries with the interviewer before he left.
Not saying that he was the only reason that got me accepted into the program, but I like to believe that he put the odds in my favor.
I studied two years with him. He challenged me. Humbled me. Chewed me out and made me cry. Once made me leave a lesson early because I hadn't done my work. He taught me his philosophies of not only music, but of life. He told the studio stories of his husband. Stories of social justice and society of being in love with a black man as a white man from Michigan coming out of the aftermath of the civil rights movement. I remember during the time around 2016 when a lot of bad crap was going around the world - he wore a safety pin on the pocket of his collared shirt. I don't think anyone noticed except for me.
The last time I spoke to him was during San Diego Comic Con where he called me to make sure I returned my saxophone. We had small talk about beaches and the weather.
I wish I had more a chance to talk to him now. To tell him how I've been doing. To tell him how I'm in my 4th year of teaching. To tell him how I make students look up music definitions in my little red dictionary book just like he did with us.That I carry his firmness with all my ensembles, that I wrap my seriousness with a bit of whimsy just like him, and I use both silence and a sense of presence to command a room.
He passed away from a sudden heart attack on October 5th, 2018. It was so unexpected, as he was set to retire in the end of that school year after his last batch of students finished their senior recital. He was the kind of person who constantly worked and such a high standard all the time. He was the kind of person where on the outside he could seem like a bitter old-fashioned abrasive man (and I heard stories and experienced a bit of it too). But on the inside, to me, I saw him as a person who wore his life experiences on his sleeve. He wasn't perfect by any means. Nor am I. Nor is anyone. But JL was a person who stayed true to himself and lived his life, I think, to the fullest of how he wanted to live it. All the way until the end.
So, I dedicate a bit of my birthday to the man whom I treasure my short time with to my saxophone teacher. He who had studied with Larry Teal, who had studied with the father of classical saxophone Marcel Mule. We joked in the saxophone studio how were are the 3rd generation of Mule students - but in my heart at the time I marveled at the reality of that statement. To all my future saxophone students, I would love to make you a part of that history.
So, thank you JL. Wish you were here with that wonderful mustache curled up at the ends that perfectly suited the whites of your hair. Hearing you play both at the church along with an organ and as a featured soloist on a sonata piece in my ensemble was such a treat. Thank you for the kind words in your letter of recommendation to me, despite the tiny typos like spelling my last name wrong.
Thank you for teaching me about striving in life for "peace of mind". Something you made part of your philosophy of living, and one that I have now add onto mine.
Here's to making it all the way to my 30th. And here's to doing my best to make it to number 31.
If I were to say one last thing, it would be to myself 10 years ago saying: it will get better, just hang in there and live.
Enjoy this picture of a young JL given to the entire sax studio as a Christmas card. In my opinion, he looks a bit like a young Drake Bell. But that's just me.
