Talking to Strangers (About Music)

To me, Raed El-Khazen is one of the best examples of how talking to strangers changes the course of one's life. It's hard to know what to say about this man I met 12 years ago at Dizzy's Diner in Park Slope, hard to pin down exactly why when his eyes sparkled at me and his gravelly voice spoke I felt the need to look more closely at myself and at the world. He has that affect on people:) Raed is a musician, and a dedicated devotee of learning and thinking about the ways in which humans need to pursue their passions in life. I so value the time we spent together that spring, summer and fall of 2012, talking over espresso at Colson Patisserie, walking paths I had feared to tread on my own in Prospect Park, working out at the gym (I still hear his voice in my ear, coaxing me to push harder in the weight room). It was, like now, a much needed time out to sort through things, a pause to figure how things might play out better in the future.
We are very different, Raed and I. He grew up in Beirut, Lebanon, during a civil war, the son of a Palestinian mother and Lebanese father, who worked hard to support Palestinian refugees. I grew up in sleepy Tucson, Arizona, the daughter of Jewish Zionist parents from Chicago (my mother) and New Jersey (my father.) When we met, I'd just quit my job as a journalist with Advertising Age to raise my young boys, and he was a young childless guitarist working at Dizzy's. There were things we could have found to divide us, but what drew us to one another (I think) was a great desire to live free and clear of other people's rules, and to find for ourselves a reason for being. I credit Raed and the amazing global network of friends from Berklee School of Music I met through him for giving me the great gift of music, allowing me access to the incredible New York music scene, and pushing me to find my own ways of making rhythm, of finding harmony.
The summer we hung out, I started seeing dragonflies, big beautiful ones, everywhere I went. They seemed to be showing me my path. I imagined out loud to him one day in the park that we could make a movie of them, flying around, wild but directed, to his guitar. He smiled and told me he'd already made that movie about dragonflies, with his friend Shannon. In the fall, just before he left, back to Beirut, I got a tattoo, of a dragonfly, to remind me of that special time, to honor the important natural connection that can be made between two humans when they have the audacity to do as they please, and a great faith in talking to strangers.

When confusion reigns, where do you turn? We are strangers to ourselves in these moments, unfocused and unclear. I often turn to the piano, or other musical instruments to get at and get out what's going on inside. More even than writing, composing music allows thoughts and feelings to flow through me unencumbered (or, at least, less encumbered than the more rational reasoned way I sometimes feel I have to write, or talk.)
In this episode, I play some piano and talk through some ideas about how we go about expressing ourselves and getting at the confusing often chaotic feelings going on inside us, often as a result of the chaotic confusion in the world outside:)
We are not in control, not of the decisions of the government, how the mountains shift and change, how other people act or even of our own hearts. That realization and understanding can be both dismaying and, for me, strangely empowering. I can't control, I just have to soften and become more pliant in the way I move through decisions and actions. I have to be adaptable, and compassionate to myself and others. It is easy to say but hard to do that in relationships of all kinds, with ourselves, with each other, with the world, we have to sometimes live with the idea that we will not figure the perfect way. We will fly haphazardly around and about sometimes, like a crazy dragonfly, and then we will suddenly latch on to something as if we knew what we wanted all along. We will, eventually, come through it all to a landing place.
As we head into the Cancer New Moon tonight at 8:00, Zen teacher Ji Hyang suggests adopting a "spirit of empowered authenticity." How do we identify and release primal feelings and nurture ourselves to get past what she calls "socially constructed suffering"?
I choose often to play piano or other music, what about you? Find me at [email protected], or subscribe to SacredBloomTribe.com to experience a sound bath or join me in a drum circle, a great release!!!
XX
Steph

My interaction with the young band Moxie is a direct result of saying 'yes.'
"Can a band stay with us a couple of nights?" my son Eli asked a couple weeks back and--based on my love of strangers, especially meeting them in my house--I didn't skip a beat. "Yes," I said.
And so it was that I found myself in my kitchen with four of the most lovely dynamic clear-headed young people ever, the Brattleboro, VT-based members of the fast-rising Moxie the Band, in the early days of their Summer 2022 East Coast tour.
My sons had met Rei Kimura, the band's lead vocalist, during a visit to Vermont with mutual friends, and though I'd heard about her, I had no idea of her incredibly engaging smile, her super positive energy and-I dare say-her 'moxie.' With her came likewise engaging bandmates and friends since elementary school, Leander Holzapfel (lead guitarist), Daniel Snyder (drums) and David "Inky" Cohen (bass).
As they emerged in the kitchen, they grabbed apple cider donuts and sat down with me one by one for a tarot reading. It came to me to pull out the Oracle Deck maybe from a place of understanding about the hugely exciting and slightly unnerving position they're in as their stars rise in the world at such tender ages of 18 and 19. What will the future bring? Rei's spread put Fulfillment of Wishes in the past position, the Third Eye Chakra in present, and Destiny card in the future, all auspicious picks and good food for thought for someone at a point of emerging popularity and leadership in the world. https://www.moxie-band.com. The role of a singer/songwriter is a powerful one, and it seems she is ready. Daniel noted that all three of the cards he chose featured rainbows...Dreams, once on the horizon, came into clear view for all of them in the present and future.
We recorded this podcast so that I could learn from the members of Moxie how it is that the band came into being, how they became such accomplished collaborative musicians at such a young age. Getting along so well, dealing with rising fame, and traveling for weeks on end in a dusty Subaru is not easy at any age!
Their stories of how and when they took up their instruments of choice (spoiler alert, INCREDIBLY YOUNG!) are awesome and hilarious. I was sad as they spoke that I'd missed their show at the Mercury Lounge in Manhattan, but was luckily in upstate New York when they played last night in Woodstock, NY, at Colony. It was there that I first saw these beautiful souls showcase what 'moxy' really means: they are indeed a force of character, determination and nerve.
As Rei's smile and smoothly swaying hips brought everyone deeper in to the band's luring rhythms, the crowd came to its feet and joined in wholeheartedly, moving and clapping and singing along. I felt grateful and hopeful for the next generation, including my own children dancing beside me. If there are such leaders as these musicians, creating and sharing such collective joy, they are in great shape.

Why are Tara Sanders & Earl Legister, Jr. together?
"We always connected on the dance floor," Tara says emphatically. And Earl agrees.
Of course, there is no way of ever knowing, exactly, what brings two people together, on the dance floor and off. That alchemy is long-studied, long-pondered. But for the last year-plus, the strange chemical equation called 'love' has Tara and Earl in its grips, and they are dancing together, and inspiring others to do the same, especially recently.
"When Covid first hit, and I was taking stock, I thought 'how can we spread joy, not the virus?'" Tara says. She is a yoga teacher, specifically trained in trauma-informed yoga. We met, Tara and I, at a mindfulness in education workshop at Omega Institute years back, and she'd reached out recently when I bought a house near where she lives outside of Woodstock, NY. But neither yoga nor mindfulness was what she and Earl decided to do to spread joy. Instead, they started making dance videos, lots of them, short choreographed dances, and putting them on social media.
People took notice, including me. I love to dance myself, and their videos were so fun and authentic. Then, too, after the George Floyd video, the fact of their biracial coupling...well, it seems a good time to talk about cross-pollination, about the love and connection that exists between people of different colors and backgrounds.
Listen in as we chat about this lovely couple's dancing, and their diligent work building community--check out more about Tara's yoga work at https://www.tarasanders.net/.

Listen to the catchy jingle (lyrics and vocal, Steph Thompson; guitar, percussion and production, Matt Keating)