I love the idea of expecting a miracle, the idea that positive expectations lead to positive realities. But is it wrong that as I ease into my golden years, I have a bit of trouble with that concept? I would be more likely to have a sticker that says “Expect the Unexpected”, but honestly, I’m loathe to project my core spiritual values via bumper stickers.

I look at this page, and I don’t expect it to be a great work of writing, even by my humble standards. But I expect it would be even worse if I didn’t reexamine, edit, and revise a few times. Herein lies the catch. Expect a miracle, but still reexamine, edit, and revise those expectations. Unexamined and unchalleneged expectations lead to disappointment and brittleness, brittleness I can ill afford at this time when eyesight, memory, and joints start to wear out, and I want to focus on agility and flexibility.

My new years wish to myself and to you: Let’s challenge our assumptions, be mindful of our expectations, and prepare to improvise. Let’s be grateful every day – we are among the luckiest and most comfortable people who have ever lived on the earth.

In my imagination I pass the Subaru, and glance over. I am right about the girl. It’s kind of nice that she is driving the speed limit, but I have places to be where I am expected to arrive in a timely fashion.

When I was about twenty I decided to take drum lessons from a brilliant man, Jerry Granelli. Jerry is a native son of the original North Beach beatnik scene, a Buddhist teacher, and a master jazz drummer. He was very hard on me. He wouldn’t allow me to study with anyone else, and I had to commit to never missing my lessons, EVER. I would show up in Berkeley for my lesson, have a cup of espresso with brown sugar in it, and get to work.

When I said I was nervous at my first lesson, he said “pretend it’s your second”

When I said I wanted to learn to play faster, he said “I’m not giving you the keys to a 200mph car until you learn how to drive”

One day I was warming up and basically banging on everything. He walked in and held up his hand:

“Hear that?” he asked

“I don’t hear anything” I replied

“It’s silence. If you can’t play anything as beautiful as that, don’t play”

Jerry was tough through and through. Then after months of realizing I could learn, I could practice, and I could take some abuse, he told me it was over. He told me he didn’t want his students to become too much like him, and it was time for me to find my own voice. Then he put his arm around me and said: “I know this has been hard on you…. if I didn’t love you I never would have messed with you”

My time with Jerry wasn’t a single gift, but a pile of big, beautiful, brightly wrapped presents. He showed me I could learn. He showed me I could rebound from criticism. He showed me that sometimes love and respect lead to discomfort. My gratitude for his frankness and affection has remained undiminished for 38 years.

I won’t bore you with all the details, but everything went exactly as planned, just much too fast. After three hours, Linda’s contractions started coming closer together. I calmly reassured her, then huddling in the kitchen leaving impassioned messages with the midwife who had said she was on the way. As the hour grew close all the classes we had taken went out the window. Massage? Breathing? No, Linda just wanted me to push my elbow into her lower back as hard as I could…in between the calls to the midwife.

Finally the midwife showed up…she had stopped at the gas station to get a new headlight. The pace picked up substantially and 15 minutes later Emily was born. Like I said, it’s a bit of a blur, but I know we swaddled her and she looked like the worlds cutest littlest burrito. I was holding her balanced on my right forearm while I made a few calls and put food out. My first call was to our friend Rich. He had guessed the right date for Ems’ birth, and was the first to come visit. An hour after Em was born, he was squiring her through the yard, explaining about all the bugs and plants, with big fat tears slowly dripping down his nose. Rich is crying on Emily, I’m putting food out, and Linda is yelling “where did my baby go??!!” It was one of the most amazing mornings of my life.

Lately something has been changing. I’m almost 60. What am I aspiring to in these days where I nap, and I forget things, and my body feels sore for no reason? The likelihood is that I will get older, get worse, and die sometime over the next 40 years. Even likelier is that this will all get worse much sooner. I don’t have as much time to worry about what other people think.

Here’s an example. I played drums a few weeks ago with a very good band. The bandleader hired a bass player known for his excellent playing and difficult personality. I had never met him before, but he didn’t like me. He thought there would be a better, more well-known drummer. He hadn’t heard me, but he displayed his dissatisfaction from the get-go. So I told him ”You are correct, I’m not as good as so and so, but I’m here, so lets do our best and have fun.” It sort of felt like that helped, but at the end of the gig he made note of my shortcomings.

The opposite of approval and validation. But something happened. I forgave myself for being myself. I won’t get to play drums forever, and I wanted to play, and I played well, and I didn’t let this sour puss ruin it or psych me out. I also forgave him, in the sense that I know that while I wouldn’t choose to play with him again, I could accept his opinion, appreciate the validity of some of his comments, and sense his own suffering.

There was a time I might have grieved over such a put-down, and maybe thought about giving up. But these are my years to live, and I accept that I’m not leading my life simply to please others, but to experience as much as I can while I’m able.

Tone: Steve was a fanatic about the sound of his instrument, and used an unorthodox stereo bass rig to get the sound he wanted. He had deep respect for other musicians but was never a slavish copier – he had his own sound and vision. I appreciated that at a time when many of us were trying to become clones of some heroic player, Steve had broad and deep taste that came out in every note he played. He loved everyone from Jaco, Rocco, and Paul Jackson to Ray Brown, Scott la Faro, and Ron Carter. But he wanted to be Steve Bennett.

Flight: I don’t know much about the pilot side of Steve, but one night after a gig at Café Eulipia he took the band for a Bay Area fly-over. I remember he was extremely concerned and conscientious about our safety and our sense of security – no silly stunts. He wanted to share his flying with us, and he could not have made it more pleasant.

Fun: Steve let me know he enjoyed playing with me. I was always prone to stage fright, but he just assumed we were going to have a lot of fun, and so we did. His overall confidence and adventurousness always helped me be my best.

Tomatoes: I hope no one will be offended, but I knew Steve when he was young and single. He and my wife Linda were friends, and he always treated women with respect. But he couldn’t resist a little old-school flirting. His classic question for Linda and I before any gig or get together was “Are there going to be any tomatoes?” He rightfully considered Linda quite the tomato and hoped she would help him find a tomato of his own.

Loss: No way to put a happy face on this one. The best I can do is try to play my drums as if he was smiling beside me.

This reflection doesn’t take me towards exact beliefs. I don’t believe in an afterlife, nor in the absence of an afterlife. I’m an agnostic and a pragmatist in these matters – I don’t think I’m capable of knowing these things, but I also think that by the time I die I will convince myself that heaven is awaiting. Whether one believes or not, I imagine that the craving for the comfort would be pretty strong – and what good is the certainty that your soul won’t go on? Better to die gullible than miserable.

Since I don’t feel assured of a better world beyond, two things give me comfort when I think about my death. First, I am in the “bonus round” already. I have already had an incredible 58 years, full of comfort and love. More time, more pleasure, more of everything than 99.99% of the people who have ever lived on earth. It’s hard to feel bad about the inevitable. My second source of comfort may sound more vain. I’m trying to live life so that I am missed. The thought that people will miss me motivates my life choices, and gives me comfort. The hope that I will have a relational legacy gives me comfort, and in a sense it is my version of an afterlife, one I can control – trying to create a life where my friends and family have fond memories and feel that I gave them something they will hold in their hearts long after I leave.

The Upper Pines Campground seemed much more crowded than I remembered. Were the sites actually smaller now? Or was it just the fact that 2/3 of the sites seem to have big white Recreational Vehicles, giving the campground the look of an outdoor appliance sale. But no matter. I wasn’t here to complain or judge. I rolled into my site, perhaps with just the slightest feeling of superiority. An older guy alone, with a cool bike and a little tent. Not a wimp in a shiny white metal box.

I got off the bike, went straight to my tent, cleaned up as best I could and snuggled into my sleeping bag with a book. In ten minutes I was in a deep late afternoon nap. I awoke to the sound of thunder. Cool! The thunder was followed by the sound of raindrops, then the more staccato rhythm of hail. No problem. I’m warm, I’m safe, and I have food that cooks fast and makes little mess. And besides, I’m a veteran of many late afternoon thunder showers in the Sierra, and they never last long.

As the brief hailstorm ended I got dressed, and climbed out of my tent. Before I got to the picnic table, my neighbor bounded out of his RV and walked up to me at a fast clip. His name was Dave, he had introduced himself to me before, and he addressed me by name.

“John, my wife and I have been talking, and we don’t want you to have to eat outside in this weather. We have plenty of lasagna and salad, and we want you to join us”

My hemming and hawing was slight and without conviction. I didn’t want to seem unprepared or helpless, nor did I want to be an idiot who eats canned soup in the rain just to make a point. I admitted I had nothing that would go well with lasagna. A lovely peanut butter sandwich as an appetizer perhaps? A can of Hungry Man minestrone soup split three ways as a first course? No, I was just going to have to accept their hospitality.

“Uh, well, that’s an incredible offer, and I’m really fine with being by myself and eating outside, and it’s not like I’m surprised it rained, and I was prepared, but that sounds great, what time were you thinking?” My surrender was complete.

Thirty minute later I was seated at the small eating nook of their RV, which probably had a name like Adventure Craft 4000. I liked it. It was warm, it was cozy and Dave and Theresa and I were quickly getting right into our stories. It seemed as if we knew before we started that this was a one shot deal, so we made a tacit agreement to
take advantage of the moment and have a deep and satisfying three hour friendship.

We talked about everything. Dave and Theresa are newlyweds, traveling in a rented RV to see if they like it, and investigating places they might want to move. Dave is a thirty year veteran of the SFPD, head of the mounted unit and about to retire. He met Theresa by chance on the streets of San Francisco on the one day in several years she was visiting from Sacramento. They told the story of the chance meeting, the thwarted courtship, the re-crossing of paths, love, moving in together in Petaluma, and their realization they had found the loves of their lives.

Dave is retiring because a dog attacked his horse and he took a nasty fall. He loves horses, and worked as a cowboy in his teens. He wants to get out while he can, before he hurts himself again, and besides, the mounted unit is winding down. Why? Well it’s a long story but there was a big anti-war protest and some fringe protesters baited a mounted cop into breaking ranks and swinging his billy club. They had hit the horse and flicked a cigarette in the cops face, and he had wigged out. The incident was caught on video, brutal cops on horses. That was basically the story and it meant the end of the mounted unit.

I talked about my anti-war sentiments and we talked about protesters bad and good, and cops right and wrong. We didn’t argue, and I gained a different perspective, and perhaps they did as well. We talked about food, travel, cowboys, love, best places to live, why we could be happy the rest of our lives, never leaving the west. The food was incredible, the discussion better. After dinner Theresa heated water, and I went outside and noted that the sky was clear, moonless, cloudless, and full of stars. I asked if they would want to sit by a fire, they agreed and a few minutes later we moved our friendship outdoors where we drank some goofy vanilla spice tea that Theresa liked, and talked for another hour bundled against the chill.

The next morning they weren’t out and about when I left on my hike, and their bikes were gone when I was packing to leave. In a way I was happy not to see them again, just because we had already had a perfect friendship with a beginning, middle and end. There was no reason to take the chance of making false promises of looking each other up back in the Bay Area. When it was time to go I took the piece of paper the ranger had given me with bear information, and on the back I wrote:

“There are two things that always provide me with spiritual sustenance: The beauty of nature and the kindness of strangers. Thank you for your generosity”

I put the paper on their picnic table, held in place by a stick of firewood, and made my getaway. I had come to Yosemite to check in with myself, to see if I still loved the things I say I love. To see if I was still me, the person I want to be. Never in a million years did I think my trip would be social. It was designed to avoid that very thing, but in the wilderness of human experience, chances are taken, and sometimes the adventure of friendship falls into your lap.

For example, when I was six years old, my friends and I walked up Mountain View Terrace, turned left at Granada, and walked about ten blocks to El Camino Real. El Camino is a hectic four-lane road that extends intermittently from San Diego to San Francisco. Here in Alhambra, close to the southern end, it is a very busy and dangerous street.

We stood on the edge of the road as if on the shore of a mighty river: pulsing, swirling and treacherous. Then we stepped off and walked straight across, threading through cars stopped at the traffic light. On the far shore we proceeded across the weeds, litter, and gravel, to the railroad tracks.

Railroad tracks were the one place in this urban world where a boy could see miles in at least two directions. And like a mythical monster, a train would roar through on occasion, announcing itself with a distant light, then a growing low frequency rumble, and finally with clanging and an air horn which is described as lonesome when heard in the distance, but was more like a punishing fist across my ears from a few yards away. For a moment I could stand pretty damn close to pure power in motion. It was the loudest, most beautiful thing.

We were waiting for the train when an Alhambra Police black and white swung onto the gravel and came toward us. It would be romantic to say we looked at each other and silently agreed to run in different directions, but we were only six years old. So we stood there, maybe thinking this would be like the time the nice policeman visited our kindergarten class.

This cop wasn’t smiling, but he telegraphed a bit of admiration for boys being boys. He sternly asked what we were doing, where we lived, and if our parents knew where we were. The next thing I knew, we were in a police car all black vinyl and hunky. This was as close as I was going to get to flying with the Blue Angels, and it was bliss. Getting apprehended and returned to mom by the police.

I remember he walked me to the door and my mom started crying as he warned her to be more careful. He left and she scolded and scolded as she dished out the biggest bowl of ice cream I had ever seen. That was my first and maybe biggest lesson in unconditional love – even with love there is ambivalence and the occasional need for forgiveness

My mom is long gone, but her love still permeates the love I give and the love I am able to receive.