Bach and Perfection in the Grand Canyon
Posted in August 2022 but way older…
A blast from the past, this little piece from probably more than two decades ago somehow showed up on my computer today while I was doing research for a lecture on “joy in Chinese Medicine and Culture” for my Imperial Tutor mentorship. Without further ado, here you go…
Perfection. Or shall we name it Beauty, Divinity, or God? Some people find it in birdsong, some in the sway of a woman’s hips, in Botticelli’s paintings or Neruda’s poetry. Born and raised in Europe, I have experienced it sometimes in the ancient and formative presence of humans in their environment, whether the temples in Delphi or the Neolithic stone formations in the Swiss Alps. As a scholar in Asian Studies, I have also seen it in Japanese rock gardens, calligraphy and Taiji performances, and a perfectly simple Chinese tea pot. For the past 17 years, I have made my home in Tucson, where I have found perfection more easily in the smile of my new-born babe, in the last hint of purple on the Catalina mountains before the sun sets, in double or even triple monsoon rainbows, in the first ripe saguaro fruit of the season dripping into my mouth, in the explosion of Creosote smell permeating the desert air in that magical moment right before the first rain drop hits the dust, – and most recently, in the first-ever crow of my teenage rooster Lorenzo. I obviously fall into the category of people who appreciate a lone weed flowering in the wilderness more than a crowded concert hall, who sees god in an apple core, pumpkin seed, or onion half rather than the latest technological invention.
Not long ago, I was grading papers and preparing finals for my classes at the Community College, when the phone rang. Less than 36 hours later, I found myself floating down the Colorado River as a last-minute replacement violinist for an 8-day rafting tour through the Grand Canyon. Because of the short notice, I had no time to reflect on this project or my role in it. All I knew was that the universe had sent me a serious, serious hint that I could not afford to reject or ignore. I hadn’t been to the Grand Canyon since I had first come to this country at the age of 18. Then, I had caught only a quick glimpse from the parking lot on the rim because my friend’s old car had a broken starter. The magic of the desert that I had experienced in those first few years in the Southwest had lately given way in my life to the stresses and pains of a divorce, academic job search, and the responsibilities of raising a child on my own. The violin, once my most trusted companion on yearly trips to Asia as a street musician and sure to warm the hearts of drunken businessmen on muggy Tokyo nights, had been replaced by the simpler joys of Mexican polkas on the accordion. My life had moved far away from the serenity and peace appropriate for Mozart and Bach.
So, as the raft pushed off into the Colorado River waters, it hit me: What was I doing here? What had I gotten myself into? Why had I come and thrown the rest of my life to the wayside without a blink? First off, I knew I would never be able to afford such a trip on my own. Being a Polka musician in a Mexican band, I commonly play for free food, good company, or worthy causes. Also, there is not much I wouldn’t do for a chance of camping out under the stars for eight nights and getting away from the police sirens and drive-by shootings in my urban Tucson existence, not to mention the lawsuit one of my students was threatening me with because I was failing her for plagiarism. But as the paying guests on the raft told of their expectations, preparations and long-term planning for this trip, it dawned on me that I was here to do a job. I had to become a classical violinist, an identity that I had shed long ago with many other aspects of a frustrated and unhappy childhood.
Only hours after our departure, we arrived at the famous cave where, the boat guide was happy to tell us, John Denver had once played because of the symphony-like acoustics. My heart sank as the guests excitedly watched me unpack the violin. Tuning took forever because the humidity had swelled up the wood. The whole project seemed utterly bizarre to me – I felt as out of place as my violin. What would motivate anyone in a place of such gorgeous, raw wilderness as the bottom of the Grand Canyon to disturb it with this extreme of human artifice, classical violin music? My notes crowded out the beautiful birdsong and I felt like I had made the biggest mistake of my life. I had agreed to entertain a bunch of rich tourists who wanted human culture and civilization when all I was looking for was the opposite. And the result of my playing was a direct reflection of that attitude, at least in my ears. But hey, I had to work for my fare so I got it over with and stashed the violin away quickly, to enjoy the rest of the day in quietude.
And floating down the river, my fears and frustrations got washed away as we all shared the excitement of running rapids in freezing water, spotting wildlife in the side canyons, and getting to know each other. As we descended down and down into what felt like the bowels of the earth, the greatness of the Canyon melted our personal differences into insignificance. Our oldest participant Nelda, a 72-year old “farm girl” from Phoenix was fulfilling her life-long dream “before she got too old”. Susan, an over-worked nurse, needed a spiritual lift to help her deal with the pressures of life-and-death emergencies at work. Carl, a big jovial Texan, was taking his 14-year old son on a once-in-a-lifetime birthday adventure. And since we had the TV crew from “The Desert Speaks” along to document the whole trip, Paul, the booming real estate developer, had chosen this trip for his minutes of fame on the screen. As the lone exception to the spirit of cooperation that pervaded the whole group after the second day of setting up and taking down camp, he boldly stated that he had “paid too much for this trip to do dishes”. Edith-Ann and Jerry, the couple from North Carolina, were looking for memories of their younger years as students at the University of Arizona. While Edith-Ann with bleeding knuckles declared on the last night that she really was more of a “cruise ship girl”, they did a marvelous Tango performance by the campfire. The TV crew was a whole separate story – they had been in the field so much that they immediately settled into their routine of drinking, telling dirty jokes, and, yes, working very, very hard. The ice between us was broken quickly on the second night when I was lining up to do my dinner dishes and ended up with a blast of whipping cream in my face. But maybe that falls under the category of “what happens on the river stays on the river”?
By the third evening (I think – who keeps track of such details…), I was feeling sufficiently guilty about having too much fun for not working. So I took my violin on a hike to practice in a quiet place. I sat down by the river and, surprising myself, just burst into tears. The depth of the canyon, the immenseness of the cliffs, the strength of the water, the sheer intensity of sitting by a river that was grinding away at the core of the earth, revealing layers of rock millions of years old, just overwhelmed me. The river was beginning to carve a second path, into the depths of my own soul, through layers of heartache that had felt as tall and ancient as the canyon walls around me just hours ago. And right there, in what felt like a flash flood of a good long cry, the current swept so many ragged rocks of pain, anger, and tension away. In their place, it deposited sand bars, perfect for over-night rests and stargazing, and fertile silt for planting seeds. And when the flow receded, it had carved out nooks and crannies for storing grain and other treasures, ledges to provide shelter from the rainstorms of my life, and still pools to reflect the smooth curves of the surrounding cliffs. Pushing giant boulders aside, the current had eased the rapids of my soul, allowing me to let go and trust again in the free flow at the center of my being. I was finally in a place to open my heart and see what the violin would tell me.
After my first tentative notes faintly floated off without affecting the beauty of the canyon in the least, I relaxed and allowed the river’s magic to start its work. Yes, I was playing music composed by long-dead European guys in wigs, intended for the glorification of a God in man-made structures that had absolutely nothing in common with my own version of spirituality on this rock by the Colorado River. Nothing could have been more foreign in this place than the image of a German baroque composer, performing in grandiose orchestras for his decked out and perfumed court audiences. But all my rational objections just melted away into irrelevance. Bach and the Canyon rolled right over my mental constructs, revealing perfection in a universe that transcended the dichotomies of humanity and nature, history and present, civilization and wilderness. My favorite Chinese poet, Tao Yuanming, wrote already in the fifth century, “When the heart is far, the place of itself is distant,” to explain his ability to silence the “clamor of carriages and horses” in the reclusion of his urban writing studio. This is the gift that I took home from that week on the river: Having experienced a state of harmony with the universe and distance from the human realm at the bottom of the earth once, it will remain in my soul forever.
During the following days, I experienced this wonder repeatedly, to the point where I became oblivious to the presence of an audience or even the TV camera and microphones that had thrown me off so terribly during that first forced performance. On quiet stretches of the river, our boatman Ed turned the engine off several times so we could just float down the canyon and listen to Bach bounce off the cliffs, mixed with canyon breezes, murmuring waves, and distant birdsong instead. In my playing, Ed’s gentle steering, and everyone else’s concentrated listening, we were immersed in an instant of perfect beauty that none of us will ever forget. One of the guests quietly leaned over after I finished a song and told me that he felt like the luckiest person in the world. And it became crystal clear to me at that instant that I felt the same, perhaps even more so. While the others got to listen, I got to play – or rather, the music played me. All of us witnessed the power of the Grand Canyon which simply took possession of me. My individuality faded away as Johann-Sebastian Bach’s love of god and what is perhaps the most magnificent creation on this earth coalesced into a string of notes that poured through me with the clarity of a raindrop. My inadequacy as a classical violinist became completely irrelevant compared with the perfection of both the natural surroundings and Bach’s compositions, turning me into nothing but a tool through which we all experienced a fundamental oneness with each other and the rest of the universe. I am not sure whether I will ever be granted the blessing to play like that again, but the memory of these moments will stay with me forever. And from now on, whenever I need a place distant from humanity, all I have to do is pick up the violin, close my eyes, and let Bach and the Canyon take over…
