Dear Tito,
I am writing a letter to you to thank you for your readership. As far as I know, you are my sole official reader, so this entry is expressly for you.
Today starts week six of Retirement, and because it is questionable what other readership exists, I am not ashamed to admit to you (because I'm sure you understand) that Retirement, predictably, is not a mere Walk In The Park.
Week Six of Retirement in Anchorage has brought something new in the air. Whether it be the early morning squawkings of birds planning the logistics of a long journey soon to come or the silvery look of the morning dew foreshadowing next month's frost, things here are different. It is now well past the middle of August, and hence, the inevitable studio fade of summer has finally begun. I should not begrudge Anchorage for our current rain or for turning down the volume of our summertime fun; the downpour held off for longer than I could have hoped, and certainly Mother Nature has gifted us a better summer than she allowed last year.
But I awoke this morning to the sound and look of rain and darkness which come hand in hand with bad weather in Anchorage. It is no longer so easy to borrow the sun and jubliance of the skies for my own purposes, and so the time has come (long overdue) to look deeply inward for my own inspiration. Today's Retirement started with the uncomfortable weight of this early morning thought.
But I took one more cue from the skies and decided that today would be a good day to watch a movie I had borrowed from the library last week, a German film called Schultze Gets The Blues. As the back cover describes:
Schultze Gets The Blues is a funny, touching peek into the world of a recently retired miner, who, like his father before him, entertains polka audiences with his accordion. When he discovers the fiery energy of Zydeco music on his radio, the rigid monotony of his daily routine takes a spicy turn.... His newfound fascination ultimately leads him on a life-changing, liberating journey to the Louisiana delta.
I suppose it is not so strange that this description compelled me to pick up this movie a week earlier, given my own recent "retirement," my own "journey," and my own discovery of the joy that lies in the strings of a banjo. The movie is a quaint little narrative, almost more like a short story, accented by carefully chosen visual stills (beautiful still lifes really) which serve as quiet pauses in the telling of the story. The import of the music is more symbolic than anything else. In the film, Schultze plays over and over again really only one Zydeco piece -- something he hears on the radio -- but it is the undeniable change in his face and body every time he squeezes his marvelous accordion to make Louisiana music that moves the film. When you see how Schultze unfolds his awkward accordion as easy as he exhales his own breath, it is clear that in playing Zydeco, he discovers a new emotion previously not known to be possible. I recognized this feeling immediately because it reminds me a bit of the flush of my own internal landscape when I really get going on the banjo.
In the end, in broad strokes, the film is about the power of music as a vehicle in sorting out matters of life. I have experienced no pure Eurekas! since Retirement began five weeks ago, nor did I expect them to happen. What I have actually experienced is far more vague and mysteriously encoded - a strange fleeting feeling of doing the right thing at that particular moment. I have not solved the combination for making this feeling persist, but it is the only thing I've been able to sink my teeth into in these last five hazy weeks. I feel it rise to my skin in the middle of playing the banjo.
Schultze Gets The Blues, like life, is also about sharing. In one scene in a small dirt town in the South, Schultze appeals to a brass band playing outside on a deck of an old house and in a heavy German accent asks for, "Petroleum." The American bandplayers do not fully understand him but guess that he is asking for beer. For a moment, the non-German speaking viewer believes that perhaps "petroleum" is how you say "alcohol" in German. Schultze downs the beer and then repeats, "petroleum," again, this time waving his two empty gas gans. It now becomes clear that he is looking for gasoline for the boat he is taking through the Louisiana bayou country. They finally point him in the direction of the station and before he leaves, wave him into the back of their band van to give him a ride to where he has left his boat. At the end of the scene, they push a case of beer into his arms as libation during his solitary journey, pat him on the shoulder like the good friends they've become and bid him farewell with the English word they've come to share as hello, thank you, and goodbye -- Petroleum.
In another scene, he pulls up with his boat up to a deck of a floating house where a black woman is cooking crabs, and he asks for a glass of water to quench his thirst. She gives him the water and asks him if he likes crabs. In one of the best scenes of the movie, the marshmallowy 300-pound non-English-speaking German man tips his hat and mimes as best as he can that he, indeed, thinks crabs are tasty, and yes, he would like to eat them. The woman invites him in to have dinner with her and her daughter, and later on in the night, takes him to a bar full of Zydeco music, full of old couples with awkward angles who somehow beautifully dance cheek to cheek while shuffling across the dance floor. She shares with Schultze the gift of crab, beer, and whiskey, and also of music, good times, and incredible indelible memories.
This quiet blog started with one principle: sharing is caring. As I watched Schultze share his music, the band share its petroleum, the woman share crab and a way of life, I was reminded of how thankful I am that you shared music during your short time in Anchorage. Thank you, Tito, not only for your readership, but for bringing music to Anchor-town, music to the Little Yellow House, and most of all, bringing it back to a very dusty and crusty music lover.
Make sure to come back and visit, and bring your banjo.
Sincerely,
The Madwoman of Anchorage
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