teasing—“Look at the baby! Ha, ha!”—and that was the end of the violin for me.
After that I tried learning the piano from my mother, but every time she criticized me I felt my whole body go rigid with frustration, so that lasted less than a year. Then in 1967 my mother took me to hear Aldo Parisot give a recital of unaccompanied cello pieces. When the concert ended I announced two momentous decisions: I wanted to become a cellist, and I wanted a pair of shoes that were as shiny as Mr. Parisot’s.
My cello teacher, Rudolph Gordon, was an exceedingly gentle man who walked with a severe limp, often using hisold cello as a cane. Our lessons were in his study, which had a grandfather clock in it that ticked loudly and occasionally threw off my sense of rhythm during lessons. As sweet as he was—I quickly grew very fond of him—I always felt a bit frightened of Mr. Gordon. It had nothing to do with anything he said or did; I was shy and frightened of almost everybody when I was a kid, but teenagers and old people made me particularly nervous. Mr. Gordon’s limp, his deep voice and his bald head—added to the fact that I was not a particularly brilliant cello student—all prevented me from ever truly relaxing around him. During one of our lessons I realized I had to use the bathroom, but I could not bring myself to admit it. I don’t know what the big deal is for kids about going to the bathroom, but I just kept playing, my mind racing and my bladder in agony. At last I could stand it no longer and wet my pants. I never stopped playing, though. When the lesson ended I stood up, holding the cello in front of me, and walked backward out of Mr. Gordon’s house. My shoes made a little
squish-squish
with every step I took. It truly did seem like the end of the world.
After I had spent six years with Mr. Gordon, he modestly recommended that I move on to a more serious teacher and try out for a spot with the Norwalk Youth Symphony, the state’s best youth orchestra. I started taking lessons with someone in Westport, an hour’s drive away, and every Saturday morning there was another hour’s drive to Norwalk for orchestra rehearsal, which lasted two hours.
Once I got into kung fu I found it harder and harder to bring myself to practice the cello, and orchestra rehearsals came to seem unbearable. I brought my Chinese philosophy books to the rehearsals and often had them open onmy music stand so I could read them while pretending to be playing. When I asked my parents to let me quit the orchestra, they were disappointed at first, but finally got used to the idea. For my last concert with the orchestra, my grandparents in Ohio drove up to Connecticut to be there. On the first dramatic note of our first piece, I got a little too excited and came down on the string too hard with my bow, which snapped in two. Usually the string breaks, not the bow, but that night it was the bow. I had to sit onstage through the whole piece staring at all the tangled horsehair and hoping my grandparents had a good sense of humor.
Getting out of cello lessons was harder. I had to work on my parents all summer to get that bill passed. By the fall, however, I was free to spend all of my time after school and all weekend meditating and practicing kicks. That was when I knew I had to go the next step and lobby for my own bedroom.
I had shared a tiny room with Erich for thirteen years. This arrangement had worked fine until the time I decided to become a Zen monk, and then a disturbing change came over him. Whereas in the past he would only tease me for doing something especially foolish, his manner now suggested that he thought I was getting weird overall and needed close supervision. He had inherited my father’s withering, disapproving gaze, and he started using it on me more and more often. Unlike Dad, however, Erich had a booming voice and charisma to burn, making him difficult to ignore. My sitting in the lotus position on the couch when
After that I tried learning the piano from my mother, but every time she criticized me I felt my whole body go rigid with frustration, so that lasted less than a year. Then in 1967 my mother took me to hear Aldo Parisot give a recital of unaccompanied cello pieces. When the concert ended I announced two momentous decisions: I wanted to become a cellist, and I wanted a pair of shoes that were as shiny as Mr. Parisot’s.
My cello teacher, Rudolph Gordon, was an exceedingly gentle man who walked with a severe limp, often using hisold cello as a cane. Our lessons were in his study, which had a grandfather clock in it that ticked loudly and occasionally threw off my sense of rhythm during lessons. As sweet as he was—I quickly grew very fond of him—I always felt a bit frightened of Mr. Gordon. It had nothing to do with anything he said or did; I was shy and frightened of almost everybody when I was a kid, but teenagers and old people made me particularly nervous. Mr. Gordon’s limp, his deep voice and his bald head—added to the fact that I was not a particularly brilliant cello student—all prevented me from ever truly relaxing around him. During one of our lessons I realized I had to use the bathroom, but I could not bring myself to admit it. I don’t know what the big deal is for kids about going to the bathroom, but I just kept playing, my mind racing and my bladder in agony. At last I could stand it no longer and wet my pants. I never stopped playing, though. When the lesson ended I stood up, holding the cello in front of me, and walked backward out of Mr. Gordon’s house. My shoes made a little
squish-squish
with every step I took. It truly did seem like the end of the world.
After I had spent six years with Mr. Gordon, he modestly recommended that I move on to a more serious teacher and try out for a spot with the Norwalk Youth Symphony, the state’s best youth orchestra. I started taking lessons with someone in Westport, an hour’s drive away, and every Saturday morning there was another hour’s drive to Norwalk for orchestra rehearsal, which lasted two hours.
Once I got into kung fu I found it harder and harder to bring myself to practice the cello, and orchestra rehearsals came to seem unbearable. I brought my Chinese philosophy books to the rehearsals and often had them open onmy music stand so I could read them while pretending to be playing. When I asked my parents to let me quit the orchestra, they were disappointed at first, but finally got used to the idea. For my last concert with the orchestra, my grandparents in Ohio drove up to Connecticut to be there. On the first dramatic note of our first piece, I got a little too excited and came down on the string too hard with my bow, which snapped in two. Usually the string breaks, not the bow, but that night it was the bow. I had to sit onstage through the whole piece staring at all the tangled horsehair and hoping my grandparents had a good sense of humor.
Getting out of cello lessons was harder. I had to work on my parents all summer to get that bill passed. By the fall, however, I was free to spend all of my time after school and all weekend meditating and practicing kicks. That was when I knew I had to go the next step and lobby for my own bedroom.
I had shared a tiny room with Erich for thirteen years. This arrangement had worked fine until the time I decided to become a Zen monk, and then a disturbing change came over him. Whereas in the past he would only tease me for doing something especially foolish, his manner now suggested that he thought I was getting weird overall and needed close supervision. He had inherited my father’s withering, disapproving gaze, and he started using it on me more and more often. Unlike Dad, however, Erich had a booming voice and charisma to burn, making him difficult to ignore. My sitting in the lotus position on the couch when
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