First Lesson

an excerpt

First Lesson, excerpt

I had never been to an Arab town before. My teacher’s directions were precise but none of the turns were marked with the names he gave them. I had found my way by intuition and a pretty good road map tucked into my sun visor. I found the town easily, not one wrong turn, and it was only when I entered the town did I get lost.

I would later find out that there are two entrances to the town, I had taken the wrong one. I was in the Galilee, a lot of open space.

We had scheduled to meet each other at the gas station. There were two gas stations in the town and I had found the wrong one. I drove out in search of the other. I got hopelessly lost in the dirt roads around the town. Soon I was driving among shepherds with herds of sheep and goats, nothing was paved, the roads were barely wide enough for a single car. Everyone stared at me as I passed.

I ran out of road and precisely then a shepherd with a herd passed in front of me. I showed him my oud thinking he might direct me to my teacher.

He sat down on a rock and gestured for me to play. What the heck. I was ruined. I was missing my first lesson with a world class teacher, so I tuned and sat on another rock and serenaded a shepherd and a flock of sheep.

I was an hour late and looking for a pay phone to call him. I finally found a phone and just at the moment when I was about to exit my car to use it, I saw T in his car at the very same moment he saw me. I don’t know which one of us was more surprised. He had given up on me and was on his way home. We exchanged stories, and I followed him to his house.

He lived on the edge of the town (the other edge), overlooking a meadow below and the Galilee spread out in the distant East. All the windows were open and the air rustled our papers on the music stand. His wife served me cola and some fresh figs and other fruit.

I assumed that she spoke no English. Later I learned that she taught English in a school in Acco.

All (most) my assumptions were wrong. Through this music, another culture opened to me. One I had no familiarity with from where I came. The cliché of proximity opened up to me in reality: we are close. Victims of histories, we have forgotten so much. The artists knew this, the writers, the visualists, especially the musicians. The music was way ahead of all other relations.

j/sg

Everyone stared at me as I passed.