Greetings friends,

I send you good cheer from the darkening woods and shores of Maine. Like all northern regions, Maine takes on a very somber atmosphere in November. The beautiful fire of October foliage has died down to the mustardy glow of the occasional hackmatack tree. All the other leaves have long since given up , and now they rattle across the roads as they blow into the ditches and streams. The only bright colors to be seen are the screaming orange hats and vests of the hunters, lurking and loitering along the edges of the blueberry fields at dawn. And though they're bright, they're not cheerful. They're the warning lights of death on the prowl. The bays and the harbors, crowded with sails gliding through the summer days, are now almost empty. Only the fishermen are left out on the dark water, which before long will be churning and smoking in the freezing winds. Lawn furniture, tents, grills and gardens have all disappeared. The houses are stark and blank now, and the front doors are all shut tight. People seem to have turned their backs on a dark cold world, which has turned its back on them. It's our annual lovers' quarrel with Nature.

But in the midst of all this chilly dim and damp, there's still a warm bright spot glowing in the very center of town; the elementary school. Every morning at sunrise two big bright yellow busses lumber over the roads, scooping up bouquets of chattering, laughing kids in lemon yellow jackets, bubble gum pink pants, strawberry red stocking hats and grape backpacks. When they've gathered up all fifty of them they swing up the school driveway and, wish a big swoosh, release them at the school door. From that instant until sometime 8 or 9 hours later, when the last weary teacher's car heads for home, the place is a river of color, movement, laughter and excitement. By ten thirty or so the aroma of the cafeteria starts drifting through the halls. Mouths begin to water as visions of macaroni and cheese, burritos, and chicken fingers dance in front of the young scholars' eyes, making it difficult to concentrate on the complexities of spelling or long division.

After lunch there are games to be played, balls to be thrown, ropes to be jumped, baseball cards to be swapped mysterious insects to be examined. Another round of classes quiets the early afternoon, and the day is capped off with a soccer practice on the field behind the school, where the late afternoon sun furnishes each player with a long slanting shadow that makes him look like a preying mantis.

"All this is well and good", you say, "but where's the music in all of this"? Right smack dab in the middle of it all, that's where. You see, this year I'm serving as the music teacher at the Brooklin School. I spend four days a week there, wheeling an electric piano from classroom to classroom and ringing a little bell as I go, like an itinerant peddler, or a musical good-humor man. As I enter each classroom the kids and I exchange a little greeting song and then we get busy making some music together. Mostly we sing songs, anything from "Simple Gifts" to "The Water is Wide" with an occasional "Take me Out to the Ball Game" or "Great Big Gobs of Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts" just to keep spirits high.

Though I have taught private piano lessons from time to time, this is my first experience as a public school music teacher, and it's a wondrous journey, I must say. In the course of a day I encounter an astonishing spectrum of children, from tiny, bewildered preschoolers to 8th grade sharps with cracking voices and a chronic urge to be elsewhere.

As all teachers know, it's an all-consuming job. The four or five hours I spend with the children each day are like 5 hours of performing onstage. I pour out a torrent of energy and try to create excitement and pleasure for the kids. But unlike performing on a stage, this performance is highly interactive, and you never know what's going to happen. One class might be as simple and joyful as a scene from The Sound of Music, while the next might be a scene from a bad Western, where the Class Outlaw has decided to derail the proceedings and make his defiant stand against the Sheriff in the middle of Main Street. And still the next class might find me listening dutifully to a protracted saga about the family cat or rabbit from some solemn Kindergartner.

At first glance, a school seems like a relatively simple, stable institution. The days and months have a predictable familiarity and rhythm. But like any institution, the outward stability conceals a wriggling inner world of drama, intrigue and complexity. In a given classroom, all the children might initially seem similar. But this one is deeply lonely; that one is still glowing from having made the winning goal in yesterday's soccer game; this one is hoping that the boy across the room will sit at her table at lunch; and that one is exhausted because his mother and her boyfriend got into another drunken fight just after 2 AM this morning.

And unlike adults, the kids don't have much in the way of behavioral filters. Moods, instincts, whims, and momentary emotions are all constantly in play, and what once seemed like a simple group of kids is gradually revealed as a roiling pot of feelings, problems, agendas and aspirations. To cajole, prod, entice and somehow unite all these chaotic streams into a rousing chorus of "Home on the Range" or "Hey Jude" is my daily quest. And when it works, perhaps for only a few minutes at a time, it's deeply satisfying and fun. Because without all those filters, the purity of children is so bright and humbling that it repays all the energy I've poured out, with interest.

I'm also keeping my hand in music-making on a more sophisticated level. I still play regularly with Paul Winter. We recently went to Japan to play a two hour concert, returning the next day. And in whatever time is left over, I'm working on a new CD of my own, as well. It's called "My Irish Soul", and it's a solo piano recording of my personal reflections on Irish tunes, some old, some new. So far it's intimate, introspective and certainly heartfelt. I think you'll like it when I'm done with it. I hope to have it ready by late spring or early summer. As soon as the last lusty echoes of "This Land is Your Land" have vanished from the empty halls of the Brooklin School.

Well friends, that's the current state of affairs here in Maine. I thank you, as always, for your interest and support for my work. I hope to always prove worthy of it.

Your musical correspondent,

Paul Sullivan

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