Edward Ishmael's invitation is awaiting your response

Edward Ishmael would like to connect on LinkedIn. How would you like to respond? Edward Ishmael Owner, Ishmael Law Firm, PC Confirm you know Edward You received an invitation to connect. LinkedIn will use your email address to make suggestions to our members in features like People You May Know. Unsubscribe If you need assistance or have questions, please contact LinkedIn Customer Service.

Edward Ishmael's invitation is awaiting your response

Edward Ishmael would like to connect on LinkedIn. How would you like to respond? Edward Ishmael Owner, Ishmael Law Firm, PC Confirm you know Edward You received an invitation to connect. LinkedIn will use your email address to make suggestions to our members in features like People You May Know. Unsubscribe If you need assistance or have questions, please contact LinkedIn Customer Service.

I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn

Edward Ishmael would like to stay in touch on LinkedIn. Edward Ishmael Owner, Ishmael Law Firm, PC Dallas/Fort Worth Area Hi Ali, I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. - Edward Confirm that you know Edward You received an invitation to connect. LinkedIn will use your email address to make suggestions to our members in features like People You May Know. Unsubscribe This email was intended for Ali Silverman. Learn why we included this. If you need assistance or have questions, please contact LinkedIn Customer Service.

The 9th Comes Alive

Dear Maestro. Zimmermann:

I attended the University of Texas symphony performance last Saturday at the invitation of a student, and I was not sure what to expect. I have not always been moved by classical performances. Too often, they seem distant, removed; inapplicable to me here, now. And knowing it was a student performance gave me pause. But I have committed to appreciating all this city has to offer, and the talent at UT is an important part of that.

Recently, I moved back to Austin leaving behind some very dear friends, friends who added much to my life, some who taught me to open myself to new experiences. One friend, Jim, who graduated Yale with degrees in accounting and piano, reintroduced me to the symphony. I was reluctant at first, telling him that I usually wanted to leave at half-time.

“Intermission,” he smiled/grimaced.

I told him that I didn’t understand the point of classical music, the context, the setting. It seemed detached from the real world and anything having to do with my experience.
Our first performance together included a Rachmaninoff piece, and at dinner beforehand, Jim took the time to introduce me to Rachmaninoff--the history of that time and what was going on with the composer personally when he wrote the piece. I cannot recall what concerto or symphony it was, but I remember how the music came alive for me that night, touched me in a way classical music never had before.

This is all a fairly long-winded way of saying thank you.

Before the performance, I took time to read about the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto and what was happening with the composer at the time he wrote the piece—his recent rather public divorce, depression, certain personal questions about who he was and where he was headed, and of course the early rejection of the piece and then its later recognition as a masterpiece and a true test of a violinist. It helped me appreciate the performance in a way I could not have otherwise.

But I did not have time, or take the time to do that with the Beethoven. Maybe I took it for granted that I knew all there was to know about the piece. Maybe, like you said, I was somewhat numbed to it after all its commercialization. But when you took the time to place it in context for me, to explain what was going on with Beethoven at the time, to introduce the nuances of the movements and how they fit together, I was anxious to hear the piece in a way I never have been before. What you gave us was a wonderful gift of context and purpose and intention that, for me, made the concert-- an impressive performance in my admittedly inexperienced view--come alive. And the passion with which you gave your introduction and conducted the performance was refreshing and inspiring.

And all of it reminded me of Jim and the gratitude I feel toward him for showing me a way of looking at music in a new light, understanding the world from a different perspective, with a different soundtrack .

Anyway, I did not intend to go on like this. I really just wanted to say thank you. The performance was moving and enjoyable.

Ed

This Boy

This boy,
Sitting across the dinner table,
telling me his life,
This 23 year-old, lanky boy,
With his swimmer’s build, chiseled face,
and perfect, sparkling-white teeth,
This boy who has lived so much so far,
Is smiling.

This boy,
Who never got the Barbie he always wanted,
Who chose his Easy Bake Oven over baseball,
and his art classes over soccer,
Still smiles.

This boy,
On anti-depressants at age 12,
With a physical tick-- a twitching of his head--until age 15,
Who counted dashes on the highway where ever they drove, for as long as they drove,
This boy somehow is smiling.

But his eyes still hold the pain,
still fear it all returning,
The depression,
The tick,
The checking,
The helpless rage.

This boy smiles,
But not yet with his eyes.


Copyright Ed Ishmael 2009

Turtles

So here’s the deal. My life has been turned upside down, and so far, I have survived. Oh sure, it’s a bitch at times, and there are aspects of how my life was before that I wouldn’t mind having again, but all in all, it’s not as bad as I feared. I’ve set off on a different and unknown path, and I have no idea where it’s leading. And for some reason, that's okay.

We have this tank on our property in the Texas Hill Country. When it’s full, it covers about 2 acres, but it leaks. So in the summer, it drains away to almost nothing, and this last summer/winter, it dried up completely. You can tell when a tank is about to go dry, when even with all your hoping and praying, rain isn’t coming any time soon. How? The turtles.

As you can imagine, it’s not an easy thing for a turtle to relocate. The decision to do so is a serious one, fraught with peril and requiring Herculean effort. Out of the water, they are awkward and exposed, not just to predators, but to the elements, the sun, the dry air. And it’s not like they have a map, or GPS. Guided by instinct alone, they head out clawing their way over this hill or that. It’s arduous, glacially slow going. And if they’ve miscalculated, you’ll find their hollowed, dried shell in the middle of the pasture.

So if the turtles leave the pond it’s because they know there’s nothing left there for them. And if you see them leaving, you can bank on the fact that the pond will go dry, or be reduced to little more than mud.

This last year, around the end of November, as I was walking to my parent’s house, my dogs were on the road ahead of me when all of a sudden they started barking, heads down, lunging at something on the road. I knew it was too late in the season for snakes, but I couldn’t for the life of me tell what it was, until I walked closer. There, in one of the gravel ruts, were two turtles, facing up hill, facing away from the tank. The dogs were beside themselves. They had no idea what these were, or what they should be doing with them, or waht it meant that all of sudden they appeared here on this hill.

But I knew. I knew that the drought would continue and the inevitable would occur. And sure enough, by the first of January the pond was nothing but mud, and by the end of January the mud had dried and cracked.

So the turtles chose wisely. They knew they could not stay, and even though leaving meant danger and hard, slow progress, they set out into the unknown searching for something better.

I have no idea if they made it. I hope they did.

The pond is back up now, the result of a 4 inch rain a few weeks back, but so far, no turtles in sight. But they will find it again. They always do.

Lost In The Fog

“I just want to go for two weeks with no major changes in my life.” That’s what I told a friend recently as we sipped wine outside on my back deck. In the last few weeks, my business partnership split, my boyfriend broke up with me, my bank account went nearly dry, and I was sick in bed for almost an entire week, longer than I can ever remember being sick before. To say that life has been merely difficult would be … inane. Life has, in fact, sucked.

And I don’t see it markedly improving anytime soon.

So how have I dealt with the stress? Probably not well. I did start working out again, and I’ve meditated once or twice. But frankly there isn’t much that can be done right now to change things.

I’m left with making my way through it knowing that the end is not yet in sight, knowing that tomorrow when I wake up these issues will still be here and will likely stay here for some time.

When I was in college, I raised money for my tuition by trapping. Back then, raccoon pelts brought $35 and tuition at UT was only $8 an hour. So if I had a good run during Christmas break, I was generally able to cover my tuition and most of my book costs. In addition to trapping, I would spotlight for raccoons after dark. Most mamals eyes reflect light, so a bright enough light is shown on them, the eyes can be seen from a hundred yards or more away. Once you spot the eyes, you give chase, run the recoon up a tree, and then shoot it. I know, gruesome, right? But back then it didn't seem so.

One night the air was warmer than usual and damp, and while I was out walking with my light and rifle a heavy fog moved in. Before I knew it, I was engulfed in the thick, quickly moving cloud and completely lost my way. The ground was only visible a few feet ahead as I tried to make my way home, but before long I truly had no idea which direction I was headed.

A 21 year old, a few hundred yards for his home, probably has no reason to fear even in disorienting fog, but I was afraid. I couldn’t find my way. None of the paths, or rocks, or trees looked familiar. I was lost, and I had no idea how to get home.

So eventually I just stopped, sat down, and calmed myself as best I could. The house could not be far away. I had not been gone that long. I had walked up the hill away from the house, and was walking back down now. All I needed was a glimpse of something familiar, and until I saw it, there was nothing to do except sit and wait.

Fortunately, it did not take long. The wind rose, and the fog began to move and as the cloud blew passed it grew thinner and then I saw it, in the distance, a hundred yards away, the light on our barn. I set my bearings and off I went, and even though the thick fog rolled back in, I was able to focus on just the next step, again and again, until at last I made the barn and home.