___________________________________________ Story of Calm Rain ___________________________________________
How did you come up with that name, Calm Rain? People are very curious with the name and with the ambiance of the studio. We first opened up in Seattle where it would be quite a relevant name for a business. Yet, when they enter, visitors can feel that there is something more beyond the name than it’s reflection of Seattle. The answer is this: It is an honoring name. The only memory I was able to make the last time I saw my grandparents was how the calm rain was coming down on the tin roof of their house and in the yard where tropical plants grew in the rich island soil. With the passing of time, we can take for granted what was special when we first made a very profound memory. It fades -- unless the memory stays fresh. The sound of Calm Rain is everywhere for me to keep the memory of my grandparents wide awake, like in the trickle that follows the road, in the breeze I welcome when I run an errand, in the water fountain that cools me in the summer, and in the studio that bears its name. It reminds me of how love transcends and reappears and never compromises even when people do. Calm Rain
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ON TOUR
Sink or swim. Some of us have been swimming ever since we took our first step and a few have been swimming in mine fields without sweating it.
What are we made of? I have heard of tales from those who lived through famine, epidemics, war, genocide, drug trade and occupation. Most of them are now older Americans who saw the Great Depression, World War II, internment camps, the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the Natives and Mexicans who heard about borders being drawn writing their families out of rights of land and citizenship. They admittedly were the swimming survivors of circumstances.
All these circumstances happened because of choices made, collectively or invidividually. They continue to happen and will probably not stop because they are what we are made of and what we are naturally gifted to do. We play our part in allowing the worst in man to exist then try to turn things around when it's too late. And we forget to remember the goodwill that may have come from some unheard friendship between neighbors and those hard fought policies that attempt to curve some human rights atrocity to find fuel. We play our part collectively or individually.
We thrive on being challenged and learn to master our games of habits and deception.
We sink or swim. We will find a way of feeding our children during famine or die trying. We take the bullet while we cover the body of the shocked young soldier who is calling out for his mother. We say nothing if it means we lose our job for standing up for someone being discriminated against but look for someone to save us when it is us who become the victim. We stubbornly learn and accept that being multilingual is a tool of diplomacy not inferiority.
I had to stop cursing as much because I was annoying myself. It's been over 12 years and I still can't (or wont) take off the extra ten pounds around the belly. Losing weight is so difficult, like having to quit smoking, or changing habits that seemed harmless at the time we began them. Now I challenge myself about how I judge people while I listen to the noise coming from foul mouthed youngsters and their parents at the bus stop, or the buffed up actors and athletes who have more problems than the poor, or the clergy people and politicians who falsify their true lusty desires and destroy others instead of changing their habits. We choose the games and habits we want to master, prioritizing them according to our self gratification. Some of us are never satisfied unless we share or force our frustration out on others who may just be trying to quietly make it through another day in their personal space. This is the crossroad where we can choose to create the circumstances that people have to suffer through and swim long enough to tell the tales to the next generation who will repeat the same mortal habits.
The contradictions of life are predictable. We make choices. Sink or swim.
Mahatama Gandhi explains his philosophy and way of life in his autobiography The Story of
My Experiments with Truth. He was quoted as saying:
"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always."
"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?