I worked some extra hours today helping out on a ropes course up among the redwoods. A small group of local African American youth and their mentors came up to spend some time doing some team building activities. One of the other weekday field instructors was on hand to help as well, along with an actual ropes course guy to handle all the real work. As helpers, we just hooked people to ropes and belayed them as they inched across cables strung between redwoods, or attached them to pulleys so they could go zipping along cables through the trees. Everybody had a blast, and afterwards the group invited us to join their next activity, which turned out to be a djembe lesson, taught by a man who used group drumming as a metaphor for life (if you lose the rhythm, don't just keep playing - stop and listen so you can find the rhythm again...). It was a lot of fun, even if my hands and wrists hurt afterwards. Over all, we sounded a lot better than those drum circles I used to hear up in Berkeley all of the time. Much more rhythmic. Playing with a group of people is a bit of a departure for me. I usually fiddle around by myself with random instruments. It takes a lot more discipline to play with a group. My fellow field instructor was more used to it, having his own djembe. In fact, most of the people I work with at this job are musicians. It makes me want to learn more. I'd like to be able to successfully play with a group.

The man who had put this all together is also a documentary filmmaker. I listened to part of the inspirational speech he gave to the group, and he struck me as a powerful speaker as well - very forceful and positive. His latest film is called "A Killing in Choctaw", about a racist killing in Alabama. He was nice enough to give me a copy of the NY Times with an article about it. I'll have to see the film if it makes its way to the area.

It rained off and on while we were up there, and the clouds crept over the hills below the tops of the trees, shrouding the area in a shifting white curtain. The air smelled of pine.