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She Left New York With 7 Kids and No Plan — Now Jamaica Is Home · Babes, how did you get here

• 0:00
  Welcome to A Life Elsewhere, the podcast that dives into the lives of people who have packed up, started over and built something new far from home.
• 0:08
  Today's guest is Dr. Lisa Walker, a professional violinist, devoted educator and mother to seven incredible children.
• 0:17
  But she didn't come to Jamaica looking for sunshine or slow living.
• 0:20
  She came here for love, a deep, enduring love of her Jamaican husband, Courtney, whose happiness is rooted in this island.
• 0:29
  Whilst Lisa would not have necessarily chosen Jamaica as her home, it is the place that she has built a life full of meaning, raising a large, grounded family with care, insight and hard-won wisdom, always having music as her anchor.
• 0:45
  In this episode, we explore the quiet power of sacrifice.
• 0:49
  the complexity of choosing someone else's dream, and why Lisa believes that every child should learn an instrument.
• 0:56
  Her story is honest and moving and full of lessons that only life and love can teach.
• 1:04
  We're dropping new episodes every single week.
• 1:07
  So make sure you subscribe.
• 1:08
  You don't want to miss this, babes.
• 1:09
  And leave a comment and tell me, what do you want to hear out of my next conversation?
• 1:14
  Your support really helps this community grow.
• 1:16
  And if you know someone who's quietly been thinking, should they take that next big leap?
• 1:20
  Babes, send them the podcast.
• 1:23
  What's crazy to me is that you're saying, you know, just by speaking and you hear the sigh and you know that that's not what they're looking for.
• 1:30
  Yeah.
• 1:30
  It's like you haven't even got the chance to show what kind of player you are yet.
• 1:34
  So just by not knowing the rules or the layers of land.
• 1:36
  You've exposed yourself.
• 1:38
  Yeah.
• 1:39
  My first time with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, I mean, I was so happy to be there.
• 1:43
  OK.
• 1:46
  I walked in and I just opened my case and I took my instrument out.
• 1:51
  And then I all I did was close the case and it just went click.
• 1:54
  Right.
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  Everybody in the room turned to me and said, she's new.
• 1:59
  Don't do that.
• 2:01
  Yeah.
• 2:01
  Yeah.
• 2:02
  There could be a rehearsal going on.
• 2:03
  You don't allow your violin case to click close.
• 2:06
  You close it.
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  You close it gently with no sound.
• 2:10
  I didn't get the memo.
• 2:12
  So my my kids have the memo.
• 2:14
  That's incredible.
• 2:16
  Do all your children play?
• 2:17
  I know you have seven children.
• 2:19
  They all play.
• 2:19
  And do they all play the strings?
• 2:22
  Yeah.
• 2:22
  Okay.
• 2:23
  But they choose which one because each instrument as you play it, there's a different feedback.
• 2:29
  Okay.
• 2:30
  So when you play the violin, it's highly stimulatory.
• 2:32
  Okay.
• 2:33
  Right.
• 2:33
  When you play the lower strings, for example, cello, it's a grounding experience.
• 2:39
  So you allow them to choose which instrument they want to play?
• 2:42
  And how do you go about kind of sifting through for them?
• 2:45
  Well, okay, so I'll start with Luke, right?
• 2:47
  In the, he was like two.
• 2:49
  And I got him a little violin.
• 2:51
  And when we got to the E string, he backed away.
• 2:54
  Okay, he said,
• 2:56
  He said, no, no, he said, I want the one where you sit down.
• 2:59
  The one where you sit down.
• 3:00
  So I said, OK, the cello.
• 3:01
  The cello.
• 3:02
  I went and got him a viola with an end pen because they didn't make cellos that small.
• 3:06
  OK. And so, yeah.
• 3:07
  And then the other ones, they would hear Luke and me practicing, so you have violin.
• 3:12
  and cello, right?
• 3:13
  And they would crawl to one room or another.
• 3:16
  So we know what if they want that highly stimulatory, if they want the more grounding.
• 3:20
  And then Jada took viola.
• 3:22
  And then for the other kids growing, the other three, they got to hear violin, viola, cello.
• 3:27
  So they could choose.
• 3:28
  Yeah.
• 3:29
  And when they're young, you'll know they'll they'll move away from that room because they're not enjoying that sound.
• 3:34
  Right.
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  Or they'll move towards.
• 3:36
  So like Alex and Zara, they're super close.
• 3:40
  But when Zara starts practicing violin, you would see him crawl from Zara's room over to the cello room.
• 3:46
  Physically doesn't want to be there.
• 3:48
  Yeah.
• 3:48
  So I already knew which one, you know.
• 3:51
  And you start all of them around too?
• 3:54
  It depends.
• 3:55
  Okay.
• 3:55
  What does it depend on?
• 3:56
  Anywhere between two and five.
• 4:00
  I would say, well, A, my availability.
• 4:02
  Sometimes I'm working with that other child.
• 4:04
  But B, it really has to do with their
• 4:07
  Level of focus.
• 4:08
  Okay.
• 4:09
  Before we continue, make sure that you join our community by clicking the link below.
• 4:14
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• 4:20
  I really cannot wait for you to help me shape where this podcast goes.
• 4:25
  So we're all together in New York.
• 4:27
  Why do you come back to Jamaica?
• 4:29
  Well, in that October, because he was doing like three jobs online, his health started to go down, started to decline.
• 4:37
  And I felt, you know, I'm not sure this environment is working for you.
• 4:43
  So I said, let's do an experiment.
• 4:45
  Let's just try Jamaica for and see what happens.
• 4:51
  It was magic.
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  As he stepped in Jamaica, he dropped 20 years.
• 4:56
  Yeah, well, you see him.
• 4:57
  Yeah.
• 4:58
  He dropped 20 years.
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  He just, you know, he ran into people in the grocery store, everybody's chief or general.
• 5:04
  You know, I guess you at least need something to do.
• 5:08
  He just, I mean, his life just took on a meaning.
• 5:10
  I mean, I guess being outside, fresh air, good food.
• 5:14
  I mean, this was his environment and he blossomed.
• 5:16
  And we just looked at each other a year later and said, well, I guess we have our answer.
• 5:21
  So you did you know, I know you said it was an experiment, but did you have a gut feeling that this was going to be a successful experiment?
• 5:31
  I'm going to say yes, but I wasn't sure what was going to happen when we hit our first challenge.
• 5:37
  Which was?
• 5:38
  Well.
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  not being able to get through at the bank or not being able to get any challenges.
• 5:43
  You know the challenges of living.
• 5:44
  I wasn't sure if he was gonna go running back to the States and say, oh my God, Jamaica doesn't operate too efficiently.
• 5:50
  I am a professional and everything we do,
• 5:54
  is going to be such that when I'm no longer in your life or when you go abroad and represent yourself, they'll know that you have been professional.
• 6:03
  At the standard.
• 6:04
  Yeah.
• 6:05
  So I keep that standard and that helps because I'm not lessening myself by being here.
• 6:11
  I'm keeping one standard.
• 6:13
  When you told your friends, colleagues, people that you were moving to Jamaica, did they think that you were going steps backwards?
• 6:19
  Well, you know, here's a funny thing that when I
• 6:21
  the first time before we ever came, remember between 1990s and 1997, I had just made the first violin section of the Rockford Symphony Orchestra and my friend was a concertmaster and I was going to sit next to her and she was like, oh, you know, why would you ruin your career like this?
• 6:36
  You know, how are you?
• 6:37
  You're giving up, you know, to go where?
• 6:39
  They don't even have an orchestra.
• 6:41
  And I said, you're right.
• 6:42
  So I came and I'll make a long story short.
• 6:44
  I did a string project here for four years.
• 6:46
  I wrote a book.
• 6:47
  on my experience because of the way Jamaican kids learned is different.
• 6:51
  Can you tell me, I know that you're trying to make the long story short, but what do you mean?
• 6:55
  For example, I could say one sentence or two.
• 7:00
  By the time I get to the third sentence, their eyes have glazed over.
• 7:03
  Okay.
• 7:04
  They're no longer hearing.
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  No, it is not a listening society.
• 7:08
  It's a doing society.
• 7:10
  So now those lessons are no longer, okay, so now this is, oh, I'll give you a true case in point.
• 7:16
  The first time a mother dropped her child off to play, of course I'm teaching them how to hold the ball, the basics.
• 7:23
  Mother came back after an hour and said, so what can my child play?
• 7:27
  And I said, well, I'm teaching them the basics.
• 7:30
  And she said, no, I don't have the money, the resources for you to teach my child the basics.
• 7:36
  I only want you to teach them how to play, okay?
• 7:39
  And she was serious.
• 7:40
  Yeah.
• 7:40
  That's all the money.
• 7:41
  She said, the basics sounds great, but that's not what I'm paying for.
• 7:44
  I can't afford that.
• 7:44
  Exactly.
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  So I said, OK, no problem.
• 7:47
  Next lesson, I taught the child the basics for 45 minutes.
• 7:51
  In the last 15 minutes, I taught them something called Reggae Twinkle, which I made up, which is eh eh eh eh eh.
• 7:59
  And so that's all they were playing.
• 8:01
  And of course I put my fingers down, but together, the mother was hearing music.
• 8:05
  And so she was happy.
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  She was happy.
• 8:06
  And then of course I'm happy because I'm doing... You spent the bulk of the... Well, I know what I need to do for them to be able to play.
• 8:11
  Sure.
• 8:12
  Right?
• 8:12
  And little by little, the child starts to put down their fingers, and then I start backing off, and then voila, you have a project.
• 8:18
  So I call that performance-based pedagogy, where even when I'm teaching,
• 8:23
  I don't talk to them.
• 8:24
  I said, OK, which hand is your bow hand?
• 8:26
  That's action oriented.
• 8:28
  With your bow hand, pick up the bow.
• 8:30
  OK. And how about the violin?
• 8:31
  Not in all societies do kids learn in the same way you're saying.
• 8:35
  You're saying that is something.
• 8:36
  OK. Yeah.
• 8:37
  Like so like.
• 8:39
  When I was in Paris, I taught 70 different nationalities.
• 8:42
  So I'll just say like my Asian kids, I mean, they could hear the notes.
• 8:47
  And you described this beautiful experience that completely contradicts all of those stereotypes.
• 8:52
  Absolutely.
• 8:53
  And I just wondered, again, when you perhaps told your friends or your family that you fell in love with a Jamaican man, did you get any sort of... Oh, yeah.
• 9:02
  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  I mean, my mom...
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  remember I have no Jamaican heritage.
• 9:08
  And I doubt, I mean, that my family could even find Jamaica on the map.
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  I'm just telling you.
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  And judging by your calmness, you weren't one of the rebel slaves, babes.
• 9:16
  Yeah.
• 9:17
  Oh, no, no, no.
• 9:18
  I just said, you know, there's this guy from, my mom said, a boy from Jamaica?
• 9:27
  And I noticed you used the word boy in that land.
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  Right?
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  The rest is history.
• 9:31
  Yes.
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  I'll just jump to the end.
• 9:32
  Yes.
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  He is the pinnacle in our family.
• 9:35
  I mean, everybody looks up to him.
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  I mean, he has...
• 9:41
  lovely eight bedroom home in Jamaica, and has traveled the world.
• 9:44
  The kids have had the best of everything.
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  I mean, top scholarships.
• 9:49
  Yeah.
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  And it took money.
• 9:52
  Sure.
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  And he gave it.
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  So even though, like, case in point, the first husband was a physician.
• 9:58
  Okay.
• 9:59
  Which should get money.
• 10:01
  Okay, but what actually trickled down to the kids... Wasn't the same.
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  Wasn't the same.
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  Okay.
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  So here you have this, and they've had every...
• 10:08
  opportunity.
• 10:09
  All I have to say is I would like them to go there.
• 10:12
  He has picked up and moved.
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  Most of our moving, the kids got accepted to Juilliard pre-college.
• 10:17
  Great.
• 10:18
  Okay.
• 10:19
  Luke got a full scholarship down to American Heritage in Florida.
• 10:21
  Great.
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  There's an opportunity over here.
• 10:23
  Great.
• 10:24
  And you're just going.
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  And he's financing it all.
• 10:26
  Right.
• 10:28
  So, right.
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  So now it's, oh, Courtney's the greatest thing since like, right?
• 10:33
  I mean, can't the other husbands be like Courtney?
• 10:36
  Right, right.
• 10:37
  So, and see, there's a mentality difference too because the African American men
• 10:42
  because of what they have been through, their confidence level is not as high as like the Jamaican men.
• 10:48
  So some of the things like when Courtney actually went through some experiences that I would call racist, he was sure it wasn't because of his race.
• 10:56
  So when we go out, I remember we went to a beach once and a guy came up and I don't, he didn't have very many teeth left, you know,
• 11:04
  you would be considered a bum by all.
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  And my kids were carrying on conversations with them.
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  Oh, hello.
• 11:10
  Because he was telling us some interesting things about Rastafarianism.
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  And my kids were really, you know, and that kind of thing.
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  And that's what I wanted.
• 11:17
  So even though we're in Jamaica and they get the benefits of having Uncle Horace climb the tree and get them mango and those coconut waters, but they treat them as if, you know, they're family members kind of thing.
• 11:32
  So...
• 11:33
  In one way, it's good because they have a consciousness of opulence.
• 11:37
  When they go abroad, they love to say, my helper, my driver.
• 11:42
  They love to say it because the kid's eyes pop open abroad, right?
• 11:46
  They love to say it.
• 11:48
  And then at the same time, they have an American where they know that all people, we don't do that class thing, that everybody is binary.
• 11:56
  I think it's a really hard thing to balance, right?
• 11:58
  In the sense of giving, you have everything.
• 12:00
  It was because I told, case in point,
• 12:03
  Luke needed $400.
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  He said, I want to go down and do this recording for $400.
• 12:08
  So Daddy starts to reach into his pocket for $400.
• 12:10
  I said, oh no.
• 12:15
  I said nothing like that.
• 12:17
  I said, let me tell you what I did.
• 12:19
  I got my violin and I was in New York.
• 12:22
  You're in Central Park.
• 12:23
  Okay.
• 12:23
  Right there.
• 12:24
  You open up your case.
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  You play.
• 12:26
  You start busking.
• 12:27
  Yeah.
• 12:27
  You start playing through your box.
• 12:30
  Yes.
• 12:30
  People will put money in your case.
• 12:32
  In four days, he had $400.
• 12:34
  Really?
• 12:35
  Go.
• 12:35
  And it's funny that you say that because I saw this thing recently, a famous psychiatrist, and he was saying about parent and child bonding, you need to spend 20 minutes a day not parent-led bonding.
• 12:47
  Because you telling your child or interrupting all the time is not helping those relationships flourish.
• 12:53
  And so for you to say a similar thing of letting kids find themselves and really letting them lead.
• 12:59
  Again, I think we just underestimate children.
• 13:01
  you know, by like part, we underestimate.
• 13:04
  Absolutely.
• 13:05
  And I never smashed.
• 13:06
  So I'll take my Jada, for example.
• 13:08
  She was ready made and she didn't want to listen to me.
• 13:10
  Okay.
• 13:11
  Right.
• 13:11
  I said, okay.
• 13:13
  There's a little thing though called parent-child though.
• 13:15
  Sure.
• 13:15
  You know, so how can we make that relationship work until you're 18?
• 13:18
  Right.
• 13:19
  What can we do?
• 13:20
  If we follow you, it becomes child-led.
• 13:22
  Sure.
• 13:22
  It puts the whole thing upside down.
• 13:23
  Right.
• 13:24
  So what do you think we can do?
• 13:25
  You know, and she says, okay, well,
• 13:26
  If you want me to do something, maybe you could just ask me if I can do this, you know, and you will do it.
• 13:32
  Yes.
• 13:33
  Okay.
• 13:33
  Excellent.
• 13:34
  Can you please?
• 13:35
  Okay.
• 13:35
  Done.
• 13:36
  You see?
• 13:37
  Yeah.
• 13:37
  Right.
• 13:37
  So I think you need to be humble.
• 13:39
  You need to be clear what your goal is.
• 13:43
  Yes.
• 13:43
  Do you want to dominate?
• 13:44
  Do you want to be the person that's feared?
• 13:48
  Sure.
• 13:48
  Or is your goal to help that person, that adult in a child's body grow to be what they should be?
• 13:56
  So you have to be humble, you have to listen, right?
• 14:00
  And what do you call it?
• 14:01
  Adjustable.
• 14:02
  Yeah.
• 14:03
  Adjustable.
• 14:04
  Your family is very lucky.
• 14:06
  Yeah.
• 14:07
  Very lucky.
• 14:08
  Thank you.
• 14:09
  Yes, you're welcome.
• 14:11
  And I loved to hear about your restaurant, that whole thing.
• 14:16
  That's so, you know, I'm sure there was a teacher, she had been teaching for like 60 years and she was gonna retire.
• 14:24
  And so they said, okay, give us a rundown.
• 14:28
  So she said, okay, well, my,
• 14:31
  Black kids, they were good at drama and acting and stuff like that.
• 14:34
  And she got to my Asian kids, you know, math, and I had to do it.
• 14:38
  And she got to the white kids and she only had one sentence.
• 14:41
  She said they're extremely competitive.
• 14:43
  Okay.
• 14:44
  Right?
• 14:45
  And then when I started teaching, I saw it myself.
• 14:47
  Okay.
• 14:47
  Sally just wants to know how she's doing compared to everybody else.
• 14:51
  There's no like innate passions or directions.
• 14:54
  As long as you're above, as long as you're... That's all you care about.
• 14:56
  Yeah, as long as you're...
• 14:58
  So I thought about that story when she asked you, oh, I'm my daddy's favorite too.
• 15:02
  And then it became this big competition thing.
• 15:05
  Like I give a shit what you and your daddy think about.
• 15:09
  Oh, man.