Living in coronavirusworld 138: There's good out there

8/13

And there is....

Still here

For what it's worth, emergency vehicles are still a constant in the neighborhood. Was it always that way before and I just didn't notice?

I’ve found the hours I spent at home going through boxes of the artifacts of my life as well as just driving around Pittsburgh has stayed with me all week. I’ve kind of retreated into myself. Not intentionally but I just realized it. I have a chorus: “Roaming around the streets I’m a captive of memory…there’s a ghost around every corner…and some of them are me…” Now all I need is a song…

I come out for a late afternoon performance on the Peoples Music Network national “song swap.” I play my Black Lives Matter song, “How Long, O Lord.” Singers from New York City, upstate, the Berkshires, California, Nashville….Most of us old. Trying to keep the faith. Old folkies. One very moving song about watching Pete and Toshi’s last dance. A lot of years in the struggle represented here. Pete lives on in these songs.

boxers

I walk through Morningside. No egret. But I see the boxers, These are the  markers of my daily life:  egrets, turtles, boxers  and Tim and his trombone. 

8/14

John Lennon tree

All you need is love

This week’s “virtual 5K” is the “Brew Run” I decide to do the Central Park West Drive to Columbus Circle course. Plenty of shade. And an iced coffee at the Maine Memorial. Walking down 79th to the Gate, I see someone has created a ‘John Lennon tree.”Right in front of Gary Tracy, Optometrist, famous for making John’s glasses. It’s a reminder that during his years here, he loved the neighborhood because in our classic New York way, for us he was just another neighbor. He would sit in Cafe La Fortuna on 71st street writing songs most weekdays. Sadly skyrocketing rents and the death of the owner’s wife led to its closing in 2008. Like I said, he was a neighbor.

Late afternoon drinks with Dion and RL and Mandola Joe at the Gate. Joe sharing his latest photos of insects and flowers in Central Park. I missed these simple moment during quarantine. The outdoor cafe version of the Gate gives us back a piece of our stolen lives.

I host the West Park (virtual) Open Mic again. The community gathers, each in their own ZOOM box. Oldies, classics, originals, a capellas, Carpenters and covers. I play a song written in Yale days I intended to play at the cabaret I never made it to last night. And two songs about Pittsburgh. And another “recovered” song and a cover song. That’s what we do. Share among friends. My Dead t-shirt, a “Steal Your Face” skull with a mask, reads “We will get by. We will survive.”