Living in coronavirusworld 257: Officially spring. It's been. a year.

 3/22

African dance class

It’s officially spring now. The weather has turned sunny and warm. Again.  And it’s been a year living in coronavirusworld. People are outside. My neighbors are putting their lawn chairs out on the sidewalk, getting ready for a warm night on the street of music and drinks and  talk. It’s been many months. 

A year ago, there was a sense of dawning apocalypse as everything radically shut down and what was was taken away from us. And day by day we began to adjust. Plotting daily just how to live. As Calamity Jane said in “Deadwood”: “Every day takes figuring out all over again how to fucking live.” And so we did.

As the weather warmed, walks became important. Getting out of the houses we were confined to in the peak days in quarantine lockdown.  I walked slowly and looked intently. Noticing for the first time the subtle changes day to day as new flowers blossomed forth in Central Park. Noting daily the life in Morningside and Central. Turtles. An egret. Ducks. Swans. A feral cat. Pizza eating  squirrels.  I came to understand the marvelous and unnecessary diversity of being and that each  creature was in its own way, perfect, doing precisely what it was meant to do. And coming to accept that I, in my imperfection, was somehow perfect too.

In Central Park, I saw the field hospital spring to life. And in the air cleared of helicopters and planes and streets cleared of traffic, I heard the birds sing again as new species arrived every day. I was with  only one other human being. We set aside the pain of our separation and became walking partners. 

I set rituals to give the amorphous time boundaries. Coffee outside one cafe on Monday mornings…until it closed its doors forever…and organizing my week.  ZOOM Bible studies on Mondays. Tacos on Tuesday. A virtual open mic on Fridays to replace the one we lost. The Morningside farmers’ market on Saturday mornings with coffee. Newspaper, pastry and latte at the Venezuelan coffee shop every Sunday. 

Enthusiastically set out to create a cultural life. Became a regular attendee of the National Theatre of London. And others. Steady consumption of Shakespeare. Set out to experience Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” with the Metropolitan Opera. And survived. 

Watched regular parts of my life turned into ZOOM. With its alienation and intimacy. Learned how to produce ZOOM concerts, stream them live onto Facebook and even how to import videos. Ran my own “Lockdown Showcase” series under the “Grateful Distancing Stay at Home Tour of 2020.” And wrote enough songs for a 2020 EP.

Stood with nurses demonstrating for adequate PPE. Followed the Black Lives Matter marches through the streets of my Harlem neighborhood. Intently followed the primaries and the election that wouldn’t end breathing in relief at the outcome as the neighborhood exploded with celebration.

Committed to writing each day, trying to mark the subtle daily changes and signs of resistance as we created a way to live. Saw my numbers go up again.

Agonized as my mother in her assisted care facility found her life reduced to that of an incarcerated prisoner with one supervised 15 minute visit behind glass a week and then quarantine solitary confinement after any doctor’s visit or other outside visit. 

Experienced the deaths of three people in three weeks as many continued to deny the reality of the virus. Learned to live in a mask.

Learned the adventure and pleasure of eating dinner outside at 30’ temperatures. (-1C).

As time ground on, that initial excitement began to wane. Could only watch so many plays. And tired of daily writing  and saw the readership  numbers ago down again, never learning why so many readers in Italy were following me. 

As Rusted Root once sang, “Won’t ya come along, Babylon, ‘cause we’re living in a land of virtual reality…”

Milica at the Composers Conordance concert

Times Square

the parrot

After five weeks of virtual “Low key Chamber Concerts” my new music classical friends hold a live concert in a rehearsal studio near Times Square. With an audience of 10. Walking home, I see the life of Times Square…break dancers, action heroes and Sesame Street hustlers,  a giant panda, an evangelical born again Christian Korean youth choir, a giant live snake and a snow white parrot.  We are still here. Stretching out. Stepping into the sun again.

Sunday, Morningside is filled with people and picnics and birthday parties and fathers playing catch and white women learning African dance. 

Entering into a new netherworld, not locked down but not what was and not knowing what will be as we feel our way forward.

It’s officially spring now.