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.

 

Living in coronavirusworld 245: Snowfall

 

2/1

the snow came

z

One month of the new year is gone. 

sledding in Morningside Park

a snowman guards the pond

Today the snow came. Two-three feet maybe.  Enough to cover everything with that blanket of white. That cover that seems to muffle all sounds, quieting, slowing everything down. In years past, this would have been a snow day. Kids anxiously waiting for the word then celebrating when it’s officially announced the school is cancelled. A random gift of grace and freedom sending everyone outside  with sleds and saucers. Heading for the parks and every incline to be  found. But after months of living in coronavirusworld they just announce it’d a remote learning day. An let it go at that. Can’t help but think somethings bene lost. Yet another victim of Covid.

In Morningside Park, no birds or ducks or geese. Just children and their sleds. And a lone snowman. 

Tonight’s Bible study brings us to Mark 1: 29-39, Jesus begins his healing ministry. He has come to the home of Simon,  now known as Peter, the Rock. His mother in law is sick. And so we learn Peter was married. Jesus takes her by the hand, lifts her up. And she feels better.  And begins to serve. People keep coming so the next day, they are off and on their way.

* A couple  weeks ago when I preached for my friend Rabbi Steve’s Shabbat service, later when we had prayers, I “lifted up” my mom. He told me this was a particularly Christian way of talking. A nice image and he liked that. All goes back to Jesus “lifting up.”

* They wait until sundown to start receiving visits which mean they took Sabbath restrictions seriously.

* He forbids the demons to speak because they “know him.” Possibly having learned a lesson in his last demon encounter (1: 21-28).  He  like Spiderman or Superman, wants to keep his identity secret. Something he does 10 times in Mark.

* After a full day of demanding work, he goes off to a “deserted place.”   To pray. To recharge. 

* The word used when they tell him that everyone is “searching” for him is a word that usually indicates hostility. It is used 10 tines in Mark.

This story sets the frame work for Jesus ’ministry:  casting out demons, healing and teaching and preaching. It’s a bit problematic that the healed woman has to immediately get up and start serving. Though the word for serving, diakanos, is so much bigger than cooking cleaning, etc. She is the first deacon. It is radical that Jesus’ first healing is of a woman, one of the marginalized of society, one of the least of these. Nevertheless, Jesus is  still bound by his culture. In the end however, we see her restored to her place. Those Jesus heals are reincorporated back into society.

Mark speaks with hyperbole, eg, “…all who were sick or possessed…” and “..the whole city was gathered…” yet he narrows it in the outcomes to “…cured many…” not all. An he avoids the temptation of popularity. (This part of the story will be expanded in the temptation in the wilderness narrative..(Matthew 4: 1-11) Perhaps those said ti be possessed were actuallu those who had been demonized bu the community.

In our conversation, a number of thoughts emerge. Peter’s mother in law was not deathly ill, she had a fever. Not blind, nor with  constant menstrual flow or leprosy. Just a fever. Her “healing” is not a major miracle. But note, sometimes  presence is enough. Along with  the  comforting power of touch. 

Jesus does not heal all. Just many. And he moves on because his responsibility is to the Good News, not being a human healing vending machine. (Though Russ points out that in contemporary popular Christianity, society he has bene turned into precisley that.)

Michael is concerned that If Jesus ‘ mission is universal, why does he focus on the poor and  not those who have proven capable who could be so helpful to hm? It’s very clear that in the time of increased conflict with Rome, heading towards the final conflict, the regular economy would be affected. People whose lives were difficult to begin with would be cut off even more from basic essential  resources, Most of those who come to him  would clearly be poor people. Jesus starts his mission at the bottom and not the top. And it’s not about individual success, it’s about community.

Marsha shares a paint from the Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists….exhibit at the Whitney.

Jesus destroys his cross

In the end, there are four ideas here with noting:

1. Avoid the trap of popularity

2. Accept our limitations (many healed, not all…)

3. We all ned our own deserted place to pray and refocus

4. We give without need or expectation of repayment

As we watch Jesus go about the beginning of his own ministry, his job description starts to become clear and ours begins to come into clear focus as well. 

And the snow is especially beautiful at night…

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Gospel Mark 1:29-39

29As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. 31He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

32That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. 33And the whole city was gathered around the door. 34And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

35In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. 36And Simon and his companions hunted for him. 37When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” 38He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” 39And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

Living in coronavirusworld 194: This darkness has to give...

10/22

This darkness has got to give

A busy day going back and forth between finishing my ep and preparing for my virtual concert “VOTE.”  The work of finishing a recording takes listening over and over again, listening to small details, making decisions and deciding when enough is enough. By late afternoon, we are done.

Duck and two turtles

Butterfly in Morningside

Morningside

MorningMorningsideI take a break in Morningside Park. When I see a duck with two turtles on the same rock, I always wonder how consciously aware of each other they are. How much we are aware of what, and who,  is around us.  I take a photo of flowers, and later, like the photographer in Blow Up, see something I didn't when I took the picture: a butterfly. 

I only have time to stop briefly in the Center at West Park meeting as we review the success of the previous night’s virtual gala. All done in under an hour.

word on the street 

I open the ZOOM room. Do sound checks for all my performers. Set up the  Facebook Live stream and get it going. It’s a great group of 10 musicians and 1 spoken word artist. One friend join us live from Switzerland. Another from Pittsburgh. That’s the good part of our coronavirusworld. My friend Ric premiers both a new song and video. At the end,I feel happy about a job well done. We feel like we are doing our part to get the people out to vote. (Though I am not sure in the end we'll  get anyone out who was not ready to go anyways) We share out reflections on the world have been living in. I share an angry song, a hopeful song, a determined song and a preview master track from my new EP. (you can watch the show here…https://www.facebook.com/robert.l.brashear/videos/10158505005848361)

If VOTE is our theme, the sub theme is THIS DARKNESS HAS GOT TO GIVE.

10/23

Roosevelt park

Most of the day is given over to trying to advocate for my mother in an understaffed rehab facility. Phone calls to me every half hour regarding pain.  Calls to the desk. Promises to rend “right now” that never happen. Repeated calls until they do. Irritation at the nurses desk until I  remind them they promised to respond an hour and a half ago, an hour ago, half hour ago…My mother says “if this going to be my life..”  I tell her it is not. IF she chooses. She will get through quarantine. She will get visitor again. She will get through rehab. Return to her assisted care facility. IF she chooses. And she will vote. We need every one. That one seems toggle her s reason to keep going. 

fall in Roosevelt...

Harlem

Upper West Side

I need to go the Gate for a break. See signs of fall in the Roosevelt Park flora. Growing signs of Halloween in Harlem and the Upper West Side. We still have that.

The Open Mic gang gathers again, I am tired, but this is a commitment. I do a variety of songs. It is my 100th performance of the year.

This darkness has got to give…

Living in coronavirusworld 191: God was already there

 

10/17

please....

Volunteer day in the park

Cleaning the park

coronavirusworld

It’s Volunteer Day in Morningside Park. Teams of volunteers clearing leaves, raking, sweeping, cleaning trimming….neighbors caring for our common back yard…..the weekly Farmers’ Market with its mandatory masks. Fall produce. Craft whiskeys from Yonkers. Fresh meats from the farms, including a special Bolognese sauce. Artists, including one artist’s impression of coronavirusworld….I wish there was more fall leaf color. 

Remembering Chile

W gather on ZOOM from around the world to honor my friend Dennis Smith and his wife Maribel on Dennis’ retirement after 40 years of mission service for the Presbyterian Church.  I first met Dennis in 1982 in Guatemala City. I recall sitting in a hotel room with music on the radio turned way up to cover our conversation from the suspected “bugs” in our room. It was in the midst of the genocidal reign of Efrain Rios Montt, icon of Reagan and American evangelicals. It’s moving to see another colleague from that first visit in the room as well as two from my most recent visits.  Years later, Dennis would bring a group of Waldensians from Argentina and Uruguay  to West Park to explore urban ministry and this set the stage for my two years of consultant work in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. It’s good to see my friends Carola and Dario form Rio Plate in their ZOOM box and remember Dario’s magnificent backyard barbecue.  And I remember how it was just one year ago that I was privileged to be in Chile during its estallido (explosion). Tear gassed five times. Profoundly moved by the power of the people to raise their own voice and the power of creativity, especially of music, and Victor Jara, to inspire and sustain resistance and struggle. In remembrance. I drink form my mug commemorating the 55th anniversary of the founding of Comundad Teolgia Evangelica de Chile celebrated in the midst of the social upheaval. The much anticipated vote to authorize the drafting of a new constitution, schedule for April, has been put off until later hits month. With many questions unresolved. We watch Chile so closely because their Pinochet constitution is the model of what the radical libertarians behind Trump want for this country. Dennis laughs and lets me know the jean jacket I left in a movie theatre in Buenos Aires was found by Maribel and is now with him in Oregon. 

In reflecting on their years, Maribel speaks of the infrastructural changes that have taken place.  Dennis speaks of the persistence of violence over the decades. Even following “peace.” People are still, and perhaps even more subject to the experience of violence. The society (like ours) is highly polarized and there is a profound danger of the reality becoming ever more detribalized. The challenge on confronting the  basic fundamental issues has become even more difficult. When Dennis began his work, missionaries saw themselves as God bearers, bringing God to the unsaved.  Now we know God was already there. Now mission work is to listen to learn. To share. Our salvation is abound up in learning from others how God is at work in their lives.To know we are not to be leaders but to walk alongside.  And to be a bridge between peoples.  There is a beautiful song by David LaMotte. 

                                                  "We are each others' angels"

After recounting her struggles with English, Maribel encourages us all to lesrn another language. And there are virtual abrazos fuertes all around. 

10/18

Russ is leading the West Park worship the morning.  Sharing Jackson Browne’s Rebel Jesus. (

                                                         Rebel Jesus

And reflection on Matthew 22: 15-22.  And how in the “Give to God what is God’s and to Caesar what is Caesar’s, in the end it is all God’s." During the conversation, Hugo states  that now Nicaragua is 9th in the world in proportionate covid fatalities with 6000 dead.

looking for a four

The 115th street crap shooters have left a stray die on the sidewalk.

I am honored to take part in the third Peoples’ Music Network  TransAtlantic Song Swap with artists from the US and Canada sharing with colleagues from the UK: England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. “Songs of Freedom and Struggle” can heard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1d0ivyTTk.   I shared my Black Lives Matter Song”How Long” and even got mentioned in a freestyle rap by Kurley, who sounds like a real life Ali G.  Moving to hear from both  sides of the Atlantic how we struggle with the pandemic and the older pandemic of intuitional racism. 

friends

The day ends in the patio garden of an Upper West Side Italian restaurant with two pastor friends. My Catholic priest friend has ambivalent feelings about the Barrett Supreme Court nomination.  My Lutheran pastor friend has no  question about where she stands. And we all are filled with anxiety about the coming election.

.  

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.”

Living in coronavirusworod 48: Empire, power, ambition

5/9

Morningside egret

Colder. Especially in the shade.But the sun is out. In Morningside Park, we continue to be fascinated by nature in a way that we were not before. The egret, the turtles and the feral cat become characters in my daily drama as I check on their whereabouts and activities. I like the turtles and their prehistoric amphibian nature between the he world underwater and our own.  In Native American mythology the turtles’ upper shell is the vault of  heaven and the lower  shell the earth.  Two months ago, I would not have been writing about turtles.  My walking partner prefers the egret with its s curve neck and bathing ritual. 

Aa we walk our circuit around the Meer, through the Conservatory gardens and back, we talk about the DOE. 

Central Park starling

How it turned out the all the business about ZOOM's compromised security and checking out alternative platforms was just part of a tactic in the negotiations  between ZOOM and the DOE. ZOOM has now created a special platform just for New York City schools.  We can’t give more than a passing notice to the proliferating stories about “plandemic” suggesting it’s all a plot and statements that the death tolls are being inflated and the president essentially endorsing the wildest provocative speculation of the internet as reasons to “reopen” then economy. She is “confused” by her friend’s analysis that there is little difference between the Democrats and Republicans in handling’s the key economic issues exposed by the coronavirus. True enough.  BUT the fact is that Hilary, probably even McCaIn, would have left us with thousands fewer deaths in this crisis.  That counts  for something. We can’t think about these things too much. Just enough to be informed. Not so much as to fall into despair. 

Even small coughs are suspicious now and I try to stifle what I feel/hope is just spring allergies. 

My Saturday chores take to standing in one  line at the drug store and another  at the grocery store and carrying the grocers home over my shoulder n a Steeler bag. 

On Fredrick Douglass, an African-American motorcycle club fills the street with a pipes  roaring procession, one bike after the other.. Six feet? Well, I guess….

I watch the National Theatre of London’s production of Antony and Cleopatra starring Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okenedo.  As always, I see relevance to our current situation. That’s what makes Shakespeare Shakespeare. It is among other things, a reflection on empire and ambition  and power.  I find myself thinking about living under occupation and realizing in many ways we are experiencing that reality. Every aspect of our lives is dominated by an alien force outside of our control. Freedom of movement and assembly curtailed. And the cost of ignoring orders can be death, either from the virus or other humans. Global lockdown. The sun never sets on the Covid19 empire.

And I listen  to a podcast that explains how diabolical this virus is, capable of mutation and self preservation. Only starving it stops it. And certainly our voracious unchecked consumption has open end the path for the virus to find us. 

And then the Saturday Night 45th Season Finale.  The "at home" show finished with a video called "Dreams". featuring Cecily Strong. (my favorite because she's ben in my audience a few times at Bar 9.) It's not perfect kind of quirky and even includes some clever "nightmares" as different cast members dream of their actual life in our city. All accompanied by DeBussy's Claire de Lune. By the time it finished, I was sobbing, missing what has always been and is not. That's what it is...imperfect, quirky, sometimes a bit nightmarish i ways we can laugh about....but ours. 

                                                              "Dreams"

It's time  for the day to end, knowing once again sleep will not come  easy.