Aging is a cruel master. In 2020 it has been particularly unforgiving. More change, chaos, and suffering have been thrown our way, collectively and personally, than I can remember.
Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and no one would do anything about it. In the case of COVID vs. Donald J. Trump this is not a figurative, innocent person on Fifth Avenue, but hundreds of thousands of real American lives. History will record many of the deaths and suffering as avoidable. By politicizing the wearing of masks and holding his “rallies” with no social distancing, he has blood on his hands. Ask the family of Herman Cain, who was diagnosed with COVID nine days after attending a crowded, face-maskless Trump rally in Tulsa.
It has been a surreal agony to witness this. As an aging person this entire experience has increased our risk and ratcheted up anxiety; merely to survive this period, essentially in isolation, is so far something of an accomplishment. And in the wake of this health crisis is the enormous economic suffering rivaling the Great Depression. For many hard working people, particularly those connected with the travel and leisure industries; small shop owners and independent restaurateurs, this pandemic has seen hardships that can’t be measured. An American Tragedy. So much of it could have been mitigated.
As for us, I’ve been unusually silent during the past several weeks as we did the unthinkable, we moved.
The experience of moving is bad enough in one’s younger years but the accumulation of 50 years of living as if tomorrows are endless makes moving to another home even more traumatic. And during 2020?
The triangulation of circumstance led us to this at this time. The plan was formulated this way: as boating became too demanding, physically and financially, we would move off the water, into a smaller home, into a gated community, where some of the responsibilities of home owning are absorbed by the HOA.
We had had our house on the market for some time with this thought in mind but at the beginning of the pandemic we took it off deciding we would stay put, try to be safe and wait this out.
Maybe it was cabin fever, but we impulsively rented a mountain-view home near Asheville for several weeks in September. We figured we could pack our SUV with all needed supplies, and sit on a porch overlooking the Pisgah Mountain Range and read to keep our minds far from reality. Shortly after we arrived our real estate agent called to tell us a fair offer, clearly out of the blue, was presented to him to buy our home, while it was off the market no less. The wise decision would have been to wait, but we rationalized that by hiring a full service mover, they packing and unpacking, some of the stress and risk would be minimized. This was not well thought through. Especially considering we had no idea where we were going.
Our main concern was how to do this and avoid COVID. The moving company explained their protocols, masks at all times and the logical explanation that as their movers work as a close team, one member of the team would not expose the others if he did not feel well. Also, when preparing for the move, a bit of serendipity, for I found a dozen N95 masks still in their wrappers tucked away in our garage which I had purchased years before for a sanding and stripping project. Of course, long forgotten. That gave us some measure of security while moving.
There were still risks. In particular a free-lance Internet / AV person the moving company recommended who would be immediately available once moved in to connect and trouble shoot a whole new cable set up, and get our computer and TVs working, a challenge in this day and age. He came, started connecting things, some unsuccessfully, and announced that he had to leave for an hour as he had a Doctor’s appointment but would be back to complete the job. He returned, worked for another half hour with Ann, still not being able to connect everything. He did however know how to wait very successfully while she wrote out his check!
That would be bad enough if it were the end of the story. No, we found out two days later that his Doctor’s appointment was to be tested for COVID and he was positive. Yes, he consciously put us at risk (we were both wearing masks, however). The next ten days were a living hell of anxiety, my being tested twice and my wife once. Masks do work, as we were both negative and completed the quarantine period.
Even now, weeks after moving, the house is slightly chaotic, but coming into shape. I look forward to the days when I can return to real writing and the piano, although I’m slowly ramping up.
So how does one achieve any semblance of normalcy during such times?
Each person has had to find his / her own answer. The basics must be covered, food, shelter, access to health care. Shame on the US Congress that for many these cannot be taken for granted, but I’m trying not to make this a political invective. It could easily turn that way.
For us, we are fortunate to have those. So outside of family and friends, there are four major life purposes: music, theatre, reading, and travel. I used to include boating in that mix. No more, a major phase in our lives, closed. Travel is not remotely safe. Reading, except for the news, has essentially been put on hold. One has to have an inner sense of tranquility I think to leisurely enjoy fiction.
FaceTime has been a life saver to see family and friends (as many, we have not seen our adult children since Thanksgiving 2019, except virtually). Thankfully, Zoom and YouTube has kept theatre and music in our lives.
Music is divided into two parts for me, performance and listening. My piano “gigs” at retirement homes and playing on opening night at Palm Beach Dramaworks have ceased now for nearly a year. That usually meant preparing concerts primarily focused on The Great American Songbook. Now, not having such venues has rendered me a vessel with no rudder. So, I find myself just randomly going through my collection of thousands of songs and in the process finding pieces I’ve never played before – not many but I’ve found a few gems.
The other part of our musical life has been to attend professional performances, primarily jazz. Oh, what we took for granted before, the ability to go to a jazz jam at the Jupiter Jazz Society on Sundays, and special performances all around town and even going on a Jazz Cruise right before the pandemic hit.
One of the performers on the cruise was Emmet Cohen, a young jazz pianist we saw several years ago at Dizzy’s in NY and have admired ever since. He is gifted, can play all forms of jazz, personable, and reverent of jazz history. He is the whole package. In July I wrote about his innovative “Emmet’s Place,” a Monday night streaming jazz performance where he plays with his bassist Russell Hall and drummer Kyle Poole as a trio, with frequent guest performers, at first all virtual guests and then in person, all of this streaming from his apartment in Harlem.
Since I wrote an entry about his virtual performances, he has expanded his technology to include multiple fixed cameras and a producer to switch back and forth from the appropriate camera angle. All of this free on YouTube and Facebook! Well, nothing is really free so we’ve become and probably (hopefully) along with thousands, members of “Emmet Cohen Exclusive,” a means for him to raise financial support for his group and for what he is doing. One of the benefits is access to some private concerts, but the mainone is supporting an upcoming superstar of jazz and his colleagues.
The other solace has been the regular Palm Beach Dramaworks play readings and interviews. That’s another twice a week event and they are free if one registers with the box office for tickets. They even did readings of a trilogy by the award-winning Lynn Nottage and then Producing Artistic Director, Bill Hayes, followed that up with a live interview with the playwright as part of their Contemporary Voices Series. To sign up for their free readings and interviews, check with their box office
PBD of course is not the only theatre offering Zoom readings or YouTube “productions.” This brings up a dilemma for me. I’ve been reviewing plays in my blog and published a collection of them in Explaining It to Someone: Learning From the Arts. In fact, this book contains 10 years of Palm Beach Dramaworks reviews.
Here’s the conundrum: How does one “review” a reading? Theatre is made up of so many elements and in reviewing a performance, the reviewer is evaluating the gestalt. It’s the overall experience, right down to the audience’s reactions as they are part as well.
While I was in college, I took a course that focused on theatre as literature, as philosophy, and when you peel away all the elements, that is what you are left with. If the play isn’t meaningful to the audience in some way, it could have all the other elements, great acting, directing, staging, etc. and it could still fail. I think the future of reviewing will be more dependent on the core of the theatre although as the technology of producing virtually improves so will all the other elements come into play, but never the way live theatre does.
So my hope for 2021, under a new administration, and with effective vaccines, that there is a chance to reclaim a semblance of “normal.” Meanwhile, for us, virtual theater and music have buoyed our spirits.
At this time of year I normally try to post a video to celebrate the season, seeking “holiday music” which is somewhat overlooked. As we just moved I’m weeks or months away from being able to post performances. But to mark the season, I’ll include here something I posted six years ago, “It's Love -- It's Christmas,” my most viewed Christmas piece. No wonder, it’s by the great jazz pianist Bill Evans, an unlikely composition for him.
May 2021 be a year to celebrate. 2020 will go down in infamy.
