My motivation is waning; I just want to take a nap, even though I slept late. Am committing to finishing The Portrait of a Lady this month. It’s been amazing discovering a new old author this year; I can’t believe I never read Henry James. Always a fascinating experience, discovering where your literary holes are.
A long bath with my book, a walk to the park. The lovely woman who runs the dry cleaner and always waves at us is not there. The store is dark. It doesn’t seem possible but the city sound that beckons the start of the season – the Mister Softee song – is coming from in front of the Lincoln playground. But it’s all wrong – the man will serve ice cream cones in gloves with a mask on. Everything is wrong.
But we run into old friends, whose children went to school with ours and were part of our community during the days after 9/11. They left school then and they left school now. Everyone is home together again, but for all the wrong reasons. We stand on the street and we laugh; I feel a little better for seeing them. But the hugs and the closeness are gone. Something else that feels all wrong. The other day I thought about the Italians and the French; you cannot tell me that when this is all over they will stop hugging and kissing each other.
Daffodils, magnolias, and Bradford pear blossoms shelter us as we walk to the park. Baby Blue Bells cover the front of a brownstone. As we traverse the path behind the Great Lawn, a man sits on a rock and listens to Miles Davis. Suddenly I feel much better. Do I? Or am I lulled into a false sense of what life used to be like when you heard someone else’s music in the park? On the lawn there are great gaps between people; everyone seems to be getting with the program. This is good, and I hope we can continue to get out, as we just heard that New York state is shutting down, or “pausing,” for the foreseeable future.
There’s been no time in my life as a New Yorker when the parks were not open; it seems inconceivable. The Botanic Garden is already closed, another harbinger of spring that we were looking so forward to.
Praying for the health of our world, our country, our friends and family, and that this will all end soon.