SOL March 23: Into the Real World

Not that we haven’t been living in the real world the past year, but that world has been severely constricted.

            Today I had lunch with three friends from my women’s group, at a restaurant outside, sitting next to and across the table from each other. It wasn’t a zoom call, it wasn’t a phone call. It was Real Life.

            One of these friends lives in my neighborhood, so we had been having the occasional lunch at outdoor restaurants last summer and fall. But the other two lived in further neighborhoods, and we’re all in our 70s and 80s, so playing it very safe. At lunch today, we still played it relatively safe, keeping our masks up while not eating, and the one friend who’s only had one shot so far ordered for herself, while the other three of us ordered a selection of mezze (it was a Turkish restaurant) and appetizers. Food was delicious, if service not quite at the same level.

            After lunch, as I walked up the street, everything felt and looked different. That is to say, it looked and felt as it had before the pandemic changed the world. It was a little disorienting, though eagerly so. We will continue to cautiously return to, or enter, the new Real World.

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I’m participating in the 14th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 23 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

 

Covid Events, Cancellations, and Postponements

(from my datebook—EDITED)

March 10, I attend a performance of Hamilton as a guest of a friend.

March 11, I ride the subway for the last time.

March 13, Gender & Transformation workshop canceled.

March 14, I eat in a restaurant with a friend, for the last time, and shop for groceries, for the last time.

March 15, the funeral of an old colleague of Jack’s is postponed to an indefinite time.

March 15, movie discussion group (Sorry We Missed You) is canceled.

March 18, lunch with a friend canceled.

March 20, book group 2 postponed.

March 22, plans to see Drunk Shakespeare are canceled.

March 23, talk at CUNY by Victoria Phillips on “Women, Power, and Intrigue in Cold War Berlin” is canceled.

March 24, book party for Ann Snitow’s posthumous book, Visitors, and a book by Daniel Goode is canceled.

March 25, Vivien Gornick and Alix Shulman in conversation at the Center for Fiction is canceled.

March 26, Big Words reading on the theme of “Dreams” is canceled.

March 26, opening day for baseball season is canceled.

March 28, the group of Mets fans I was going to join at Bobby V’s bar in Stamford is canceled

March 28, Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon meets via Zoom.

March 29, New York Antioch Alumni chapter gathering postponed.

March 30, staged reading of a play by Robin Rice is canceled.

March 31, check-up with my doctor is canceled.

April 1, my women’s group meets via Zoom, on regularly scheduled day.

April 3, book group 2 (The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu) meets via Zoom, postponed from March 20.

April 4, New School panel on Ann Snitow’s book Visitors is canceled.

April 4, book group 1 (T.R. Reid's The Healing of America) meets via Zoom, on regularly scheduled day.

April 8, dentist appointment is postponed.

April 11, Pauline Olivieros's music meditation via Zoom.

April 12, family meets via Zoom, a new event.

April 14, North Star gala is canceled.

April 15, income tax deadline extended to July 15.

April 16, book group (A Long Petal of the Sea) meets via Zoom, on regularly scheduled day.

April 17, Gender & Transformation panel on Ann Snitow’s book Visitors is canceled.

April 17, Publishers Weekly happy hour via Zoom, a new event.

April 18, Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon’s 9th anniversary via Zoom, a regularly scheduled event.

April 19, New York Antioch Alumni chapter meets via Zoom, postponed from March 29.

April 19, family meets via Zoom.

April 21, National Gallery writing workshop, via Zoom.

April 24, book group (New York Times special section, "One Nation, Tracked") meets via Zoom, on scheduled day.

April 25, staged reading of Jen Abrams's How to Queer a Stroller, via Zoom.

April 28, New York State primary is postponed.

May 1, Gender & Transformation workshop is canceled.

May 2, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra concert is canceled.

May 2, book group 1 (Homegoing) meets via Zoom, on regularly scheduled day.

May 3, family meets via Zoom.

May 6, women’s group meets via Zoom.

May 6, dermatologist appointment is postponed.

May 7, book group (The Testament of Mary) meets via Zoom.

May 12, podiatrist appointment is postponed.

June 3, women’s group meets via Zoom.

June 6, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra concert is canceled.

June 23, New York State primary rescheduled is canceled.

July 1, dentist appointment is rescheduled??

July 29, dermatologist appointment is rescheduled??

The future?????

SOL23: Coronavirus Side Effect

            A friend is leaving New York. Not permanently. At least I hope not permanently. Two of her three adult children, and four of her grandchildren, live in Philadelphia suburbs, and they’ve persuaded her to come down to be near them for the duration. She didn’t really want to go. She likes her own apartment—even though it’s small and has been afflicted with mice recently—but it’s where she’s lived for more than 10 years, and she likes to be in her own space.

            But life has become really difficult for her, and she’s a worrier. She lives on the second floor of a small building, with no doorman and no elevator. She has had groceries delivered, but feels anxious about having to be so close to the delivery person, and then she has to carry everything up the stairs. She’s still teaching, and now doing it from home, so she can do that anywhere.

            We met almost 30 years ago, in a seminar. She was going through a divorce, and when I started a seminar on motherhood, she was one of the first person I invited. Then she was the first person I invited to join a women’s group, a sort of consciousness-raising group, on women, aging, and sex. She lives nearby, so we have lunch occasionally beyond our monthly women’s group.

            The social distancing, we haven’t seen each other so often, and I will try to recreate the women’s group via Zoom. But knowing she will be physically distant is different.

            I know she’ll be back when this is all over (but who knows when that will be), and I hope she stays here, even after her planned retirement in a couple of years.

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I’m participating in the 13th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 23 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOL4: Skip, or Catch-up?

Yesterday was too busy a day, even though I had some time in the morning, but because I feel tied to the idea that a “slice of life” has to be a slice of TODAY’S life, I didn't post then. So here’s what happened yesterday.

            There was a movie I wanted to see, “Beanpole,” a Russian film that was the topic for a movie discussion group I missed while on vacation. So that was my first activity of the day. More about movie later. Next, I had to eat lunch. Third, the gym. By the time I was done there, it was almost time to meet my women’s group, but fourth, a stop at the bank.

            Then, women’s group at a restaurant, where we discussed politics, travel plans, and then our topic of the month, which was continuing through a series of life assessment questions that one of our members uses with her undergraduate class on Biography. This evening’s questions included “What is your biggest regret?” “What would your friends say is your best trait?” and “What would you say is your worst trait?”

            The three women who were divorced all said their biggest regret was marrying the man they later divorced. My biggest regret: leaving my second Antioch College co-op job in L.A. (if you don’t know, this school alternated three months of school on campus with three months of a job anywhere in the country; the college was resurrected nine years ago after being killed off five years before that); it was fall 1961, I was barely 19, there were only two other Antioch students in jobs in the Los Angeles area, and I knew no one else. If only I had recognized my fear and loneliness as severe homesickness instead of an incipient nervous breakdown. Fortunately, I made it back to Antioch that winter, and two more jobs in the spring and summer of 1962.

            Once home from the women’s group, I had another project to work on for a workshop on women in Eastern Europe I’ve been co-moderating for almost 30 years. It wasn’t until almost 11:30 that I realized I hadn’t sliced yet. And there was so much I could have offered.

            And about the movie? I’m going to slice twice today, and hope that is not cheating.

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I’m participating in the 13th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 5 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOL3: Scheduling

            Part of today has been spent around events, one today, another possibly tomorrow, and a third for Wednesday.

            Today was supposed to be a movie discussion group. We see one or two specified movies on our own time, then meet monthly to discuss. But we’re a small group, and if two or three people can’t come, discussion is less interesting—and when weather gets involved... It was

supposed to start raining or snowing late afternoon today, so we decided to cancel. E-mail took care of this one.

            Tomorrow revolves around a friend who is in from out of town for a few days, and a mutual friend who wants to see her. Plus I have a theater ticket for the out-of-town friend I need to get to her because we can’t meet before the theater. So I arranged dinner, which we’ll order in, at the mutual friend’s home tomorrow evening. This required all technologies: phone and texting and e-mail.

            Wednesday is my regularly scheduled women’s group. But one person is not available, another hasn’t been heard from, and trying to reschedule has run up against our too-busy lives. Texting and voicemail is handling this one, and it’s still up in the air whether we will meet or not. 

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I’m participating in the 12th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 1 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOLSC: Winter Storm Redux

            Today the fourth winter storm in March, so far. I missed the first one, being in New Orleans, but was welcomed back to New York with the second one. The third mostly missed the city, but left considerable snow in the northern and western suburbs.

        Today’s storm postponed my women’s group, FOR THE SECOND TIME. We normally meet the first Wednesday of the month, but that was the day of the second storm. So we changed our meeting to two weeks later (I had my writers’ group at my house on the second Wednesday), which is today. Snow again in the forecast, so we decided to scratch March entirely.

            Now it CANNOT snow on April 4. It Can Not.

            I’d been planning to bring a rotisserie chicken to my women’s group—which functions also as a potluck. So I bought the rotisserie chicken for myself. There will be chicken salad tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...

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I’m participating in the 11th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 21 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!