September 14, 2024

Friday
the Thirteenth of March
Twenty-Twenty
our tickets to Hadestown
blinked into oblivion
as Broadway shut down

and though a two-week shut-down
then turned to four,
and then a month,
and slowly more,
and our money was eventually refunded,
and vaccines were developed and administered,
and boosters,
and we caught the ‘vid,
and got more shots,
and caught it again,
and a few Friday the Thirteenths passed,
it never felt like the right time
to try again — our luck had been so bad
[as with tv shows we find early on and love,
which end up getting only season one
or season two at best, when we all know the arc started
would account for at least five] so kip and i stayed away
from part of the reason we moved here anyway —
seeing only shows when we could get last-minute tickets
from other people:
A Strange Loop
because the original ticket owners caught the pandemic sickness
[remember, just because there’s a vaccine for a rapidly mutating virus
doesn’t mean the pandemic is over,
remember, remember, remember, please];
Cursed Child
because our friend is in it and can give us comp tickets
so we don’t give that terf any any any of our money;
plus a few non-Broadway shows
still bought not at all in advance
because we remain so scared
of getting our hopes up
and having them dashed

but a week before this Friday the Thirteenth
of September this time
in Twenty-Twenty-Four this time
we agreed
to finally see
Hadestown

and while it wasn’t what we expected,
it was still spectacular
[with spectacle being something
integral to the Broadway experience, and done very
very well
and very in-the-story for this tale to tell]
and the talent amazing
and a few songs still stuck in our head

and it does feel like some sort of an end to an era
but maybe, better yet, a beginning
to exploring what other theaters have to offer
without feeling the heavy hand of a made-up curse
behind
us

November 9, 2022

this illness
it lingers
long past
we’re done with it

why won’t it just
leave?

~~~

the tiredness
too
it’s still here
when i’d rather
it not

~~~

how is it that
some of my best work comes
when i’m so tired
i’m losing consciousness
but this
low-grade
continual
sleepy feeling
isn’t enough to make
the magic
happen?

November 6, 2022

wake up
feel like crap
maybe write
maybe break your fast
with coffee or tea or bagels or nutella toast
go back to sleep

the subtle rise and fall of the last few days
with the in-between of my focus remained
upon a time when i can once again
feel like a fully fleshed-out human being

i feel:
lost
sick
tired
too awake
antsy
like the whole damn struggle bus
bored
hungry
embarrassed
like life is passing me by

such are the times/experiences/words
when the plague
finally hits you and your spouse
and neither of you are very good
or patient
patients

~~~

this isn’t to say
we’ve got it all that bad
from what we’ve seen of the outside world
of the overcrowded hospitals
and makeshift morgues
i’d say we’re this side of great
but that doesn’t negate
our experiences
our feeling of loss and lost
and struggle to be ourselves again
and when
my stress relief is reliant on physical ability
the exhaustion takes over
and i’m just
‘blah’

i suppose i’m trying to encapsulate
a moment
in time
without stepping over
others’
experiences
with so
so
so much worse

~~~

and
today
feels like spring-summer
and i know
i probably
won’t feel up
to feeling it
in all its
glory

[another form of loss]

July 24, 2022

i didn’t think i would,
but i
felt *something*
while observing
curtain call
at that broadway theater
yesterday afternoon.

a little something
was the show itself—
pushing boundaries,
addressing hard topics,
calling in and calling out.

but another something
was simply seeing
human beings
on a stage
in front of hundreds/thousands—

a crowd
here to see
all Black faces and voices

and it being my
(technically accidental)
return
to seeing
live theatre…
auspicious?
inspiring?
fortuitous?
serendipity…

perhaps broadway is changing for the better?

—but—

while those feelings are definitely in there,
i think there was something else,
something additional…
a giant sense of
‘i didn’t let myself miss this
until right now’

i’ve missed the theater itself
physically
psychologically,
conceptually,
and i’ve missed performing on stage,
of course,
that’s in my blood—

but something in me missed
the actual
going to see
a good show

i didn’t know that about myself
until just now

and i’ll keep it
close
to my heart

February 23, 2022

am i
((will i ever))
getting used to new york?
my new york?
the new york of constant facemasks,
and slightly less people around times square
(not that i’d ever want to go there),
and no real outings
yet;
but still the persistence,
the perseverance,
the resistance to unkind niceness
and unfounded stupidity
(not saying that isn’t around
it’s just,
as a whole,
here we are.)

and the problem with getting used to
a new york
mid-pandemic
is that, as disgusting as this city is,
i really don’t feel comfortable
or safe
anywhere else.

February 7, 2022

i keep pondering early in this
panini
when i wrote and wrote
pages upon pages
freehand
freeverse
free of other older morning page expectations
and i wondered what the world would be like
‘post’
pandemic…
and i felt it,
at the very core of my being
that we’d
‘go back to normal’
before it was really,
truly,
clear
to do so,
and that the ‘normal’
we were heading back towards
had the potential to change,
to be a ‘normal’ benefitting more people
than the normal
benefitting a very
very
very
tiny
percentage,
but i felt it,
that it wouldn’t change
we “couldn’t” change
we wouldn’t change.

and lo and behold
all my strife
from mid-march 2020
to april, may, june, july 2020
most of that has come to fruition:
we aren’t ready,
people are still catching
ventilizing
dying
and half the population is still
pretending
this virus
doesn’t exist.
and of course
we’re going
‘back to the grind’
as if that’s a good thing,
as if it’s strength
or a moral righteousness
that gets you through
(rather than random genetics
and generational privileges
and a system set up to benefit
the few)
and as if
this ‘grind’
is our entire culture
(i mean, at this point, it is,
but that doesn’t make it
good
or right)

and i wish i had something better to say
than ‘i saw this coming’
i mean, i’m sure folks more versed in
infectious disease
and sociology
and economy
and the ‘why’s’ of all this
also saw this coming…
i guess i just wish
i’d had more time
to live in a world of hope
than i actually got.

January 24, 2022

we are now
well into
the third year
of living in new york city
and though i’m not where i thought i’d be,
the whole world isn’t where it thought it’d be
either.

the pandemic has really taken the onus
off my own head
for what i wanted to accomplish
when i got here,
and redirected my aims
not lower
just sideways-er,
from theatre/circus/maybe film
to voiceover/film/maybe circus
(and a little activism in there
because how could you not be
when looking at
this world)
and theatre…?
who knows what will happen
within this third year
(within these next few months/weeks/days)
but i do know that
governmental policies (or lack thereof) really left the public
out in the cold
at the very beginning
of this whole ordeal
and haven’t been able to rectify
that harm
(nor have i seen much in the way of trying)
and i shouldn’t have expected any better
but man
do i want
to trust
that people
will do the right things,
but power seems to corrupt
even the
best of us…

but
i was talking about
living in new york city
and my life here
(or lack thereof)
and all i have to say is,
though i don’t think i ever really got
the ‘true’
living in nyc experience,
i still suspect
i couldn’t live
anywhere
else.

August 18, 2021

it is approximately
one month shy
of the one and a half year mark
of Kip
going into work
physically.

and i’m getting all nervous
about them going into work
physically today,
though their work is vaccine only,
and mask encouraged,
and Kip told me they’d probably keep their mask on all day long,
but i’m still all nervous

maybe it’s because i’ve been the one to actually go outside
in this Global Patrick Stewart;
i’ve gone grocery shopping
and picked up prescriptions
and had doctors’ appointments
and circus classes
and marches
and protests
and Kip has accompanied me on a couple adventures,
a protest here,
a vacation there
(a vacation where
we still only stayed inside our airbnb the whole time)
so i’ve been out on my own
and Kip has not
and they are a grown adult
and used to make this trip
into physical work
every
work
day
arriving between 8 and 9
leaving between 5 and 9 (depending on after-work activities)
and they learned the streets of manhattan
around their work
and maybe i’m just nervous
that they will once again
have a life apart from our tiny Brooklyn living box
but i also want them to have their own experiences
so we can come together at the end of the day
and share our stories
together.

i have no need for them to only have a life as i can see it,
similarly, i enjoy their encouragement of my
circus classes
and acting classes
and film projects
and artistic endeavors,
but i’m still all nervous…

(i wonder if this is how they’ve felt every time i went in
physically
to an aerial space
over this last year or so…)

~~~

i know
it’s possible
to hold in one’s heart
the gratitude
that one has personally
dodged a bullet
as well as the support
and solidarity
of those who experienced it entirely

but i can’t seem to convince my physical form
that this is, indeed, a thing that can happen.

~~~

my creativity
is still part of me
even when i’m not actively
making up worlds
and writing new words
and surpassing my own expectations.

my creativity
never leaves
just sometimes
it might need
a bit of a
nap.