Hunkering Down
What to call these strange days–hibernation? quarantine? sequestration? Hunkering Down is my choice. For the past two weeks Steve and I have emerged from our house only for walks, bike rides, his golf, and my two quick, early morning trips to the grocery store.
On March 12, I played a solo and three accompaniments in front of 300 people at the Quail Ridge Talent Show. On Friday the 13th, I taught my only piano student’s last in-person lesson. On the 14th, my Chorus canceled its Spring Concert, and my Garden Club, its Spring Luncheon. Beginning Sunday, March 15, we hunkered down: no church, no visit to family in Coral Gables, no women’s groups, no dinners out! Worst of all, Crosspointe Elementary School’s Safety Patrol trip to Washington DC was canceled, as was the fundraiser I had planned to hold on March 19.
Instead, on March 19, my 76th birthday, Lilli invited all our extended family to gather on a Zoom conference. From ten locations across the United States, thirty people logged in, sang, showed artworks, and contributed to a very special virtual birthday party. Different from last year, but joyous!
After seeing my grand nephew, Ben Barker, and his family in Waxahachie on Zoom, Ben sent me two videos of the piano playing that has won him a full scholarship to North Texas University in Denton next fall. Here is he playing “Misty.”
Ben’s father, Ernie, is a videographer who is usually traveling to big sporting events, including the Olympics, all now canceled or postponed. His mother, my niece Susan, works for the Waxahachie School System. He has two younger sisters: Grace is a tennis champion, and Sarah, a budding soprano.
Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Opera was offering free Live in HD broadcasts every evening. Beginning March 17, I lost lots of sleep listening to Puccini’s La Bohème, and Verdi’s Il Trovatore and La Traviata. Each opera included characters singing, gloriously, about confronting death. Then on March 20, Donizetti’s La Fille Du Régiment offered comic relief. What a gift from the Met! During the following week, I tried to get into Wagner’s Ring Cycle, but I couldn’t recapture the rapture of seeing Die Walküre at the Met in New York with Elizabeth and Jan in 2010.
Pivot to piano. Since I had just played Maple Leaf Rag on the talent show, my book of Scott Joplin’s rags waited on the piano. I reviewed his serenade, Solace, and recorded it in response to an appeal on the PBS NewsHour to submit creative endeavors to their Arts Canvas. Lilli noted that the subtitle of my submission is my mantra: “Despite mistakes, I kept going, as we all must.” Perhaps it struck a chord at Canvas.
A few days later, I was surprised to hear from Joshua Barajas, art director of Canvas, who asked me for permission to broadcast my recording on the NewsHour on March 25. By that date, however, Canvas had garnered a huge response. My image appeared on the broadcast for barely a second, but it brought me an avalanche of kudos from family and friends. And the hoopla inspired me to do more recordings. Click here to hear Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag, like my grandmother played it.
In celebration of Johann Sebastian Bach’s 335th birthday on March 21, I recorded myself playing one of his preludes. Bach’s Well-Tempered Klavier, Book 1 contains a Prelude and Fugue in each of the 12 major and 12 minor keys. Bach had so much fun with that, that 20 years later, he composed a second book of preludes and fugues—48 pieces in all, a treasure trove for all pianists. Prelude in E major is full of the arpeggios our Chorus uses for warm ups, and playing it always makes me happy.
While Steve and I find ourselves with ample time to follow our passions, my niece, Kate, reported on March 24 a much different experience. She is a nurse at one of the many hospitals in the Texas Medical Center in Houston. She wrote me from the front line of this battle and has given me permission to share her report:
WORK IS BEYOND STRESSFUL RIGHT NOW. Almost every day I enter a patient room marked ‘PENDING Covid19 test’ and help care for them. I do this at least ONCE an hour. For 12 hours in a row. Until I go home and sleep until it’s time to do it again. Our contact is CLOSE. Nursing is in personal space. We’ve tested 11 patients on our unit this last week. So far all negative, thank God.But here’s the window where we are exposed: Patient comes into Emergency and fits CDC criteria. Either high risk and GETS TESTED and is actively symptomatic or low risk and doesn’t get test. Because there is limited amount of tests! They have to be conserved, just like my PPE (Personal Protective Equipment).They are put in Isolation to “monitor” for symptoms, then maybe they get a test. UGH. So we nurses are caring for those pending test results or monitoring for symptoms for a minimum of 8 hours (that’s earliest we can get a test back – not typical) to several days and nights in a row (more typical).Then when that patient test comes back positive a special Covid19 team is going to swoop in with N95s and PPE that covers everything to whisk this person off to their special Covid Unit in the ICU. This is the point I get access to an N95 now. When patient I’ve been in contact with for the last 24 hours to a few days, is actually confirmed positive by the lab. We will still finish our shift. We will have been going into other rooms. Other patients are on their LAST CHANCE. We have limited almost everyone to no visitors which is heartbreaking. People will not be with their loved ones when they die over the next few weeks.And it is all TERRIFYING. If this is my experience in the largest Medical Center in the world, what is the experience of my peers in other communities? Their tests aren’t back in 8 to 24 hours like mine. For most hospitals it’s 48 hours or more. This is when staff are getting hit hard. The government needs to protect us or it’s going to get much worse for everyone.
Thank heavens for the good news of three births! On March 18, Leslie’s sister Cindy and her husband Kristian welcomed baby Quinn Gonzalez in Miami. On March 19, my birthday, Emily Duke was born to Sara and Kevin Duke in Arlington VA. On March 28, our choral director, Brett Bailey, and his wife Kathryn announced the arrival of a girl named Quinn Candace Bailey in Boca Raton FL.
My new Fitbit shows that my sleep is insufficient, but I like the way it records my steps. Usually I walk early when it’s cool. Then I hunker down at my piano. Chopin Preludes, Opus 28 have always been a source of consolation. I heard several of them performed at the Frost Chopin Festival. Number 6 and 7 were played at my mother’s funeral in 1989.
Chopin knew something about infectious disease; he died of tuberculosis at age 39. Alan Walker, in his Life and Times of Fryderyk Chopin, describes the vacation-from-hell that Chopin and his companion, the novelist George Sand, and her two children had on the island of Majorca in the winter of 1838-39. At first the weather was lovely; then the rains began and Chopin fell ill. Doctors diagnosed tuberculosis and reported him to the authorities. Forced from their lodging, Chopin and Sand hunkered down at Valldemosa, an abandoned monastery. (My daughter Shelby once visited Majorca and brought me a poster of Valldemosa.
Many days it was hard to focus on reading, but I did manage to finish Indigo Girl by Natasha Boyd and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Hariri, as well as a couple of back issues of the New Yorker. Many friends have sent intriguing book recommendations. Patti Everett recommends The Red Lotus by Chris Bohjalian and the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James mystery series by Deborah Crombie. Elizabeth Lodal offers The Guest Book by Sarah Blake, who lives next-door to Elizabeth’s daughter Kirsten in DC. Alyce Boster says that The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom is the best she has read so far.
When friends leave for cooler climes at the end of each season, they leave some beautiful plants with me, reminding me of one of my kids’ favorite books, The Plant Sitter by Gene Zion. So that’s what I have become, lucky me!
A special joy has been chatting with several long-time friends by phone. I love reading the daily meditations of Cherrydale Methodist Pastor Elizabeth Foss. This morning I joined that church on a Zoom call. First Presbyterian of Delray Beach, our new church, streams a service every Sunday and friends there stay in contact during the week. On Monday, I made guacamole for my friends Angela and Henry; yesterday Henry brought us delicious cherry-chocolate cake he had made. Today Steve played 18 holes of golf on the officially closed, but accessible Quail Ridge course, keeping a safe distance from two others, each pushing their own trolley. He was very pleased to have shot his age. Steve is a wizard on the grill; our wine cellar is well stocked. We are happily hunkered down!
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