CORONAVANA

I think the whole thing is dissolving, this mirage we have all accepted as reality. We must work in the same place all the time. We must post photos of what we ate for lunch, or declarations of love, or how we are connected to someone famous, whatever famous even means. All those precepts of what is important, what is real, who is in charge- all of it has come crashing down, shattered plastic slurpee cups spread on crumbling asphalt. I look at the news, and I don't feel the same. I look at my bills, and I don't feel the same. I go on social media, and I don't feel the same. Everything, every last little thing, has transmorgrified into something else. Something at once familiar and totally new.

And it feels good. It feels right. Is this what they mean when they say the scales have fallen from your eyes? Is this that sensation they say those sentenced to death feel, right before the end? That connection to everything and everyone? Is this a form of Nirvana? Coronavana? A feeling of separation, of enlightenment, of detachment, all at once. I feel peaceful, I feel calm, I fell groovy. I feel angry, I feel sad, I feel like the world is ending, at least the world I knew so far, and that a new one has begun. I feel like every atom in the universe has been altered. That, or we have vibrated to an alternate reality, a one slightly different to where we were, but close enough that we can function, know basically who we are, and what we have been, but at the same time fundamentally different. I feel love. And that is the constant.

I have had a long week, with lots of strife and stress and confusion. But even so, I feel connected to everyone and everything. I feel like I am everyone and everything. I am a Jedi, and an Avenger, a trickster, and a clown. I am a flower, a tree, the sea, and a fly. I am I, Don Quixote, the Lord of La Mancha. I am also a little tea pot, here is my handle, here is my spout.

Which is to say this: I have found I need food, shelter, and to be with those I love. The rest is shadows and fog, drums in the night, phantom trains running in the backyard. Money comes and money goes. Life is eternal and shockingly brief. When the larger artifices fall away, the smaller ones vanish.

Here's a song. It's Everyone Knows Everyone by The Helio Sequence.

OF MICE AND BUILDINGS

Dreamt of rodents last night. Mice and rats mostly. All in NYC. First, I was in the alternate New York I dream of from time to time. Lisa and I were living in some shabby little apartment way out in one of the boroughs, somewhere still full of old buildings owned by landlords you never see, all the apartments tiny and falling apart. We were having rehearsals for some show in our apartment, had been up all night, and finally were asleep, when some workers from the unseen landlord arrived, unannounced and with their own keys, and started ripping apart some walls to do some kind of electrical work. We tried to ignore them at first, but the work was very loud, and then they started working our living room/bedroom. I got up, screamed at them that I was going to call the authorities, and the grudgingly left. It was then that I noticed there were mice all over the place. Maybe a dozen or so, scampering around. Not cute mice with big eyes, but NYC mice which are basically little rats that want to eat your toes. The dream then cross faded to me downtown, in a parking lot full of people doing some sort of sit down strike. I was looking for my friend Elena, who runs the New York International Fringe Festival, who for some reason had become the borough president. She was on a flat bed truck, driving slowly around the parking lot, which was huge, waving and shaking hands. People were cheering. Whatever it was they were there for, Elena was clearly on their side. She spotted me, and I climbed up onto the truck and said hello. She told me she wanted to catch up, but first had to go take care of a few things, and invited me to join her. I said sure. First, we went to this really awful old apartment building. It looked condemned. As we walked into the building, there were all these snapping sounds, like traps being sprung. Sure enough, the place was overflowing with mice and rats, and when we walked in, a bunch of traps had gone off. And these were industrial strength traps. They had cut off some of the rats legs. But it didn't kill them. It seemed to just make them insane and angry. Like little zombie rats. Even their severed limbs were still alive and bouncing after us. Elena told me not to mind them and to follow her. So, wading through hundreds and hundreds of vermin, we made our way into the building. I could hear their bones crunching under my feet. We made our way to a balcony on a higher floor, which was fairly rodent free. I looked around, and their were several fancy new buildings nearby, impossibly shiny and large. And active. One building in particular was like the robots in the Transformers. It would shake, move about parts, and then become a new type of building, Every few minutes. I wondered aloud how anyone could stand to be inside a building that was constantly rearranging itself, and Elena said "some people like that sort of thing." Then the person she was there to see texted her announcing his arrival. We went to another room to find him. He had brought more traps, and had killed all the mice and rats, and was sweeping them into huge piles. Then he reaching into the piles, pulled out a carcass, and started eating it.

Happily, Padfoot woke me up right then. So I got up and let him out. It was around 4:30 or so in the morning. The world was quiet. Well, not the world. The people in my neighborhood were quiet. But the birds were up and having a very loud breakfast luncheon in some nearby tree. Even now, in the midst of so much uncertainty and sorrow, so much anger and division, I find the world beautiful and magic. I suppose I might be insane. It's okay if I am. I have always suspected that we are all indeed mad here. There's a sort of comfort in madness. And a glint of a hope that perhaps through madness comes a form of crazy wisdom. And that wisdom is love. Pure and simple. When I say love, I don't mean skipping along tossing daisies on front of you, although that does sound fun. And I don't mean poems, or sex, or hour long hugs, even though those are all fun too. I mean the realization that we are all connected. To everything. To rocks and trees and dogs and birds. So maybe I do mean skipping and tossing daisies. But not only that. I find solace in love. And purpose. And joy. And I felt love this morning, standing in the backyard with my dog, listening to the birds.

Here's a song. It's Things Grandchildren Should Know by The Eels.

IF WE SO DESIRE

I often dream of an alternate world, very much like this one in some aspects, but vastly different in others. I am me, but lived a different life, made different choices, ended up in different situations. And on several occasions, I dream of the same alternate world. There's nothing amazing about it. I don't have super powers or anything. But I never quite made as much of a living out of theatre, never married, never moved past where I was after getting out of college. Last night, I dreamed of that world, and I was working a summer theatre gig somewhere in the middle of nowhere, some part of the country that is mostly working class people trying to get along. In the dream, I had this awful, ancient computer with mice living inside of it. I was doing summer theatre and teaching at the local school's summer session to make ends meet. A group of students, another teacher and I were near a room I was renting in this shabby house outside of town, playing touch football. And I got a phone call that change had finally come, that I was to pack up my stuff, I was going to be paid to be a writer and needed to hit the road and head for Los Angeles. I went to start packing. My meager belongings were dirty, falling apart, and I decided to dump most of them. I did need my computer, but that was in bad shape as well. I opened up it up, looked inside, and it was full of old yarn. So into the trashcan it went, I got in a car, and headed for points unknown. As the dream ended, I felt this great joy, a mix of calm and excitement. And I knew I would never be the same in that world again.

Sort of feels like right here and now. We can argue all we want about the need for haircuts, wearing masks in public, and where or not the President was serious or using sarcasm when he suggested we all shoot up with some disinfectant. But one thing that is a fact, so much so that most folks don't even talk about it, is that we have changed forever. Probably more than we changed after 9/11. I don't know all the particulars of that change, but I feel it in my bones, in my soul, in my dreams. How we approach this life, how we deal with healthcare and our food and our air and each other, it's all different. And will continue top be different. Most of these changes will become apparent once we crawl out of our respective caves and gaze at each other in wonder, happy to be alive. I sense this change is every person I talk to, with every neighbor we wave hello to and say muffled "hellos" to through our masks. Even the revelers who try their best to deny it, who rush to the beaches or secret parties or rallies on the steps of their capitols are different. Their desperation gives them away. What happens next is anyone's guess, but in a way, I feel as excited as I did in that dream, loaded up and heading for the great unknown.

Change. It's inevitable. We watched another great movie last night, a little family drama/comedy by Noah Baumbach called The Meyerwitz Stories (New and Selected). So funny, sad, interesting, and smart. And one of the best performances by Adam Sandler. The change in the story, which takes shape at this art show with a heart breaking speech by Ben Stiller, is healthy and needed. As with all change, it's difficult. And we don't get to see what happens after the characters change. We just see them make the change, and it's uplifting and hopeful.

I feel uplifted and hopeful. There is terror in the world, and death and pain and sorrow. But we can change, we can adapt. We can be great if we so desire.

Here's a song. It's Old Man, by Randy Newman, performed by Glen Philips in some gym.

And here's a bonus link to an article about change in the NY Times. Just click HERE.