Pandemic free moments: How this Upper West Sider is surviving Spring 2020

White pink mauve violet purple fuchsia scarlet burgundy.  Yellow orange red indigo.  And, of course, green.  Explosions of color bursting right outside the front door.  A saving grace, a soothing distraction, a brief escape from the monotony and frustration and fear wrought by this extraordinary moment of history, as something stealthy and insidious and unseen threatens our very existence.

Perhaps for the first time in history, we are all in this together.  Has there ever been a truly global event on the scale of this pandemic, one rippling out around the world, affecting nearly everyone, everywhere?  Some of us more than others, granted ... Perhaps no where more than right here, at home in hot spot New York City.

Upper West Siders like us can find simple but powerful gifts just steps away from our home.  Available to any and all of us, any day, all day, free of charge.  You see, we UWSers have the good fortune of living in primarily residential neighborhoods sandwiched between two of New York City's grandest, loveliest public parks.  Not hip like Williamsburg, not edgy like the Lower East Side, not moneyed chic like the Upper East Side, not trendy like Meat Packing, not re-emerging like Harlem.  But the Upper West Side has its own unique charms.  And for many of us, primary among them, are Central and Riverside Parks.

​I remember 150 years ago when I was a young adult moving to Manhattan, looking for the perfect neighborhood, it soon became clear that the deciding factor for me was decidedly uncool:  proximity to nature.  I was concerned that the younger, hipper neighborhoods downtown, the edgy and urban and arty concrete jungles, would quickly become untenably, oppressively claustrophobic, hard, loud and busy.  Too much New York for me.  To maintain my sanity, I would need a nearby refuge, an anti-urban green space, a place within the city to escape the city.  I would need a park. 

​And I found the neighborhood:  the West 80's.  The Upper East Side seemed too, well, "Upper East Side".  Less commercial than the West 60's, quieter than the West 70's, not as far from work as the West 90's.  Central Park a stone's throw away; Riverside just a few blocks walk.  My backyards.  Where I could enjoy Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte and the Philharmonic on the Great Lawn in the summer, fall foliage in the autumn, frolicking in the snow in the winter.  Walking, hiking, biking, jogging, in-line skating (that’s how old I am!),​​ strolling.  Turtles, opera, dance, museums, concerts, street performers, theatre, statues, streams and ponds and the Reservoir, the mighty Hudson River.  Always changing, always something new to discover.

​But never have I appreciated my park sandwich more than the first half of this year, 2020.  The year of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has effectively shut down the city of most activities for which the city is famous.  No theatre, music or dance, movies, or sporting events; no dining out, meeting at cafes, shopping.  No working in offices.  All suspended until further notice.  Since we're waiting for the virus to decide when we can come out to play again -

(Now, this is especially challenging for single people who live alone. We live to go out.  At home we have no kids to cuddle with, no partners to wake up with, no roommates to Netflix and chill with.  I have not touched another human in, like, months. This is not normal, not natural, not healthy for the body or mind, heart or soul.  Could covid in fact be killing us softly, vicariously, through social distancing???  The lack of human contact stressing our mental health, which negatively impacts our physical health?  Depresses our spirit and surpresses our immune systems?  Some folks I’m all too happy to be distanced from.  My neighbors are known to sometimes be complaining, demanding, entitled, judge-y, and the pandemic has not really put a pause on that.  In fact, some have become more p.c., militant and shrewish.  While crises can bring out the best in us, as it did in the early aftermath of 9/11, they can also show us our lesser selves.)

 - we shelter at home, waiting. This affects us differently.  Most work from my varied streams of income (film and television, travel photos shoots) has been suspended.  Coaching clients have slowed to a trickle with so many of us out of work and/or concerned about finances.  Which means I have far more time on my hands than usual.  Which I am using to help mitigate the current increase in food insecurity by delivering meals to my housebound UWS neighbors through Meals on Wheels.  Once a week I hop on my bike and I volunteer downtown at God's Love We Deliver or The Village Church food pantry.  I'm healthy, I'm available – I can, so I do.

Such a strange year, 2020.  This spring,
The Lord taketh away:  People falling sick with mysterious symptoms from a mysterious novel virus.  People dying.  Global economic collapse.  Loss of our "normal" life, our freedom, our mobility.  Asian "Murder Hornets" ... God/dess, Mother Nature, the Universe (insert your primary deity here) seems to be sending us to our room, grounding us until further notice, punishing us for being bad, bad, bad.  (We know what we've done, have been doing.)  Reminding us, He/She/It/They - not us - are in control.  And if we're not careful, it could be way worse.  

The Lord giveth:  A pause while the world heals.  An opportunity to reflect, reassess, take account.  Appreciate what matters, decide what stays and what goes.  During our weeks of sheltering at or near home (which has officially begun to grate on my last nerve), my respite, my relief, my saving grace, has been daily walks and bike rides in our neighborhood parks.  This pause has allowed me to more fully appreciate nature's springtime bounty as it bursts into being, allowed me to marvel at Mother Nature trying on her different spring wardrobes these past few weeks. First the indigo crocuses and yellow jonquils, poking through the still nearly-frozen earth, serve as the season’s heralds.  And the trees.  Oh, the trees.  White and pink magnolias, enormous and fragrant, vertically breaking winter's bleak monotony.  Soon followed by the delicate cherry and crabapple tree blossoms, which then morph into bigger, brighter boughs of white, pink, fuchsia, magenta.  Budding canadensis soon make their lavender and purple appearance. Oh, the trees.  Tall and majestic, twisted and bowing, reaching, reaching ... They take me away.  And what about the explosion of tulips in the Natural History Museum gardens -

Despite decades here I’m only now discovering the springtime wonders of Riverside Park, the extraordinary beauty, the months-long tableaux vivants of the Cherry and Crabapple Walks north of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. The lovingly-planted and tended Community Garden, the random flower beds along the paths bursting with shimmering petals of  -

Okay, enough.  You get it.  Though nature may be disrupting things for us at the moment, she's also providing succor.  During the pandemic, the long walks through Central and Riverside Parks under and around the trees, past gardens, have provided many pandemic-free moments.  Helped me to briefly escape, get a grip, stay centered, experience the beauty of gratitude for that beauty, and realize that we, like the earth itself, will rise again from the bleakness of this moment, in full exquisite bloom.  Stronger, wiser, kinder - better.  To remember that there's hope.  That there's yellow and indigo.  There's white and pink and mauve and violet and purple and fuchsia and scarlet and burgundy.  And, of course, green.