June 2020 in New York or Where is the Love?

Hi, hope all’s well where you are.

As I mentioned, it’s been a bit insane here.  Or should I say, insane-er. Things were actually beginning to look up – the icy winter wind abated and the weather turned exquisite, our covid numbers were getting better and better, Phase 1 relaunch was fast approaching.  And then, murder and mayhem.

June.  Normally a joyful month in New York City, full of promise and sunny skies.  The month of proms and commencements and graduation parties, of young people celebrating their academic success, contemplating their future, anticipating a summer of fun.  A month of love, of weddings and anniversaries, of Father’s Day barbeques, of Puerto Rican Day and Pride parades. Of friends gathering at outdoor cafes over cocktails.  Of my birthday! (Yeah, whatever.)  But this June kicked off the Summer of the Coronavirus.  Just for starters.

After months of bearing the brunt of the pandemic - the nation’s “hot spot” - NYC is now probably the safest place in the US.  We’ve been staying home, wearing masks, getting tested, washing our hands.  We’ve flattened the curve, lowered our numbers, down from a high of 57% positive test rate to less than 1%! For several months, very night at 7pm, we dutifully went to our windows and cheered for our health care and essential workers, the people who were helping keep us alive and fed as we locked down.  We were all looking forward to getting out of the house, back to life, to re-emerging from the Pause, to enjoying Phase 1 of the economic relaunch a week earlier than forecasted!  With Phase 2 just around the corner!  New York Tough!  Understanding, of course, that summer in the city 2020 would be very different, that many of the things that make New York unique and wonderful and fabulous - Shakespeare in the Park and Salsa on the Hudson at Sunset and Midsummer Night’s Swing and the Philharmonic in the Parks and outdoor opera and dance and other performances - would be suspended until further notice.  30,000+ on the Great Lawn, hundreds at SummerStage, partner dancing to latin music with a total stranger on the pier would not be conducive to combating covid through social distancing.  I dread thinking about what is happening to Broadway and Lincoln Center and our performing arts communities, how they will continue to be adversely affected for months to come.  Neighborhood restaurants, small retailers will struggle for a long time.  If they reopen at all.  Sad, sad, sad.

Nonetheless, things were indeed improving, moods were being lifted, when George Floyd’s beyond-cruel murder last month by a police officer in Minneapolis jolted the hibernating Black Lives Matter movement into action.  A righteous cause + long-simmering rage + “business as usual” + students on break + millions of unemployed + gorgeous weather + months of Covid-19 lockdown-induced stress  + another death, and another, and another = a powder keg just waiting to be ignited.  And ignite it did.  Angry people took to the streets all over the country to demand accountability: the officer who took a life, and those who stood by while it happened, must be held charged accordingly.  There was peaceful as well as violent protesting, sometimes excessive force by police, spontaneous opportunistic local rioting and looting in minority neighborhoods, even coordinated chaos and theft in high end shopping districts by organized shadowy internet groups with anarchistic, far left and/or far right leanings.  I mean, are we living Mr. Robot???  Are we in the End Days???  Asian murder hornets are arriving from the East!!!  What’s next, frogs raining from the skies???  Boils??? Will the East River run red with blood???  I hope not.

Here in NYC, pop-up protests continue, but far more peacefully.  All over the city.  Throughout Brooklyn, up and down Manhattan, in the Bronx.  Close to home, the first week we had one march up Amsterdam post curfew*, another up Columbus, another along Central Park West.  And there’s another mini-march passing me as I sit on this bench in the park … Fortunately the violence (with the exception of a few skirmishes between overreactive police and overzealous protesters) and looting seem to have abated.  BLM is morphing from a movement into a mission. Maybe fundamental change is possible after all -

My friend Joannie said that the protests were “beautiful, all races and ages marching peacefully together” to condemn police brutality and systemic racism.  The footage I saw on tv mostly captured what looked like mostly young, mostly male, mostly white kids in masks, sometimes being tear gassed or beaten by militarized riot police (not so beautiful), or protesters taking a knee with police in a moment of solidarity (beautiful). I wanted to investigate more closely, put my own boots on the ground, show my support.  So on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, I stopped by one of the large marches in my neighborhood as it descended down CPW.  I got to the corner before the protesters, and eavesdropped on the conversations of the few officers lining the route.  A young, handsome Asian-American officer arrived on his bike, greeted two of his peers, typical ruddy-faced NYC beat cops in blue.  He told them he was tired, he just came from another long shift, he’s been dispatched to neighborhoods he’s not familiar with, everyone was getting moved around …

Then the marchers began to arrive, preceded by a few white-shirted cops and a big orange Peace Is A Lifestyle bus.  This bodes well, I thought.  The constitutionally-sanctioned right of assembly and raising of voices to affect change. The volume increased as the marchers arrived.  They were mostly young, black and brown, men and women.  Most were chanting “say their names” while holding cardboard “Black Lives Matter” and “Vote Him Out!” signs.  I applauded them as they approached …  And yes, Joannie, they would be beautiful, so beautiful and full of potential and promise and power – the future incarnate - had so many of their young faces not been flushed with anger and hatred, shouting “Kill Cops” and “Abolish the Police” and spitting curses at the officers as they passed by. 

A young bearded, masked African-American man holding a "Fuck the Police” sign and I caught each other’s eye.  I was sure he would dismiss me as an over privileged Upper West Side middle aged white lady on a bike, a clueless Central Park “Karen” or “Becky” and immediately look away. He didn’t.  For a moment, we held each other’s gaze in respect and kindness.  Eyes locked, with my best sad face, I slightly shook my head “no” as I referred to his sign.  He looked back with equally sad eyes and nodded “yes”. Again I implored “no” with a slow shake of the head; again he sadly insisted “yes”.  We had one more round of our disagreement before we released each other and he walked on.

I wanted to call him over, talk to him, hear about his rage.  I wanted to hold his masked face in my hands, tell him it will all work out, tell him yes we can, hug him.  (But, you know, Covid.)  I wondered, “what if he was my son, what if one day he left the house for work or school and didn’t come home?’’  I looked at the young women, their beauty and audaciousness twisted by such wrath ...  I wondered, “what if she was my own smart, powerful daughter, living in that space of uncertainty and anger and fear?”   (Okay, so, this is a strange phenomenon of single, childless people, I think.  We don’t focus our maternal instincts onto our own kids, because we don’t have our own kids.  We generalize, and are mother to every child.  We feel for every child, we fear for every child.  Any one of these young people could be my kid, every one of these kids were my kids.  And my heart was breaking for them.)

That's when I felt the tears welling up.  I had to leave before I embarrassed myself.

As I turned to go, two of New York’s Finest, the regular beat cops in short sleeved blue shirts, stood sheepishly, impassively, absorbing the abuse and vitriol.  Unlike much of what I’ve seen on the news, these particular cops stood their ground while remaining stoic and non-reactive.  Now, I’m not a cop, but I do play one on TV.  I was C.O. Ragnery on Orange Is The New Black for four seasons; I’ve worked in the Law & Order SVU squad room for nearly six.  I’ve also got a few family members in various forces.  So I’ve been around cops, real or pretend, quite a bit.  Sometimes our cops act like heroes, intrepid champions of the community; sometimes they behave like buffoons or criminals themselves.  BLM has exposed the irrefutable need for reform, the enormous room for structural and philosophical improvements, a necessary revolution of the culture.  A change of policing policies, use of force, racial profiling, reports transparency, three strikes or zero tolerance for improper behaviors.  A reimagining and reorganzing of the departments, their functions, their approaches, their budgets. Yes, invest, finally, in minority neighborhoods, to raise the quality of life there through better education and after school programs, assistance with substance and mental health issues, services for the homeless, improving housing and living conditions, promoting nutritious food and health options, generating good will in the community. Reallocating resources and funds to life-enhancing social programs, so that a pound of prevention can save a ton of policing and prisons “cure”.  But Abolish the Police?  Like, completely? 

I live alone in this city, and I wonder:  Who would have helped me when I was mugged coming home that Saturday night in the 80’s?  Or in the 90’s when my apartment was burgled, the robber absconding with everything from a piece of Tiffany silver jewelry to the old Canon A-1 my parents gave me for high school graduation to my glass of laundry quarters?  Or in the aughts when my purse (which happened to hold my W-2 form with all my personal information!) was lifted in a restaurant by a professional identity thief and his apprentice, and was found later that night by two undercover cops in a Duane Reade?  Or when I was molested in my vestibule by a stalker who followed me home from the East 20's?  Or when, just last months, in the middle of the night, “Sara” broke into my building and walked off with every package she found on every doorstep, like the Grinch stealing Christmas?  (Aside:  NYPD arrested the molester, “Sara” and the identity thieves.  Incidentally, the perps were Latin American, multiracial, black, and white.)

So there I stood, midway between the protesters and the protested, straddling an abyss that seemed to widen and deepen with every passing moment.  I said a prayer for the marchers, I wished the cops well (they thanked me) and I sped off before I broke down in tears.  I cried for the rest of the afternoon.  

Justice.  Loyalty.  Politics.  Pandemic.  Defund.

Words.  So many words bandied about, as we try to wrap our brains around the confluence of forces and events bombarding us, everywhere, this extraordinary year.

One word that I haven’t been hearing much this June:  Love.

Where is the Love?  Because the only way through the muck and mire of the events of 2020 is through Love.  Transforming our holy rage** into positive action, meaningful change.  How can we transcend the energy of wrath, recycle it into something profound and productive and lasting?  How can we lasso the righteous indignation and utilize it for growth and progress?  How can we employ emotional restraint and radical honesty and empathy rather than allow our justifications, rationalizations, defensiveness, excuses, and misplaced loyalty derail and drag down our focus and actions?  How can we face our fears and mistrusts and transcend them, confront the lies and half-truths, ride this tsunami of stress and uncertainty to a place of higher understanding, acceptance, community, enlightenment, peace and Love?

All you need is Love.

Love is all you need.

Where is the Love?

Love is the answer.

How can we forgive each other?  I know, I know:  the pipe dreams of a pollyanna crunchy new-agey green woo-woo libtard empath.  Still I wonder:  What can I do now, what small thing can I do, to make things better, for myself, for us all, in this crazy time in this mad mad world?  How can we move from "us versus them", from me to we?

When I think of June in New York City, I think of the colorful, outrageous and fabulous month long Pride celebrations in every borough, of the infectiously joyful latin music wafting from car windows, of waiting on line with a cross-section of humanity – every color, every age, every gender– for tickets to Shakespeare in the Park, of graduates in cap and gown spilling out onto sidewalks in front of high schools and universities, snapping photos.  I think of Salsa at Sunset, where a young Asian couple salsa like professionals, where an adolescent white boy and an adult lady of indeterminate ethnicity tentatively try out new steps "on the one", where an older Hispanic couple merengue like newlyweds, where a bearded white guy in a skirt bachatas with his African-American boyfriend, where a seasoned salsero gallantly invites partner after partner to the dance floor, where a posse of multi-cultural girlfriends dance wildly in a pod.  As the sun sets over the Hudson. 

This is New York in June.  This is our exceptionalism.  A true exceptionalism of we.  A unique, beautifully random mosaic that is us, coming together to create something unexpected, improbable and extraordinary.  Pure possibility, exquisitely us.  Dancing joyfully, shyly or with abandon, improvisationally or by-the-book.  As one.  Every color of the rainbow, red and white, yellow and green, black and blue  Yes we can.

So now that June is beginning to end and the temperature is climbing, NYC just entered Phase 2 of our coronavirus and economic recovery, and things feel a bit more back to normal.  Cars have returned somewhat; we again have to stop at street corners and observe the traffic light rather wander out into the middle of an empty avenue … The exuberance of the 7pm clap is thinning nightly … Professional grade fireworks (illegal here) have been blowing up all month long all over the city at every hour of the night, in celebration of something … For perhaps the first time in its history, the subway is spotless, gloriously uncrowded, and running on schedule … Adding to the many reasons we celebrate in June, the majority of the country has discovered a holiday - Juneteenth, which officially honors of the end of slavery - that about 15% of the population has observed for years.  Black lives are beginning to matter more and more, and change is imminent … 

"I miss the gym."  Never thought I'd say those words ... Did I mention my birthday is coming up? A milestone!  And most of my friends are out of town, or still afraid to socialize in person out in public.  So this milestone already feels pathetic, more flop than fete. Oh, and I think I gained 5 pounds stress eating chocolate ice cream.  Better than the Covid-19, I suppose -

So, how are things by you?

*Yes, after a weekend of looting of small local businesses in minority neighborhoods and of high end shopping areas like Soho, the mayor imposed first a week-long 11pm curfew; when the looting continued, he moved the curfew to 8pm.  Like 13 year olds, we had to be home before dark.

** holy rage, Bishop Michael Curry of St. John’s Episcopalian Church