23rd September 2021: Series Title: Inspiring Hope and Change: Making a Difference Now
Our spring series asked us to face our world in upheaval. This series is conceived to reveal and share some hopeful/good-news/difference-making stories about how representative speakers from several different areas of local and global concern, have been, and still are, facing all the huge pandemic, cultural, and political changes currently taking place here and throughout the world. Today's forum, consisting of a panel speaker with a theater company and another with a music program, will tell us about what creative things they and their groups have done, and are doing, to continue to bring their particular gifts to us culturally starved people.
My assignment is to tell you how these deprivations have been affecting my life. What I have had to struggle with for the past 18 months and how I feel now.
Theater.
I have always loved theater: to experience, occasionally to perform, to support. I usher for several theaters in Providence, which gives me the pleasure of seeing a play at least once, and often twice - or even thrice! I participated in high school drama and later on in my adult life ventured into community theater to play Aunt Abby in “Arsenic and Old Lace”. I auditioned for the namesake part of Aunt Martha, but was told by the director that I was perfectly suited to play Aunt Abby, and that she would change what character descriptions that didn’t fit me! ... What a thrill it was to have a woman in the grocery store come up to me during the run to ask if I was the Aunt Abby actress!
Music.
*I grew up in a classical-music-loving home. I sang in church choirs in elementary school, and in an a cappella choir in high school. One of the perks for the latter group was each year taking the train in to NYC to go to an opera. I enjoyed those expeditions, but did not develop into an enthusiastic opera fan! For many years, as an adult, I enjoyed singing in church choirs.
*What I still love best is classical music and I try to attend as many of my local philharmonic and chamber music concerts as possible.
*And I continue to sing in choral groups - in the 100 voice Providence Singers to which I have belonged for over 40 years - and to a much smaller hospice choir which sings in groups of 3-5 at the bedsides of persons who are gravely ill and near death.
ALL active participation in the above was abruptly removed from my life in mid March 2020, thanks to Covid-19!
*Later in that same month my husband died of heart failure, both physical and emotional. I had been managing his care and visiting him almost daily in the nursing home for three years.
*The travel plans I’d been looking forward to in my new life as a single person were now completely unavailable to me. I hope I will not follow in the same path as my mother, who once told
me she was looking forward to being a “Merry Widow” - and sadly was unable to be.
***********************
In the words of a friend, I had lost my scaffolding! My cultural ... and care giving ... and travel-anticipating selves had been cut out from under me. I had huge holes in my life and I struggled to find out just who I was without those selves. I was alone in my home, no one could come in to grieve with me or give me a much needed hug. There could be no formal closure to my husband’s life and our long marriage.
**********************
The first thing that helped me rebuild my identity was starting to walk with a friend every day, usually first thing in the morning. The commitment to walk at a specific time gave me a new structural start to my days. I had to get out of bed, get dressed, go outdoors ——— to be somewhere, with a real live someone.
*Walking with a friend or family member allowed me to physically be with another human being.
*Walking gave me exercise - two to three miles each day. I lost some weight and felt healthier.
*Walking gave me someone to share with.
*Walking intensified my love of the outdoors and the large and small elements of the changing seasons.
My favorite place to walk is in Swan Point Cemetery, a spectacular near by garden cemetery. It is quiet, safe, beautiful, calming and sacred.
I can visit my husband each day. His ashes are scattered in the Memorial Grove, and mine will be when the time comes. Speaking of which, a small story. The first time my 22 year old granddaughter came to “visit” her beloved Papaga, she took one look at the names on the ledger stone, and yelped - Grammy, why is your name there when you are dead yet? I explained that if we had wanted our names to be together, both of us had to be “enrolled” at the same time and that hopefully it would be a long time before my death date would need to be inscribed.
****************************
What also hugely helped me find me was Zoom!
* I recovered much of my culture loving self as I found a multitude of virtual possibilities to experience many many hours of theater, including Trinity Rep’s Christmas Carol, Alvin Ailey dancing, concerts by Windsync (a favorite wind ensemble), myriad home concerts and mini theater presentations, virtual choral performances, and much much more. I could have “live” dinner music every night!
* My daughter gave me a subscription to Netflix and I was able to experience “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”, “Hamilton” and “In the Heights”.
*I have taken some on line classes. My book club took to zoom. My church went on line, as did WomenExplore.
*The Providence Singers had an entire season of virtual Tuesday night rehearsals, highlighted by the creation of four recordings. Singing alone in my dining room was not a very satisfying exercise, but the point was to keep the Singers going until we could return to gathering in person.
*Grace Note Singers has continued to meet weekly on zoom to share our thoughts and lives, which is deepening our personal relationships, and will enhance our closeness when we return to bedside singing.
*I and my four daughters (two from each parent) now have regular catch up zoom meetings. On the anniversary of my husband’s death, one of them rejoiced that this coming together, precipitated by his loss, was a big silver lining in our lives! .... Between these zooms and a very active group text thread we are practicing making connections. We communicate more now and are closer to each other than ever before.
***************************
Zoom free happinesses.
*Most of my friends and all of my fellow singers became vaccinated as soon as possible, so we have had some backyard sings, some restaurant trips, a few summer chamber music concerts. My first restaurant outing, outdoors of course, began with careful, joyful hugs, and included a celebratory bottle of wine, with the waitstaff sharing in our happiness.
*Most of my family members are vaccinated, and just two days ago I returned from a wonderful two week vacation at the beach with my local daughter and her family. On a down side, four family members are not yet vaccinated, for various reasons, and it is a source of great sadness that we cannot yet ALL be together.
*The Providence Singers has resumed in person Tuesday night rehearsals - with mandatory proof of vaccination, masks, distanced seating, and strict adherence to the CDC rules and recommendations. We have a full season planned, and will perform masked if necessary.
*Most of our local theaters and instrumental ensembles have returned, or will return, to full indoor seasons and I am greatly looking forward to them.
*My church (which is also Patrick’s) is meeting in person, and hopefully will be able to allow congregational singing in the near future.
**********************************
My scaffolding is being rebuilt, slowly and satisfyingly, in both familiar and new forms.
And I am a changed person.
One who will continue to walk every day for as long as I am able.
One with an enhanced appreciation for the beautiful, unchanging, sustaining, natural environment in which I am fortunate to live.
One who is ever more grateful for rewarding family and friend relationships.
One who is learning how to let herself have more fun, while letting go of some perceivedly necessary chores.
One who is learning to enjoy being older!
And who cherishes her life in its full range, from the smallest minutenesses to the grandest occasions.
Following her focus talk, Martha Nielsen lead a panel discussion with:
Patrick Aiken,
Organist and Choir Director, Central Congregational Church, Providence, RI
Josh Short,
Artistic Director, The Wilbury Theatre Group, Providence, RI
No comments:
Post a Comment