A list of reasons to embrace life
Turn off the news. Step away from social media. You need updates now and then, but you can’t watch this stuff all the time. Step outside and feel the air on your face.
I’m sorry.
I know you’re scared, and, by the time you read, this (I’m writing on Thursday morning) you very likely will be even more scared.
I’m not going to do the numbers for you. The numbers, if you pick a very low infection rate and a very low death rate, are still terrifying.
I’m not going to complain about political leadership. You can probably imagine what I’m thinking, but there will other days for that, I hope.
I instead what I want you think about ... for starters ... is something my dad said.
My dad tried to take his own life when I was 14, and he was very nearly successful, and the whole thing was perfectly horrible for everyone involved. There’s a book you can read, but for now just take my word.
After a protracted stay in a coma, my dad woke up in Hartford Hospital, and I found him looking out the window.
“I’m looking at this parking garage,” he said. “And it’s beautiful.”
I looked at the parking garage too. It did not have that particular effect on me, but I knew what he meant. He lived many more years, and he was quite happy to be alive looking at parking garages or post offices or gardens.
Sit with that for a moment. And turn off the news. Step away from social media. You need updates now and then, but you can’t watch this stuff all the time. Step outside and feel the air on your face.
“Every Brilliant Thing” is a play about boy — and then a young man — who tries to convince his mother (a repeat attempter of suicide) that the world is wonderful.
“Brilliant” has a slightly different meaning to the British. It’s an all-purpose affirmation, and there’s a comic effect attached to the way it can be applied with equal fervor to a ham sandwich on a sliced baguette or to a W.H. Auden poem. But even in the case of Auden, the British “brilliant” would have less of a meaning that “anyone can see this man is a genius” and more one of “I like this very much.”
So the boy makes a list. No. 1 is ice cream, and No. 7 is “people falling over,” which is something a 7year-old would find quite funny. But, as the years ago by, it also includes “having a piano in the kitchen” and “the way Ray Charles sings the word ‘you’ ” and “hairdressers who listen to what you want” and “trusting someone enough to let them check your teeth for broccoli” and “Christopher Walken’s voice” and “Christopher Walken’s hair” and “having someone cook for you.”
Number No. 999 is “sunlight.”
This play, which is something you need right now, is actually being staged at Theaterworks in Hartford which has not, so far, canceled it. I would very much like to see it, especially because the director is Eric Ort, who directed a theatrical piece of mine a few years ago.
But I won’t, because we have to keep people apart as much as possible right now. Keeping people apart is not usually a brilliant thing, but it is for the moment.
You can watch this play on HBO. You have to search for it. I think they have it classified as a documentary. You’ll see Jonny Donahoe in the lead role at the Barrow Street Theater. Donahoe is a master of what comedians call “crowd work.” The script calls for the actor to draft audience members into minor and major roles. Donahoe was so good at it that his name was added as co-playwright.
And why I’m telling you this is: maybe it is time for you to make that list. There are things happening right now that you can’t control. Stay apart. Stay vigilant. Stay healthy. You know the drill.
And then remember what you love about life. What makes it precious and glorious.
The sun. The breeze. The joy of a dog who’s been told he’s about to go out in the sun and the breeze. Scrambled eggs. The way Laura Nyro sings, “Can’t you hear me Jimeeee?” on her version of “Jimmy Mack.“
The poem “Thanks in Old Age” by Walt Whitman
is like a prequel to “Every Brilliant Thing.” Whitman says thanks “For beings, groups, love, deeds, words, books — for colors, forms,” and “For shelter, wine and meat — for sweet appreciation.”
Amen to old Walt. Amen to my old Dad. You make your own list. And stay alive for all that’s on it.