This week our country, our world, stepped out in loud public protest. After staying behind our own walls for months in Pandemic refuge so many have risked the virus and the violence to peacefully protest against the murder of George Floyd and against a history of racism. Opportunist rioters are also in the streets breaking windows and looting stores leaving destruction and fear in their wake, and triggering the threat of military intervention against our own citizenship. City dwellers are watching thousands march below their windows and waking up to glass shards in their streets and gutted stores in their neighborhoods. And yet, we continue our PareaGrooves. On Saturday, May 30 we met as usual, and we began by chatting about dating, raising chickens in the city, and enjoying the warming weather. As the call went on we started to hear on our phones and laptops about the protests, which had just begun, and the increase in violence and looting. We all in the moment checked our Twitter feeds, our newscasts, and out our windows. One person reported on the hovering helicopters above her deck overlooking the East River; another with friends in the NYPD read live Tweets from the police on the ground; and we all had our televisions on, sharing with each other which stations were best at sharing the live images of the protests. Most of us live in NYC and this was happening outside our doors, and most of us are living alone. PareaGroove was started to combat loneliness and social isolation during the Pandemic, and it has now become a source of information and comfort from real fear about uncertainty and instability. In that moment as the City darkened to chaos we could provide a collective comfort to each other that no one could have ever predicted would be necessary. On our next call someone referred to this call we had together as having been “important.”
Tuesday, June 2, I went ahead as planned with Darryl Gregory, a wonderful guitarist who generously entertained us from a Zoom box. He is a very talented professional musician and teacher and the husband of a classmate of mine. Early in the day he emailed, asking whether I wanted to postpone the performance “due to the extenuating circumstances.” I responded no, on the contrary, we need the distraction and the chance to connect. Later in the day I learned about “Blackout Tuesday” and realized he may have been referring to that action, to put up a black box in our social media accounts rather than broadcast, as the reason to postpone. I didn’t think the purpose of this action was clearly explained, especially as it was planned only the night before, and I felt more strongly that “the show must go on,” and that people needed to connect as the week worsened. However, I did check in with him a couple hours before our Zoom to give him an out, just in case his professionalism and his promise to play dissuaded him from abiding by the action. He assured me no, he just wanted to confirm my group wouldn’t be offended. I knew they wouldn’t be, at least not those who chose to join. And so the show did go on, and he was great. He performed for a half hour, playing a mix of originals and covers. His encore for us was a new song he wrote, which he described as a contribution to what he told us was a new genre of “virus music” or something to that effect. It was really good, and the lyrics wonderfully captured the longing for real life connection a lot of us are experiencing. We encouraged him to record and share it, and I think he might. In addition to enjoying the performance we had a chance to share our continued experiences with the protests. A number of us live on the upper west side of Manhattan where protesters rarely march, it’s too far north. Protests generally happen downtown and midtown but since the 2016 election regularly occur in Columbus Circle in front of the Trump hotel, which is at the base of the upper west side. That night the protesters continued to march uptown from Columbus Circle, and past the curfew just instituted in the “city that never sleeps.” One of our group took her laptop to her window so we could see them, live, marching past. A march up Broadway is rare, I can’t remember when I ever saw one. People living downtown shared their experiences joining a protest, and of the wreckage of businesses they witnessed. The protests are continuing. Tonight we have another call.
