Phase Two of the quarantine in NYC started Monday, June 22 and Phase 3 on July 6. Other parts of the country from whence PareaGroovers hail are opening. Yet PareaGroove groups are still happening. We’ve had several speakers and a whole lot of chats since the last post nearly two months ago (time sure moves strangely now, it goes by so slowly while simultaneously flying by, and things like blog post updates slide into the ether of passed time.).
Saturday June 20 was the Solstice. We celebrated it with a Solsitce Special – “Cottages & Countrysides & Olde England & Ale.” We had a friend of mine, Professor Amy Smith speak with us. Dr. Smith is a Professor of Classical Archaeology at Reading University in the UK and the curator of the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology. She’s a friend of mine from high school and so I was able to convince her to stay up late and give us a talk. Simultaneously we kept checking in with the livestream from Stonehenge of the Solstice sunset and sunrise, a first for them, but with the COVID quarantine the English Heritage Organization which runs the site opted to do that rather than have their traditional festival, which was a boon for us. In between Solstice updates, our professor friend, rather than talking about her expertise in Greek vases, opted instead to talk about an independent investigation she launched with a couple of friends of a hill near her home, in Lowbury. Two skeletons from the 7th century AD were found, a male and a female. She noted that of course more of a fuss was made over the male skeleton of an Anglo-Saxon warrior proudly buried with all his war gear, and so that skeleton was reassembled and put in a museum. The female skeleton, however, was arguably more interesting, although it had been piled back in its box in the storage center. The woman, whose skeleton it was, had been buried in the wall of the nearby Anglo-Celtic temple from the 2nd Century, and without an arm. Speculation was made that she may have lost the arm through an injury, or piled into the wall because she was a peasant or committed some crime. Yet interestingly a woman on the call, a person I hadn’t seen before but was a college connection, posited that skeleton may have been that of an anchoress, a religious woman who would wall herself into a cell built against the wall of a temple, an early form of monastic life, and being she had been considered holy her arm may have been taken as a relic to worship. Dr. Smith hadn’t thought of that, and she said that would be a great project for one her students to pursue. So that was fun, that on a PareaGroove we had a fun talk and at the same time we might have furthered historic research.
We also had an art talk from Ellen French a renowned artist who launched an art project she calls Cities of Peace which goal is to create peace by bringing together people from conflicted nations to collectively create large collage paintings, beautifully layered with gold leaf. I had learned of her art through the Pollack Museum talk our group was invited to, and I thought they would enjoy a tailored talk by her. I also thought I could use her talk for the New York Peace Museum, a project which is launching to create more peace in the world. The PareaGroove group loved her art, one woman even copied a painting into her virtual Zoom background. Our artist was peppered with questions and then became thoroughly involved with our post talk chat (as had our professor, and mostly all of our speakers, some of whom end up returning to the Grooves as members of PareaGroove). The artist has since become more involved with the Peace Museum, which is of great value and it’s nice PareaGroove could have made the introduction.
We also had another talk from our friend who spoke to us about the artist Christo. In this talk he titeld “Seneca Village, a New York Secret” he talked about an area in Central Park which in the 1800s had been a neighborhood of successful Black professionals and their families who were building a supportive and safe community. The area was destroyed by the City and the people living there forced to move because of the building of Central Park. There is a small sign in the Park I never noticed before, but now I see it every time I pass.
We had another book talk as well. A college classmate, a highly regarded, award winning and impressively prolific writer, teacher and blogger, Sophfronia Scott, who read for us from her newly published biography of Thomas Merton, a modern monk who left an impression on the Christian cannon, “The Seeker and the Monk: Everyday Conversations with Thomas Merton.” She talked about his life and philosophy and engaged us in a dynamic conversation where we were encouraged to find analogies to other thought makers (Leonard Cohen among them) and inspirations and connections to our own lives. Interesting especially since we are a motley crew of different faiths and backgrounds. And then of course we chatted.
Mostly we’ve been having chats. We’re doing a “summer schedule” now of twice a week PareaGrooves, Wednesdays and Sundays, rather than the three times a week Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, we had through the four months prior. Our talks continue to meander through all sorts of life issues, like COVID dating and what we’re watching on television and who’s traveling and how we’re managing the strangeness of post COVID life, as well as updates on what treatments and vaccines are being investigated. Some are still very hesitant to emerge from their homes except for an occasional doctors’ visit, and some of us, myself included, are enjoying the wonderful outdoor life on the streets that has sprouted up, since indoor dining is still prohibited. New York feels almost like a European city with outdoor tables and bar stools spilling into parking spaces, areas which are now protected by low sturdy wooden walls topped with flowers and plants which were built up remarkably quickly. The streets are still relatively quiet, but people are coming back and are out and about. Yet, we’re not back to normal, and there’s still a demand for a regular PareaGroove. Late nights are not encouraged as the police are cracking down on drinking without eating and standing at bar areas and lingering. To combat the crowding in shelters they have moved homeless into hotels in our residential neighborhoods resulting in a dangerous situation as they spill out onto the streets, set up unsightly Hooverville-like encampments, and many now are harassing people who pass or even who are sitting at the restaurants. So for whatever our reasons are for staying inside in the evenings, we’ll continue, and we’ll have speakers, and we’ll chat.
