Author: bahaft

We had the “Hump Day Hang” and about fifteen people showed up, many with drinks in hand, to just relax, and chat and share. It was a simple show up and vent, and people did, and laughed and connected. People came late, left early and met each other. There was an immediate comfort levels among the group that may have not happened as quickly in real life. It’s a strange time, it’s a strange forum, but it’s not strange that people just want to chill and connect.

We followed our first poetry reading with our first book reading. I’m saying firsts in hopes of more to come, and it does look like I’ve lined up a classmate, who has since graduation become a very well respected author, to read next week. This week I had a pal of mine, Anne Kveta Haak, read her self published memoir “Petals & Poustice,” which she crafted in a magically realistic manner. Anne enjoys words and fun poetic devices and it came across in the reading. In many ways her work was even better heard than read. We had a smaller group, maybe because it was too early on a Monday and many are still working remotely. The more intimate group allowed more sharing perhaps, as the reading stimulated a discussion of our family histories, our feelings about them, how the courage of our immigrant families might be inspiration and information as to how to handle our current Corona Challenge. It was also just nice to see a bunch of people and to talk about something other than the news.

Last night we had our first speaker event, a gentleman and poet named Michael Alpiner. He generously shared a few poems from his opus while a good minyan of us listened, some with wine in hand as per any proper reading. His poetry was beautiful, open and vulnerable, and connecting. He spoke of the pain of watching our parents and grandparents age, the threat of their fragility, and of the alienation sometimes felt by divorced fathers fighting to maintain their relationships with their beloved children, he spoke of fighting cancer and the strange intimacy that forms between nurses and patients born from the mix of vulnerability, kindness, physicality and care. He read some funny poems about language and history. It was lovely. One Groover was inspired to read “City of Ships” by Walt Whitman which had struck him as especially relevant to him during this time. I took a stab at reading the iambic effort I made posted below. No way on par with Alpiner’s or Whitman’s of course, but a gesture toward how poetry is one way to deal with the Corona Crisis. Art does that, it makes one feel less alone by sharing in a more abstract accessible way what we are all feeling but cannot express. I’ll try to have more arty events. The Zoom format does continue to present some challenges which we needed to collectively figure out, all still in our beginnings here. We figured out pretty quickly that when the one person, our poet, was speaking, we needed to mute ourselves. One Groover was enjoying an especially crunchy bowl of cereal at the start. We had one Groover who’s picture stayed adamantly sideways. We had another who neglected to turn on the mute or her video off so we had very personal views of her entire self moving around her kitchen. After turning off the video as asked her sound stayed on and we enjoyed the dulcimer sounds her slicing vegetables and beeping on the microwave, all during an especially poignant poem. My free account also dropped mid poem, so as I am seeing an interest in this Groove thing, I bit the bullet and licensed up, opening up for more events that can go onwards, as people come and go without leaving their chair.

They say the virus causes a chest pain

And I feel a tight clutch in my heart space

Maybe it’s allergies or in my brain

Because it’s gone when I see your face.

I can’t stand next to you as I’d prefer

First it was three feet, then six, now away

Unfortunately, I’m an extrovert

So I’m sad to social distance these days.

We’re all stressing out over the same things

Our old parents’ health, our kids’ schools and sports.

Lost jobs, missed trips, the market plunge, all stings

Paused lives, homes hoarded, our retreats to forts.

Yet even in these first days of our hell

On web pages, phones and video calls

So many of us have wanted to tell

That we figured how to cross miles and walls.

We are challenged, angry and vulnerable

As ever we need our community

Our mind and spirit our incredible

So this need led us to find new ways to be.

My chest feels weighted when my mind is dark

Human connection brings back the spark

I’ll find your face on the phone or on line

We’ll get through this crap with our love. And our wine.

Friday in NYC we learned we were asked to “Pause” ourselves, to hunker down in place, if not exactly “shelter in place,” though basically that. Two new cultural grooves are planned for tomorrow and Monday, but Friday I just through it out there on ten minutes notice, does anyone want to de-stress, like now. A good half dozen showed up, one with wine. Four of us were NYers and one from Ohio, and another from Maryland. And we did de-stress, sharing our coping, our challenges, and then when the one guy fell off, just regular old girl gossip. We ended up spending nearly two hours together, and on the ten minutes notice, and I definitely left feeling better. Then I had a late night college reunion Zoom session a classmate I inspired set up a few days ago. Nearly fifty classmates showed up in their little Zoom box, many I hadn’t met, many I hadn’t seen in many many years. Our host had us each say which dorm we lived in at college, where we are now and who with, and the best thing we have gotten out of this world-wide challenge. People from across the country showed, and they shared their stress about being home bound, about their universities where they teach and their children attend closing, the elementary schools closing and finding themselves being newly appointed home schoolers, the challenges of remote working, the concerns for our parents who are all in the vulnerable elderly stage, our frustrations with the lack of testing available, and with the government. But turning our attention to what good has come out of it was an excellent mind focus-er. I spoke of how I am amazed by the boundary breaking communities we’re forming so quickly. Others spoke of how this is something everyone in the world can share. Others spoke of the kindness and generosity we’re seeing from our fellow citizens, and of the hopes for new drugs and our faith int he scientists showing up. Everyone in all these events was grateful to have a chance to show up and to connect and to see old friends and meet new ones, and all at once in little boxes.

This afternoon I was invited to a class with an acting teacher with whom I studied several months ago, as I occasionally enjoy time spent toward that endeavor. She generously invited all her old students to attend and she taught a class in exchange for giving her time to work out the tricks with the Zoom software which she is also using in preparation for a more formal class she is offering through an acting studio. I picked up some tricks myself, sharing the screen so we can show videos in which we performed, separating out two people to read a scene for the class, breaking out to rehearse on the side. This is going to change how actors audition and rehearse. This software has been around for some time, but no one noticed. Now it’s going to be a new normal I’m sure.

Our assignment for the class was to write something creative inspired by what we are going through. Of course, I’m blogging a bit here, but that’s blogging. I tried my hand at an iambic pentameter poem inspired by the Globe in London which is now offering free streaming of their Shakespeare plays. The writing of it forced me to focus on all the worries, the worries which wake me up at night, scare me, panic me, but only in moments and then I might have a Groove or write or watch television that is not news, pretty much like all of us are feeling. [ I’ll post the poem that resulted separately.] We students not only read our work, performed scenes and monologues and showed videos of work some of us had done, but we also were given a moment if needed to let us feel the feelings, as that feeds the actors’ art. It also was good to for us to have that, many showing up from their parents’ homes where they retreated for the social distancing, some several states away, and one, an ocean away. In class it was pointed out that not only might the tech approach to performance change, but that new films and other works after Corona will be strongly impacted by our experience. This terrible thing will for sure inspire a wellspring of creativity and new work. Yes, economic devastation and death are here, but we can hold on to the silver linings that are happening now and will do so for many years from now.

It’s amazing to me how quickly so many of us are turning to online socializing. Not to overstate it, but it’s a triumph of the human spirit, we’re fighting for our Right to Party!

I started PareaGroove Sunday and since then I’ve inspired two people, both college classmates who were on the first two Grooves, to take the idea and run with it. I had the one mini online class reunion on Tuesday, and now my friend Mark is having another class reunion tomorrow. Today PareaGroove held the first “Lunch Groove” at 1:00. A couple faithfuls who are coming to all the Grooves were there, but the mid-day timing also attracted a different crew. People came and went, and came back for a bit more. A number were working remotely and this provided them with a bit of a break during the day, and some kept our Groove on even after returning to their screens to work, checking in now then, sort of replicating an office environment, just a friendlier one. A lot of the conversation had to do with the recent press report by the president. Politics of course was part of the conversation, but a lot of it had to do with our hopes for some of the new treatments being proposed, as well as helping each other to manage our nervousness and discussing the facts and non-facts. A number of people preferred to keep their video feed off, but it didn’t matter, they chatted just as easily, and sometimes with the written chat on the side of the screen. We had mostly New Yorkers today, with one DC’er. Going forward I expect more time zone crosses for midday events.

Earlier today I was invited to an online arts event emanating from a live performance series that is obviously now postponed. I was looking forward to that and wondering about the hours to kill before it when, after returning from a short walk, I was invited to an impromptu happy hour by another classmate inspired by a Groove. It being Thursday at 5:00 we six, none of whom I’d met before, each had a glass in tow. We talked about the canceling of schools, how that was affecting a university professor, we talked about a doctor’s online consultations, and an accupuncturist’s recent trip, but not her likely drop in clientele. Then as we finished our drinks and left our screens to pour another it got more fun, we laughed more, talked about TV shows, concerts we’d seen, favorite bands, just normal party stuff. It started to feel normal, seeing each other in the group, enjoying our non verbal expressions, and I do talk with my hands. It was fun, relaxing, and almost “normal.”

Later this evening I attended the art event. I “arrived” a bit late and entered my first full up Zoom chat, with twenty-five on the page, not the Brady Bunch show opening effect of ten or fifteen. It didn’t take long to adjust, especially as my attention was drawn to the one square in the middle where a young man was playing Bach beautifully on a cello in his apartment in his shorts. We also heard from an accordion, some explanation of the instrument, a short talk from a composer and a piano playing heart surgeon, and more music from a violinist, a pianist and another cellist. It was a lovely evening, all of us, all ages, audience and performers, enjoying our in-the-moment time together from our little boxes. This is a new normal, it’s fun, and it has happened very, very fast.

PareaGroove has had two Zoom get-togethers, one Sunday night and one last night for St. Pat’s. The first was a bit quiet, we are all still figuring it out. But after two days of Corona-tining and the closures of the bars on St. Pat’s, last night’s Groove was a bit more festive. One Groover showed up in shiny green bunny ears. I had my Guinness shirt and a stout and my pot of shamrocks, and several others had their booze of choice in tow. Needless to say, that one was a bit more rolicking. We had several states represented, here in NY, Maryland, DC, and Boston. At both I was impressed by my alumni turnout, and so I posted we should maybe do this as an alumni event. One of my eminent classmates who participated in a Groove then immediately initiated an impromptu Zoom event that same night. Amazingly, about twenty people showed up to that, from even more states, and from across the country out to the West Coast, Seattle, the Bay Area, and Hawaii. In all these chats we’ve been able to share our stresses, support each other, introduce ourselves, joke, compare our 70s TV show aptitude, just talk and plan for more. I saw today several Facebook posts of people looking to start their own Zoom chats. By forcing us inside we’re growing our community outside our current boundaries.

Governor Cuomo here in NY just declared our bars & restaurants throughout the state will be shut except for take-out. And take-out includes drinks! NY is lassez le bon temps roulez! Tomorrow we’re hosting my next online Zoom events for St. Pat’s via the Facebook page. Now no one in town has an excuse to not sidle up to their desk with a drink! New events are popping up for us at-homers. The Met Opera is streaming live as are some Broadway performers. Seems, YouTube will have a lot of fun new content. Also our Facebook Group will too, we have a member considering streaming yoga classes. And more ideas will come up. Again, this is a work in process, still finding our legs, so if you come upon this site, reach out at pareagroove@gmail.com.