I had thought to write a diatribe tonight. Something to scour the smug smiles from the lips of senatorial Republicans, congressionally conspiring to ignore infamy. Three ideas kept me from such grim (if necessary) thoughts. Indeed, I first sought a winter poem to introduce tonight’s theme, of cold and snow and loss, without much success. If this post reads a bit “poetical,” it is because I am composing it with these themes in mind and ear and hand.
For one thing, we have lost one of our greatest musical souls this week, with the passing of pianist Chick Corea. I write these lines, fingers poised over my keyboard, listening to an album Corea was reportedly reluctant to undertake: The Mozart Sessions. At the moment, Corea is assaying Mozart’s Concerto No. 23 in A major, under the baton (and nagging) of Bobby McFerrin. It is hard not to write pianistically. I follow Corea as he leans into the adagio, the woodwinds rising like a breeze behind and over the piano. If I were less melancholy, at the news and the weather, I would head straight for the turntable and play anything Return to Forever. Maybe the early No Mystery — or the ebullient Echoes of an Era with Chaka Khan. Something with the joy Chick Corea brought to his playing at the forefront.
For all I’m listening to Mozart (who cures all ills of the mind as sushi and sake cure all ills of the body), I am remembering an astonishing conjunction of luck, money and time… In an interlude of 2016 when Timothy’s health was passingly good, I won dispensation from his doctors to travel to New York City. It was December, just before the Christmas holidays.
Live music and the living memory
Family and friends willingly signed up to trudge to Manhattan and join us for meals, museums, bar-hopping and window-shopping. But most important, I had scored tickets to see Chick Corea’s birthday bash at the Blue Note. A double-act, no less, with John McLaughlin, one of Tim’s guitar gods. This is what Downbeat had to say about it:
Between songs, McLaughlin addressed the audience: “Chick and I go back 47 years. That’s a long time. We were both 27, 28-year-old hippies back then. Nothing wrong with that. We could use more hippie values in this wacky world today.”
Most of the night, Timothy and I barely breathed. We let the music wash over us, coming up for air at the end of a number laughing and clapping and looking at each other with such joy that we were there, the gods were there, and the wine (though not cheap) flowed freely. Tim took a few surreptitious photographs from his lap. When I saw others snapping with their phones, I grabbed this one picture:
One of the strange benefits of being a wheelchair user is that you sometimes get strangely wonderful treatment. Tim and I were placed at the end of a prime table, perhaps 15 feet from Corea. We had a straight view of McLaughlin interacting with his ancient, venerable friend. When they left the stage, their route to ‘backstage’ went right by us. Tim — never shy around musicians — placed a hand out to be shaken. I held my breath, but McLaughlin graciously bumped fists as he passed.
The flurry of memory, the flurries of snow
Where was I? Ah yes, snow. Blizzards have their place in memory, personal and tribal. Timothy and I were both caught out in the famous (to those of us who were there) 1983 Nor’easter blizzard.
WINTER OF 1982-83 — Feb. 11-12, 1983 – A monster snowstorm moved in Friday afternoon and continued until the wee hours of the morning on Saturday. The storm really cranked up between 8-11:00 PM when six inches of snow came down. When the last flakes had fallen 17.6″ had piled up. It was the biggest snowfall in New York since 1978 (when 17.7″ fell on Feb. 5-7); at the time it was the sixth biggest snowstorm in NYC history (it’s now ranked twelfth).
https://thestarryeye.typepad.com/weather/2014/11/each-winters-snowstorms-1970-2014.html
We were each out in the storm, trying to make our way home that Friday night. Tim recounted his story thus:
“There I was, fishtailing down the street to the house in West Orange (New Jersey) where I lived. I managed to spin the car into the driveway, and got stuck in the last, worst snowdrift about a dozen feet from my back door. I leaned on the horn, and thank god someone was home. My cousin came out with a shovel. He dug a path to the car, and dragged me and the ‘chair through the snow into the house.”
For my part, I was in a VW Bug, rather lacking in solid floorboards but with great heating. I’d left work at three o’clock and tried driving home my short-cut route through New Jersey’s hinterland. I ran up and down dale on back roads until I hit impassable hills just outside … West Orange. Tim and I might have missed each other amid the blizzard by a few short blocks.
I retraced my route and headed across I-80 for the George Washington Bridge. Somewhere around Paterson, I skidded to the side of the road. With no motel in sight, I woefully decided I would spend the night in the car. But wait, — thank heavens! — my sweatpants were on the back seat. Once cozy, I was further saved by a phalanx of snowplows cruising east. In their wake, I headed for the GWB, crossing the lower deck shortly before authorities closed it altogether.
I slalomed down the East River Drive to the 34th Street exit. There, I gave up on the Manhattan Bridge, and dove into the first underground garage I came to past Broadway. My subway train was the last to reach my stop (the last underground stop before the train went elevated). I vividly remember walking home around 10 o’clock, in my high-heeled work shoes, my sweatpants shielding my legs below my mini-dress, trailing a snowplow all the way down a deserted Court Street. A drive that usually took an hour-and-a-bit had taken seven.
How do birds come into this?
Did you not know this weekend (February 13-15, 2021) is the Great Backyard Bird Count?
Well, now you do. And amidst today’s snowfall, I can vouch for the fact that my back yard has plenty of birds to count.
The first flakes of this morning’s snow brought me to my feet in guilt. I hadn’t refilled the birdfeeders! What dereliction of duty! So I put on warm socks, real shoes and a parka, and lugged a giant bin of birdseed out to the patio. The chickadees scattered briefly, but watched me closely from the bare branches of the dogwood. One, two… four, five feeders topped up, a fresh suet cake, hot water in the birdbath. No sooner the door closed than 40 or more little birds descended on the garden.
They must also have the alerts on the Weather Channel app.