Day 360…
And here we are at the end of yet another week.
Exactly a year ago today, I was in London.
We were in our last day of auditions there for the Norwegian Cruise Lines production of Jersey Boys. I was working with actors one-on-one on scenes that we had given them to go over and filming them as we went.
Our next day of work would be three days hence back in New York where we had four days of auditions scheduled there. We would get through those four days because on the third day, I wasn’t feeling well and because the virus was circulating, thought that maybe it was a good idea if I didn’t come in. After a lot of back and forth, we agreed to postpone the final call backs for a couple of days until I felt better.
Thursday was to be the last day of NCL auditions and then on Friday, with a different team, we planned to have a day of auditions to find a replacement for one of the actors in the Off-Broadway production. That day ended up getting cancelled as well.
Without us realizing it, that Wednesday in New York would end up being the last day that we would work on the show.
A year ago, tonight, in London, I went to see Tom Stoppard’s new play Leopoldstadt. It had opened at the end of January and up until the point at which it stopped performing on March 16, it had yet to have a performance that wasn’t completely sold out.
I was staying in London the following day on my own dime so that I could see two other performances and go to a couple of museums before flying home on that Sunday. It never crossed my mind at that point that my flight home on Sunday would be the last time I’d be on a plane for at least a year. Why would it?
One of the museums that I went to on that Saturday was the Hayward Gallery on the South Bank of the Thames. There was a wonderful exhibition there centered around trees. Everything in the exhibit referenced trees in some way - from photographs and paintings to huge installations with some containing actual parts of fallen branches and trunks.
At the time I was reading The Overstory, Richard Power’s book that would go on to win the Pulitzer in May. The whole narrative of his wonderful book revolves around 5 trees and some of the people who interact with them over the centuries.
The combination of both seeing that exhibit, and reading that book changed the way that I look at everything. I cannot walk through New York City these days without being aware of all of the trees living among us.
Nearly 600,000 of them line our streets. From those whose canopies lie just below our living room windows to their wilder cousins out in all of our parks, we live in a city of trees. 5.2 million trees grow on the land that encompasses New York City. That number seems all the more remarkable given that, unlike us, they can’t live on top of each other. Each one of them needs its own individual patch of land.
As of this past year, there are 168 different species of tree known to reside in this city. The ten most prevalent are the London Planetree, the Littleleaf Linden, the Norway Maple, the Green Ash, the Callery Pear, the Red Maple, the Honey Locust, the Silver Maple, the Pin Oak and the Ginkgo.
Over the holidays, many of the street trees were covered in tiny lights that outlined their silhouettes. We are moments away from them all beginning to bud, but as far as I have seen they are all still dormant.
As I walk these days, I am keeping my eyes open for signs of the coming Spring. Two days ago, in Central Park I saw the first shoots of what will be either crocus or daffodils and yesterday, while walking the Highline, I saw a single bush whose reddish leaves were just starting to bud.
I walked past St. Marks Church-in-the-Bowery this week and within its yard some of its trees at one end were already in flower and the bulbs among their roots had already bloomed. It made me wonder if there weren’t some sort of steam or hot water pipes running underneath the ground that had contributed to the little springy corner.
In the gift shop at the Hayward Gallery, they were selling eco-friendly items - some beautifully designed and made. I bought us two rechargeable battery powered LED lamps made of sustainable wood. They have become such an integral part of our life around the dining table that I can’t quite believe that I only got them a year ago. I remember on that Saturday carrying them with me in their boxes to meet up with my cousins for lunch before we went to see a play.
I think I contracted COVID-19 sometime that weekend.
If I had gotten it during the performance of Leopoldstadt then I think that I would have experienced symptoms sooner. If I got it during the Kunene and the King matinee that I saw with my cousins then they would have likely gotten it too. So, I think that I either picked it up at the performance of Uncle Vanya that I saw that Saturday night or somewhere else during the flight home.
I got home on a Sunday, we went to a gala on Monday and then the next day is when Michael started feeling unwell. There didn’t seem to be enough time between the Gala and Michael getting his first symptoms to be able to blame it on that and, to the best of our knowledge, nobody we were seated with that night ever got sick. It takes 48 to 72 hours after exposure before somebody becomes contagious, themselves.
We are now entering into a time where we are all going to be aware of anniversaries.
A year since we last worked.
A year since we saw our last performance of a show.
A year since we went anywhere.
A year since we experienced an unimaginable loss.
A year since the birth of a child.
A year since… fill in the blank.
The Senate is plugging through a vote-a-rama in regard to the $1.9 billion stimulus bill. Each separate amendment to the bill is being voted upon individually. It can take up to 15 minutes on each amendment and there are scores of amendments to get through.
This is happening because the GOP is doing what they can to delay the passage of this bill. It’s basically a lot of time-consuming political nonsense. Each individual amendment can pass with a simple majority of 51 to 50 with Vice President Harris being the deciding vote.
Interestingly it is within Senate Majority Leader Schumer’s power to introduce and amendment at the end that would nullify all of the already voted upon amendments. He’s probably not going to do this because one of the amendments that got voted on was the reduction of weekly unemployment stimulus checks from $400 to $300. That amendment was done to mollify Democratic Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia who is in the middle of his own angling for political position.
Leader Schumer needs Senator Manchin’s vote to get the bill to pass, so I am guessing he’s going to let the amendments stand.
After the Senate finishes, and everything has been voted on, then the amendments that have been changed need to go back to the House to be approved there and only then can the bill go to the White House for President Biden to sign.
For many people of my generation, the basis of our knowledge on a whole variety of different topics can be traced back to a Saturday morning cartoon show called Schoolhouse Rock.
In their song about the federal legislative process, we are now more or less in the third stanza:
I'm just a bill
Yes, I'm only a bill
And if they vote for me on Capitol Hill
Well, then I'm off to the White House
Where I'll wait in a line
With a lot of other bills
For the president to sign
And if he signs me, then I'll be a law.
How I hope and pray that he will,
But today I am still just a bill.
Trees live on a different timeline than we do.
There are Bristlecone Pine trees in California that are over 5,000 years old. There are other trees in Italy, Japan, Brazil, Wales and other places that are almost as old.
As endless as this year has felt, it is just a mere fraction of our total lives. It’s been an important year in many regards, but it’s still just a year. In the life of one of those ancient trees it is nothing more than a relative minute.
Many of the trees in Central Park were placed or planted there in 1857 by landscape architects Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux. Not all of them have survived and, over the years have had to be replaced. Of the 18,000 trees currently in the park only 150 were actually there when the park was created.
The oldest tree in the park is a London Plane tree on the Bridal Path at 96th Street.
The trees that canopy the Literary Walk constitute the largest grove of American Elms in the world. The photograph that I use as the masthead for my Substack version of these posts is one that I took of these trees.
American Elms were largely decimated by Dutch Elm disease. These hardy survivors are one of New York City’s greatest treasures. Another beautiful American Elm, with a canopy wider than it is tall stands in the cobbled plaza across from the American Museum of Natural History. Yet another one also dating from the 1800’s stands by the western 97th Street entrance to the park.
We aren’t trees. The passage of time impacts us far more than it does them. Storms and glorious weather come and go both figuratively and actually. Like them, our lives are punctuated with periods of plenty and periods of want.
Are we currently in a period of plenty or in one of want? I would actually argue for the former.
That it took all of this for me to even notice these remarkable trees, some of which stand less than a block away from where I live, tells me that maybe this pause was long overdue. It is a little too early to stop and smell the flowers, but now, just before their leaves return and begin to hide them, is a perfect time to stop and look at the trees.
The Senate just passed the relief bill so now it’s going back to the house for the amendments that were changed to be agreed upon there as well.
While that is happening, I’m going to head out and pay my respects to those trees. Stimulus bill or no stimulus bill, it’s all the same to them. I wish it was for us, too, but at this moment in time, we all need what this bill is going to provide.
I’m grateful that it passed. It will keep my unemployment benefits coming until September.
September?
Yikes. That seems such a long way away.
Oh I want to come to New York City to see these trees ... and you of course. Thoughtful post 🙏♥️
Oh I loved The Overstory—and am quite mad for trees and never take them for granted. So delighted at your new attention to them, and as always your scholarly insights. Thank you, AnnieO