Post 433 - January 1, 2022

Day 669…

None of the announcement boards were working this morning in the Venice train station. With my rudimentary Italian, I asked a porter if he knew which track our train would be leaving from and he consulted a printed-out sheet that he had in his back pocket. It showed that we would be on track twelve, written out in Roman numerals. Given that we are in Italy where they were created, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised.

The reports out of New York about the virus are truly terrifying in much the same way that the reports out of Italy were back before we left to come here. In the small town we are in in Umbria, we keep mostly to ourselves in a small apartment. When we go out to shop for food or take a walk, there are very few people out and about and all of them are in masks. Many small stores won’t let in more than one person at a time and, like in NY, there are markers on the floors for social distancing.

We have been eating at home or with fully boosted friends most of the time we’ve been here. Our three-day trip to Venice seemed like a risk, but one we ultimately decided we would take. COVID-19 isn’t going anywhere. It will rise and fall and settle in, as it has already started doing. Like AIDS or even the flu, it will eventually just be there. The Omicron variant is spreading like no other version of this that we have seen yet, but in South Africa, where it was first reported, the massive, expected spike in hospitalizations and deaths didn’t happen. Instead, people who got sick had far less severe symptoms than they’d had with other versions, and they mostly recovered.

The risk that Michael and I feel we are facing is not necessarily getting seriously sick with the variant but testing positive for it and not being able to get home right away. Yes, there is always the chance that we will get seriously sick, but that risk is just as present at home as it is here. Plane travel does not appear to have been responsible for any super-spreader events unless they have been covered up. As we have gotten used to the coronavirus existing with us, it is more and more beginning to fit into its place among the endless list of other things that can do us in - other diseases, transportation accidents, home accidents, violence…

New Year’s Eve in Venice was a calm, somewhat subdued affair. All major events such as the annual fireworks display were canceled. People were there but not nearly as many as there usually are. Cruise ships are still prohibited from entering the harbor which while problematic, I am sure, for the businesses that depend upon them, was heaven for us. It was foggy almost the entire time we were there which created a wonderfully gloomy and mysteriously evocative atmosphere. We took the ferry out to the glass-blowing island of Murano one day, standing outside in the freezing mist as the boat plowed blindly ahead. Every so often the fog would clear, and we’d be able to see where we were. Venice, very much like New Orleans, is one of those places that are unique. You could be blindfolded and air-dropped into it, and you’d immediately know exactly where you were. Experiencing it without the usual hordes of noisy visitors was a gift, that despite its cost, we are extremely grateful for having had.

Traditionally, Italians have a huge meal out on New Year’s Eve and last night was no exception. We hadn’t made reservations anywhere, so we ended up, after being turned away at several restaurants, in a not very crowded place near the Piazza San Marco that caters more to tourists than to residents. We had a very enjoyable meal, nonetheless. And then we went back to our hotel room and marked the coming of the New Year together by ourselves.

I am writing this from the high-speed train taking us back to Rome where we will change trains to get back to our little town which is about 50 minutes to the north of the capital. We have the entire back of our carriage to ourselves and there are only five or six people up in the front end. Before we boarded the train, somebody checked our temperatures, and once we were on, a porter came around and checked our Green Passes that we had gotten when we arrived in the country before Christmas.

That an entire year has gone again seems hard to believe. With Betty White’s passing yesterday, John Amos is now the sole surviving cast member from the Mary Tyler Moore show. Three other regular cast members from that show also died this year - Cloris Leachman, Ed Asner, and Gavin McLeod. I grew up with all of them but didn’t know any of them. They feel as if they have been as much a part of my life as some family members have been. Betty White, in particular, seemed to me to be immortal. As everyone else has commented, taking her in the last waning moments of the year seems a cruel joke played against us all.

2021 also saw the end of my run with Jersey Boys. That something that was so much a part of my life should suddenly, or what I experienced as being sudden, disappear took a while to get used to. These days as I walk past signage for it in New York or see posts about it by friends, I am aware that I worked on it, as I also worked on The Phantom of the Opera, but it no longer feels present. My notes from it are all in storage or relegated to the few external hard drives that I keep to store old work on.  The other day, so many people were out of the Off-Broadway company that a few people I had worked with on other companies were able to make their New York debuts. It was an unexpected present to some among the hardship. I was equally as happy for them as I was grateful not to have had to sort any of it out myself.

2021 also happens to be the last year of my fifties. I’ve got another month and a bit left, but they are definitely winding up. Sixty may be just a number, but it feels like a whole new way of thinking about myself that I’m going to have to get used to. I have plenty of friends in their sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties and I am sure that they all went through much the same thing with each passing milestone. I’m still not sure I’ve processed turning fifty yet, but here I come to join you all.

Like the end of a year, the end of a decade despite being just another number is a marker of sorts. 2020 was a year of profound change for all of us. It seems to me that 2021 was the year that we all then tried to get over the shock of it all, and then tried to make some sense of everything, and figure out what to do next. 2022, I think, is going to be us now doing whatever it is that’s next.

This may all sound a bit gloomy, but I am looking forward to what is next. We all should be. We’ve all lost more than we ever imagined, and we all need to grieve in our own ways, but for me, I think that I am starting to feel ready to move ahead. Betty White will still be there in re-runs of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Golden Girls as much as she ever was. Michael and I have a new show in the spring and, soon, we also both have a new decade to begin.

A few days in Venice was a glorious way to round out this past year. Yes, it was risky, but so is absolutely every single thing that we do in our everyday lives. I’m not advocating that anyone should rush out and do whatever the heck they want and damn the consequences. I do think, though, that it is up to each of us to assess the relative risks of the actions that we want to take, stifle the fear and anxiety chattering in our brains, do our best not to hurt anyone else, and then plunge in, eyes wide open.

The painter Georgia O’Keefe once said, “I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life - and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.” Betsy Friday, who was the dance captain on the Broadway musical The Secret Garden, gave that quote to me on a postcard and I’ve kept it ever since.

Not all of 2021 was bad, by a long shot, but it feels like it was a year of transitions. So, as my old boss on Jersey Boys says when he signs off on an email, “Onward.” There is no going back and, really, who would want to?

Happy New Year everybody and rest in glorious peace Betty White.