Month: April 2021

Rabbits And The Rhythm of Jazz In A City That Never Sleeps

John W. Gilmore

The City that never sleeps awakes despite being bruised, beaten and injured by the Covid 19 Pandemic.  With fewer people in the streets some of the businesses have shut down as you walk up and down Broadway and along the streets of the upper west side.  Some of the restaurants have set up small seating areas open to the elements so people can sit in and eat.  Things are diminished.  The subway is on a different schedule The crowds aren’t as heavy, but life still goes on.

People are walking the streets and picking up food to go most of the time.  Every so often a few people will pass you on a City Bike or bicycles of their own.  There seems to be more E-bikes flowing up and down bike lanes set aside solely for their use.  Some even have street lights set up for bicycles and the small, electric scooters that pass by every so often as people make it to their destinations. 

Everyone is wearing a mask.  Living together in the proximity of a city and caring about one’s neighbor has caught on as part of the milieu of the city and this city, where people are presented to the world as having citizens who are cold and uncaring, has proven itself, yet again, to care more for each other than groups of people located in many smaller cities, towns and rural communities when it comes to protecting them from the virus.  

Walking down 107th street passing many people wearing various types of face covers we come to the entrance of Central Park, one of the largest urban parks in the US.  We walk up a ramp and enter in.  A jazz band is playing funky tunes close to, but not quite, the type of music you would hear on the streets of New Orleans.  People are standing around tapping their feet, clapping.  Some are moved to dance.

A couple whirls and twirls touch dancing.  A few people find secluded corners where they dance with glee on this beautiful Easter Weekend. People are moved to share their time together to the beat of the saxophone, trumpet, trombone and a set of drums.  It is a light shining into the darkness and the fear of a pandemic bringing hope and majesty back to this dynamic world class city.

The park is grand and beautiful.  No matter what tragedy befalls the city and this nation, nature still stands out wonderfully with all of it’s winding trails, streams and rivers, birds and squirrels running free and doing the same things they have been doing for thousands or perhaps even millions of years.  One man stands still holding seeds in his hand as the bravest of the birds fly down and pluck them up and as the squirrels approach them.  People stand their watching, spell bound at the display of trust and comfort he had cultivated with these animals over a period of time.  The city is masked, but not dead, as one might expect.  People aren’t cowering in their homes.

Perhaps we all can learn a lesson from New York City.  Many people are leaving the city.  The Covid virus is still spiking.  The city has been devastated, but there is still a vital energy and power that exists at the core of this city.  In a class I took once at University of Creation Spirituality a teacher named Carl Anthony described it in a class on Urban Spirituality.  He explained it as the power of humanity and the power of possibility that existed in every city because of the diversity, the history, the closeness, and the ability of people all living so close to create the atmosphere they wanted to provide experiences that will take every person to a higher understanding of what it means to be human and to learn the true meaning of joyful living.

This spirit–this spirit of life and resiliency in the face of pandemic, was what we experienced during this weekend trip to the city that never sleeps.  It awakened the realization that no matter how dark and battered, no matter what experiences that we go through as we pass through the fire together, if we want to and if we will stay together, we will not only survive, but prosper.  Like the Easter Egg that promises the hope of new life, or the empty tomb that represents the power of life over death, new life coming forth out of desperate circumstances is always a possibility.  

Out of the egg, the shell of pain, suffering, and desperation holding the city in a tight grip of fear and despondency a new city can arise.  A new people can arise, but we need to nurture ourselves and our society and protect the shell that surrounds it, the very thing that holds it altogether, until what is inside is ready to crack through into a new world and new way of being.  That is what we need now, and that is what is happening as many people stand around a small jazz band in one of the largest urban parks in the country wearing masks, singing, dancing and remembering what the beautiful part of life really is.  Togetherness.  

Rabbits And The Rhythm of Jazz In A City That Never Sleeps

Rabbits And The Rhythm of Jazz In A City That Never Sleeps

Rabbits And The Rhythm of Jazz In A City That Never Sleeps