simply put—a perfect day

On Sunday, back in Cincinnati now as I pack in as much to my spring vacation as possible, I enjoyed a sunny afternoon tour of historic homes with my good friend Sylvia. That the tour took place in Westwood, my family’s home for a million years, is quite exciting—Westwood was once a showplace community, and now more (dis)regarded as a gasping-for-air ‘burb. Sylvia and I traipsed in and out of 9 historic homes enjoying the decorator’s touches, the rookwood fireplaces, the transformations of butlers’ pantries, and the historic staircases. We started with a home just down the street from my elementary school (seeing the mother of a long-lost high school friend as the volunteer “captain” in the home was a bonus) that dates back to the late 1860s and the beginnings of Westwood. On the dining room table was a vase with the most perfect calla lilies. I commented to Sylvia: “those perfect flowers remind me of my spring vacation—each stem perfect and delightful, and a whole collection of them put together at which to marvel. Each day has just been perfect.” I think Sylvia just thinks those comparisons are weird. Oh well. She puts up with my metaphorical flights of fancy!

But it’s true. Each of those creamy calla lilies seemed perfect, and mirrored how each day of my vacation in the United States has seemed as lovely as those gorgeous flowers. Case in point—as I left the invigorating Denison Singers reunion in Winston-Salem, sweet Stephanie drove me to Gastonia so I could get a plane from Charlotte the following morning. This inspired decision actually came out of all kinds of angst on how to end up in New York on this trip. Stephanie passed me off in Gastonia to Mary, one of the all-time great friends in my life. I got to spend the entire evening with Mary jabbering on and on about the trials and tribulations of my nine months in Jordan. She invited over family who had a son-in-law from Amman, Jordan. Like two cousins separated at birth, he and I talked on and on about the wonders of Jordan, modestly impressing him with my entertaining use of Arabic. Mary invited over dear friends Jane and Caroline and sister Bee and we laughed on into the night. Whenever I leave a Denison Singers reunion I experience what fellow tenor Bill called a “Singers Hangover” as we assimilate back to our real worlds. Here, I got to place another of the gorgeous calla lilies in my vacation vase—those few hours flew by as I reconnected with those Gastonia friends, the friends who have seen me through each chapter of my life in the last 20 years.

But I thought for this blog entry I would focus on just one day—a marvelous day last Wednesday. This calla lily of a day just blossomed as sweetly as a day might.

I was staying with Christy in the city, since everyone else I knew worked real jobs and couldn’t just take off and play with me during the day. Christy, a professor in New York, was on spring break too, and we could indulge in all of the things we loved from our “salad days” in New York. This visit with Christy turned out to be of great importance, as we healed a damaged relationship. To carry on with the plant metaphor—it was time for a little fertilizer and love lest we lose an otherwise good, meaningful plant. We started the day reading the New York Times cover-to-cover. Yes, I can read the paper on-line in Jordan, but there is something relaxing and provocative and challenging about holding that venerable paper in your hand as you canvass the stories of that day.

We then walked across Central Park, drinking in the incredible beauty of the blossom-bursting cherry, apple, dogwood, pear, and magnolia trees. The weather couldn’t have been more spring-perfect, inhaling the scents as we worked our way over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I miss the Met. When I lived in the New York vicinity I often went there once a week, and I miss the grandeur, the exhibits, the gallery talks—and the thrill of thousands of years of art history laid out before you. We went to the exhibit on Gustave Courbet—and like other countless times at the Met, I came away with a deeper appreciation of an artist and an era. Let’s face it—I lap up the learning there.

We set out for our favorite place for a great burger—where in a little nook of the Parker Meridien hotel, without fanfare or signage, is The Burger Joint. We get there at the height of the lunch rush—our goal actually—and sink our teeth into a great burger. The shakes are so good we know we are drinking in the calories.

While in New York I hoped to see some shows. I had three shows at the top of my list: Sunday in the Park With George, Gypsy, or South Pacific. All are revivals of great musical theater pieces, and I hoped that the theater gods would smile on me so I could get half-price ticket seats to any of these shows.

As the perfect day continued, I was at the head of the cancellation line, and scored two tickets in the 5th row center when someone failed to come see Sunday in the Park With George. Ahhhhhh…I hummed the lines of the closing song, “Down by the Blue Purple Yellow Red Water” as we took our seats. Even after all these years of good fortune to enjoy Broadway shows, I was mightily excited.

“Look!” says the man for whom seeing is everything, in a voice that both commands and beseeches. “Look!” This directive is issued by the 19th century painter Georges Seurat, in the glorious revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park With George. How could we not look at the rhapsody of images that keeps unfolding before us? But in Sunday in the Park With George, which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1985, looking involves much more than registering what’s pretty, what’s shocking, what’s new. The great gift of this production is its quiet insistence that looking is the art by which all people shape their lives.

As I took in this gorgeous show (I know it practically for memory anyway courtesy of the PBS production of it from the mid-1980s) I realized how much like this 19th century artist Georges Seurat I felt. I have been in a new (for me) country for nine months, looking, celebrating the bountiful chaos of life and finding new humanity and clarity in the world. And like Georges Seurat, I struggle to connect the “dots” he makes with his paint. When you take a step back from a pointillist work, you find new balance and harmony in life. The show ends as the first act does, in a ravishing epiphany of artistic harmony—a loving benediction to the struggle to connect the dots. Every member of those audiences, whether consciously or not, is struggling for such harmony in dealing with the mess of daily reality. How generous of this production — and it is the generosity of all great art — that it allows you, for a breathless few moments, to achieve that exquisite, elusive balance.

After the show I rushed to the half-price ticket line, and yes, I got two tickets for the evening performance of Gypsy. I spent the hours in-between that exquisite matinee and the dynamic evening production in the company of three former students. It felt like we just sat down and started visiting when I looked at my watch and saw it was 7:45—time to rush to the theater. Two hours can fly by when you are surrounded by such intelligent, joyous, remarkable people. Kate, Adam and Fareeda are tops—if you know them, steal as much time away with them as you can. We talked about old times, new times, and times yet to come. They are indeed a part of my perfect day.

That evening I basked in the laser-like focus of performer Patti Lupone. In a wallop-packing performance, Patti incinerates the obsessed character of Mama Rose. But there was more than just a musical cult goddess performing here. I remember the travails of Patti Lupone over the years. In 1995 mega-composer Andrew Lloyd Webber fired diva Patti from Sunset Boulevard and she endured a very public airing of how he thought she was past her prime and didn’t have the goods anymore. In this performance, it is more than just the survival of Mama Rose at stake—it is the performer Patti.

The show ends up being about the world of the striptease, but in Gypsy the most transfixing stripteases are characters peeling down, by seductive degrees, to their most primal selves. There is very little sentimental mist in this show. As one character sings, “you either got it or you ain’t.” Patti’s Rose begins as a busy, energetic, excited woman, and you can’t help being infected by her liveliness. You understand why the character Herbie would be smitten with her, and for once, his description of her as looking “like a pioneer woman without a frontier” fits perfectly. But every so often a darker, creepier willpower erupts, as involuntary as a hiccup. In Rose’s two great curtain numbers, “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” and “Rose’s Turn,” the darkness takes over so completely that you feel that you’re watching a woman who has been peeled down to her unadorned id. This production makes us painfully aware of the toll exacted by repeatedly missed connections.

Missed Connections. Connecting Dots. I never have thought of these two shows together, but last Wednesday it was obvious how important it is to see these two shows, one of creation, one of survival, and revel in the beauty of both actions. Georges Seurat implored us to look at the beauties around us, and Patti Lupone reminds that for any of us who have been counted out as “finished,” there are moments for redemptions, more opportunities to make connections.


Simply put—a perfect day. Last Wednesday was just perfect.

But I have a feeling I am not finished with my vase of calla lilies on the vacation. I am having dinner with life-long high school friends tonight, I will play hide-and-go-seek tomorrow with Jack and Emma, I will go to breakfast with my dad on Friday, I will call Mr. Justice, my old English teacher, I will make plans with Mrs. Schneider…I will go…