Another Valentine’s Day rolls around. Isn’t it crazy to think that this time last year few of us had an inkling of the nefarious Corona virus, much less the tectonic disruption it would cause? A strange silver-ish lining has been extra (virtual) closeness and communication with my family and friends. We say that we see more of each other on our weekly zoom calls than we did in the before-times. Although Joyce Carol Oates said today that there’s a new category of unease, i.e., not letting anyone know that you might be vaccinated because you’ve been so comfortable not being able to see them for nearly a year!
Kenneth Koch was a marvelous American poet, playwright, and professor. He was a prominent member of the New York School of poetry, a circle of poets that also included Frank O’Hara and John Ashbery. I clipped this poem from a New Yorker years ago and stuck it in a TJ Maxx frame. It’s in my kitchen and I read it all the time.
Of course it’s about balance and equity in our lives: work with social life, social with love life, love with personal life. The elusive equilateral triad. When Kenneth wrote it in 1998, maybe there was enough time in the day to have all three. For us, in 2020 and into 2021, for sure there is plenty of time, more time than we’ve ever had, for work. But, nowhere to go for social life. As for love life, well, if you were preapproved for one in the before-times, that’s nice for you. For those who planned to have one this past year, sorry, most options thwarted on that front!
I’m telling everyone how excited and relieved I am to have had my first vaccine. It’s my astonishing, wonderful Valentine this year!
I hope the coming year, with the benefit of vaccines and good behavior, will give us more balance with all three parts of our lives. Happy Valentine’s Day xxxxx
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Rita Jacobs
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