COPING
Music is my technique. Nothing changes, but I listen as much as I can. Especially now.
Coping is a word I never much liked, yet here we all are. Coping. Sounds like the poor version of hoping, which is better.
On so many fronts, we are all coping.
For one thing, the pandemic isn’t over yet. True, numbers are better and people feel freer to meet with friends, to resume what was once a completely normal life. Going to the movies being one good example. ( I will go see Worst Person in the World at the Elinor Bunin Theater this week. My first movie I’m seeing somewhere besides my couch in many months.)
Trying hard to understand Putin and Ukraine, our history as Jews, and then, all the confusing and disparate parts. Ukraine has a Jewish president who is even a comedian and a good dancer.
We call him a hero now.
Not that long ago, Claude Lanzmann made a follow up to SHOAH, his groundbreaking Holocaust film. He interviewed Ukranian citizens in small villages about what happened. What was so disconcerting is the persistent anti-semitism. And yet, they elected a Jewish president. One the world calls hero now.
And then, a few days ago, the press reported that Africans were prevented from boarding trains to leave the Ukraine by Ukrainian officials. Many African students were interviewed on CNN, in the New York Times. They said they were faced with persistent racism on trains and buses there.
Yesterday the MET Opera, announced they would not have pro-Putin performers. One of their best sopranos, Anna Netrebko, would not repudiate Putin and now she’s gone.
Garrison Keillor told a story about a Ukrainian musician who always made him cry with his homeland song.
I’m not saying music changes the big problems, or the world. But hearing it always makes me a little bit happier. And here’s the Woody Guthrie song I’ve played
Here’s to hoping all of you are somehow coping.
Love from Alte and Esther
PS You should have received your copy of SUDDENLY, the new ALTE broadside. If you didn’t get it let us know.
Also moping, which my spell checker keeps insisting should be mopping.
Moping hoping and coping- core to my being