In The Park

Little sweetheart, I’m trying to get out the house a little bit more. It’s hard sometimes because I miss you so very much and going places on my own feels so lonely, But I try my best to quiet myself and listen for you.

This weekend was the last for the first of the two Shakespeare plays in the park.

The last time I went to one was with you. I remember that I got up early, gave you a little kiss because you were still asleep - what a wonderful thing that was to wake with you at my side! How I long for the day when it may be again! - and went up to the Delacourt to wait on line for tickets. It was for a Greek play, actually - The Bacchae - and I remember you actually weren’t too crazy about it. Ha! I found myself, foolishly, defending it but we talked through things like always and both came to realize that I just wanted you to like it because I wanted to enjoy things together. And I came to realize that just being together - even sitting through something not too great - was in itself a treasure. The content or activity doesn’t matter. It just being with you. Sharing everything - even lame things, ha! - is the beauty part. Everything else is marginalia.

Anyway, I decided to go up and see if I could hear the play. I knew I wouldn’t get in because it’s sold out. It’s kind of a modern dress political staging of Julius Caesar and it’s been getting a lot of attention and protests because it’s taking on the horrible current administration. There were quite a few more police around the periphery than usual. I climbed up to Belvedere Castle which is on a hill behind the stage, Sometimes you can see the plays from there - from behind - but the backdrops were too high and you couldn’t really get a view.

So, I went back around front and listened via the monitors. That’s an interesting way to take in the play, too, not only because you can really concentrate on the language but also because actors make entrances sometimes through the audience, so this spot is like a crossover where they have to come around from an wait. At one point after the assassination scene, Brutus, bloodied up to his elbows came rushing around a corner with a bunch of other actors about to make one of those through-audience-entrances.

It was all pretty interesting and lively. They had to take a couple of protestors away and again, they came right past me. You could hear when they’d disrupted the show - the audience started booing and the stage manager came over the “god mic” telling the actors to hold. I think you would’ve loved this all. In a way, it was better than actually being inside the theater. It was a real backstage kind of experience.

Quite near the end, your dad texted me. It’s Father’s Day, of course, and he as just getting home from a case at the hospital. I’d sent him a chocolate cake and he was just digging into a piece of it. The play was almost over, so I walk away a little distance, put on my headphones and called him to say Happy Father’s Day and tell him all about this.

It all made me feel so close to you, little sweetheart. And that’s the most important thing. Always. I love you so very much and feel you near me tonight. Thank you, my darling. Please take me to you as soon as heaven allows, won;t you? With all my love forever.