Where pen meets paper
Visions melt into waking
We call that the Angel’s Share
Where spirit turns vapor
Under dusty, muted moonbeams
Oblivion becomes aware
(M. Weidinger - Angel’s Share)
I saw the news that one of my favorite bars and one of NYC’s original modern-day speakeasies is closing. I can still taste the iconic Speak Low cocktail – rum, sherry and matcha. I was last there this past fall to honor the head bartender, but most of my jaunts to Angel’s Share were pre-pandemic, with friends and alone. This is all bringing up a harkening back to a few years ago, our world, this city, forever changed since then.
More than half of my time in New York City has now been pandemic, and I’ll say, its flown by so much quicker than the first 2 years. While this time has been inwardly fruitful for many people including myself, beloved establishments are still in cahoots with landlords and gigs are still cancelling over exposures. The broad encouragement of isolation first came as relief, but over time, as a person who tends towards loner-ism I certainly fell into a deep(er than before) wallow in solitude. Many aspects of my artist’s life here are still as questionably structured as a 70-year-old beach shack.
Albeit, there seems to be a constant call to loosen my grip to the winds of change amid being a full-time artist, entrepreneur, bohemian anyway. Art keeps me listening, seeking, pushing. I’ve learned this creative energy can push someone off a cliff, and it certainly will, if they don’t know where to aim it.
With the backdrop of Angel’s Share, a high-voltage intersection of energy of the last 30 years, closing its second-floor Cooper Union doors, I remember the pillars of my social and creative life before this pandemic. I think this is all to say that grace is in order. Self-understanding is absolutely in order. While this has always been true, the pandemic is still proving to be a candid opportunity to look it all over again.