Since it isn't a leap year, we don't have an official anniversary this year. We always joked that there was no need to celebrate on those off-years. We could save money on cards, if nothing else. But we always celebrated anyway. Two days, the last of February and the first of March. At least.
So, here I am in New York, celebrating our anniversary. So much has happened in these few days, it is hard to believe it is not just a parade of dreams.
When we went to Honolulu, we saw Bernadette Peters in concert. It was the night after we arrived, after we tore apart the leis they'd given us off the plane and strew them over our bed. So when Bernadette played the role of Dolly Levy in Hello, Dolly, and speaks to her dead husband about their life together, and knowing that Bernadette herself is a widow, it seemed as intimate as if Peters were singing and acting just for us, you and me, Lee.
Yesterday, more happened than you would think was possible in one day, even in New York City. There was a rehearsal of the New York Philharmonic in the morning, with guest pianist Yuja Wang (in her four-inch spike heels, no less) performing Brahms Piano Concerto #1 in D minor, op. 15, and Prokofiev Symphony #5, which, I know, you would have loved.
Another rehearsal of the New York City Ballet, working on a new piece dedicated to Jerome Robbins. Fascinating. You loved the ballet.
We walked across Central Park on one of the loveliest, balmiest days possible for a February, the sun shining with full blessing, to the Frick Collection, the Gilded Era mansion looking out onto the park, and the old painting, Goyas and Turners and Vermeers.
We caught a bus to the expensive, but meditative, Hangawi Restaurant on 32nd Street, where we removed our shoes and crawled into the sunken tables and sat on pillows and were nourished and filled with flowers and roots and sizzling vegetables and a mango cocktail.
Walking through Madison Square Garden and up 8th Avenue, I faced a constant barrage of the faces of New York City, so much that I can see them in my sleep, finally arriving at the Signature Theater to see Edward Albee's restored At Home at the Zoo, reflective of some ways of our married life together, the passion and love and roller coaster wonder of it all, the animalness of our being.
Was it a perfect day? Did it even exist? Were you there with me or did it just seem that way?
Another beautiful anniversary, Lee. Thank you for everything.
