![]() ![]() Touching anything seemed deadly, even with rubber gloves. To leave our apartments even for food was suddenly terrifying. Ironic, considering the much-chanted tropes of China having sent us the virus through Wuhan’s gory “wet markets.” Meanwhile, thousands of federal medics, Army reservists and the National Guard flooded the city. China responded by sending us 1,000 ventilators. With such galloping figures, and medical supplies running low, our city leaders swallowed their collective pride and called out for assistance. (Plus what would later prove to be an unreported 2,050 additional nursing home deaths). It would take more than 1,000 beds to rescue a city suddenly deluged with death.īy April there were over 72,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus in New York City and over 2,400 deaths. People wept. A real “chicken skin,” requisite, New York moment. A floating hospital with 1,000 beds, big red crosses painted on its sides, it sailed past the Statue of Liberty who saluted it with her torch. The day the USNS Comfort majestically sailed into New York Harbor, people lined the shore, waving American flags. With all non-essential businesses shut down, hundreds of thousands out of work, the loss of tax revenues was reportedly climbing towards the billions. We finally grasped that this virus was a rampaging killer. Some of those workers would ultimately die from coronavirus. Many of us would not ride a subway again for over a year. Overnight services were discontinued so workers could sanitize each car. By now subways had become a petri dish for breeding and spreading the virus. The pandemic would ultimately become the deadliest disaster by death toll in the history of New York City. Face masks were now mandated and every day saw spikes in “cluster areas” of the city-poor neighborhoods flooded with immigrants. We were already outpacing China, the UK and Iran, and would shortly become the epicenter of the virus infection in the world. Soon there were over 30,000 cases confirmed in New York City, and over 700 deaths. New Yorkers were proven die-hards.Īs we know, the virus didn’t pass it spread exponentially. A new term, “social distancing,” was coined, and mostly ignored as well. Recommendations for wearing gloves and face masks largely ignored. The governor issued a stay-at-home order. By the end of March 2020 all non-essential businesses were closed across the city. Rumors of hospitals filling almost overnight. Shortly after that night the country was hit by the Corona Virus and we entered a warp-speed metamorphosis. Years later, remembering him with Michael Ondaatje. He was buried in his birthplace on the Isle of Wight. I learned that Minghella was ill, then, tragically, he died. A future meeting postponed, then another. That’s what the English language was for him. He even loved the sound of it, how it reverberated and hung suspended in the mind. He talked primarily about characters in novels that attracted him-people lost, marooned, or so damaged that language failed them. I felt that if he took my hand, all my sins would be forgiven. ![]() ![]() Even his voice was soothing, mellifluous and soft, not harsh and clipped like most Brits. His gaze was benevolent, soothing as a balm. But he had the sweetest, most cherubic smile, and the most soulful eyes of any human I have ever met, large, hypnotically dark and piercing. He was short, thickset, and shaven-headed, built more like a stevedore than an artist. But I felt the primary story-hundreds of thousands of “comfort women” kidnapped and imprisoned by the Japanese Army during WWII-would be impossible to adapt. He was a jazz lover and much of the novel deals with jazz musicians in 1940’s Honolulu, New Orleans and Paris. My association with Anthony Minghella was, unfortunately, brief.Ī few years after my novel, Song of the Exile, was published, he had expressed interest in the possibility of adapting it for the screen. Ondaatje had been one of his closest friends. Whatever medium he worked in, his conceit was the light touch, lavishing audiences with magic and poetry without ever leaving his footprint. Though he had died in 2008, his early death was still a shock to many in the theatre and film world.įelled by cancer at only fifty-four Minghella was, for many, the quintessential virtuoso-pianist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, director of operas and such luminous films as The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Before Ondaatje read from Merwin’s works, we stood off in a corner, remembering another near-genius-Anthony Minghella. Poet Laureate and life-long Maui Resident. It was just over a year ago, a memorial here in New York City for W.S. It recently occurred to me that the last human being I literally (not virtually) hugged was Michael Ondaatje. ![]()
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