Normal Now, and Remembered

Covid-19 encourages memories and suggests what is and, also, what might be possible.

July 24 afternoon I observed changes in procedure during a teeth cleaning delayed three months because of Covid-19. There were, of course, restrictions in place.

I needed to answer a string of questions in the negative, sanitize my hands and have my temperature taken. When I went into the open booth to sit down on the chair with its gentle massage, the napkin on my chest was not only a soft pastel, but it was attached by an adhesive instead of a chain at the back of my neck. Before that I also washed my hands.

Long gone was the water fountain with the requirement for periodic spitting; A tube of water inserted in my open mouth was the replacement.

The hygienist was masked, an extra layer over her office garment and during her scraping and gentle, steady water pummeling my mouth she wore the colorless transparent screen now familiar on any broadcast featuring a practicing health professional.

All this is not intended to be a back yard variety of Eleanor’s My Day, and it would never have reached the recitation stage had not a specific piece of music wafted over the office inter-com, evoking many summers ago.

The music was “Take Five,” and connected Mills College’s 1947 and last summer school, Dave Brubeck as a student of Darius Milhaud, doing housework for Madeleine Milhaud during my first on-my-own foray away from home just graduated from high school, Lawrence Olivier’s Henry V, and a still remembered bit from a ballet to the music from one of San Francisco Ballet’s summer sessions in the makeshift studio on the second floor of its 18th Avenue Studio. Like a “Whew” rush of memories and connections.

“Take Five” was the musical background for Ron Poindexter’s contribution to the Ballet ‘63 summer season., titled The Set. He and Sue Loyd, who was to join the Joffrey Ballet, made the September cover of Dance Magazine. He has come to SFB through Pacific Ballet at a time when several young men presence more than technique filled the ranks of San Francisco Ballet, moving on to New York and shows that included Las Vegas. His credits particularly mention The Smother Brothers.

1963 marked the end of my first season with Dance News and I wouldn’t be surprised if, having continued on with Mr. Chujoy’s approval, that Ballet ‘63 was part of the warmth, the sense of “rightness” that lingers with the memories of the work. In particular Ron’s finale, with one of the dancers turning out an imaginary light with the gesture of a pull chain, came rushing back as I lay on my back which was being gently massaged by the chair’s mechanism, mouth wide open rinsed with a steady stream of water. Even now, it was a salient finale.

And in the upper reaches of commercial Fillmore Street, opposite the closed Clay Theatre, it started me wishing some well=heeled theatre lover would remodel and reopen the Clay as a live venue for performers, theatre, dance or a happy mixture.