The Santa Fe Report, 2021

We didn’t invite five other family members to hold our hands.  We didn’t run to my cousins in Hawaii. We walked nearly alone this Christmas. Me and my adult son and soon to be 18-year-old daughter, and enjoyed being with just each other.  It was simple and good, with just 2 dinner guests (Susan, a career public health nurse—not to mention the mom of our beloved friend, Oshy — and Susan’s hubby Rick). Activities included many movies, a lot of green chile, sledding, skiing, one fight, and many songs around my parents’ old upright.   But now, a week later, bags are packed, fireplace is swept, leftover posole in the Ziplock bag, and the dog and cat are about to get stuffed into the carriers. The tree, still green, looks lovely with no ornaments.  A few snow flurries whisked by a little while ago, but nothing sticking.  The flight to LA is in 4 hours. I have the usual Dec 28 writer’s block.  All of the 300+ cards are waiting for this letter and it’s not going to write itself. 

While I promise this will not be the usual 2 pages of doom, I’ll just get this out of the way: the hardest, perhaps most shocking news of this year is that my daughter in law, Dr. Marie Packer, had a stroke in April, which lead to a massive brain bleed, conjuring up some pretty dark memories for our family.  Marie is just 42, she and my stepson, Ryan, are practically still newlyweds.  But with undiagnosed hypertension, Marie has been on the front lines in a Chicago hospital for over a year during the worst moments of this pandemic.  Being a doctor again may be off the table for some time.  Being on the front lines is not likely either.

When Marie and Ryan were dating, they were on a flight from LA to Chicago when flight attendants inquired if a doctor was on board. Marie was on it, attending to the distressed passenger, and ordering the crew to land the plane, which they did in Kansas City shortly thereafter.  As if Ryan hadn’t already thought she was the perfect woman.

In the words of my own doctor, “what a waste.” The better news is that she has working her tail off in physical, cognitive and speech therapy, and both she and Ryan have embraced the radical changes.  He is an exceptional partner, and they are both amazing people who have born more than enough. I know you will keep them in your thoughts as they traverse a new kind of life together.

One of my junior high besties had lost her father over Thanksgiving (not to Covid19).  He had lived a full and happy life and was beloved by his clan. I paid a visit to her and her mom, just before my trip, to say the right thing. When I arrived at the westside house, it was a bit like walking back in time.  The welcoming house I had spent so much time in as a teenager was flush with Christmas decorations and family members, including two innocent little boys in pj’s.  One of them immediately came to me with a big hug, and I wanted to scoop him up. I was also the elephant in the room, wearing my KN95, giving my muffled words of condolence to her mom. Wondering how I got here in a house full of people visiting from Arizona.

El Torito was the only place that didn’t require my friend to show proof of vaccination. The happy hour drinks were weak, so I ordered a shot, but the waiter brought two.  I had just rattled off a list of the 18 BA and BFA programs my daughter is reaching for.  “Do you think she’ll be able to make a living?” I explained the importance of an artistic education, about wanting to give Nell the room to discover herself.  I continued my earnest babble. “You didn’t answer my question:  do you think she will be able to make a living as an actress?”  I have ignored this kind of goading from her countless times, as it has always been clear: she is in charge of the friendship.  I am supposed to know my place. “Will she be able to support herself?”  I did not answer the question.  I know the answer she wanted.

I’ll spare you details of the rest, as there was no winning the eventual turn in the conversation.  In my extra tequila shot, I hear her say, “Cyndy, it’s not a real vaccine.”  There was no way out except to say what I thought, which was that not saying anything was unacceptable to me, especially if I really cared about her and her mom, the reassuringly unchanged house, the beautiful little boy with the hug.  What she said, what I said, it hurt us both very much. The evening ended with me saying that I should not have come at all, and I would not see her again until she gets vaccinated.  She said, “then we’ll never see each other again.”  This was also unacceptable. I replied that eventually things will get better. And they will, but let’s face it, there will be casualties like this one. And like Marie.

But what upset me most, what has stayed with me these 2 weeks is the gun at my head — will my children survive as artists?  I tried to explain that it’s not about that.  That it’s not about the result, but the journey.  When you get the calling, that’s it.  “A leap….of faith.” (J. Larson)

Six weeks ago, Lin Manuel Miranda’s film Tick, Tick…Boom! opened.  I watched it with trepidation, worried it would be conjuring up the very dark chapter for me of the first person I knew to die young.  I have spent the past few weeks processing it, not so much as a piece of filmmaking (I have some pretty strong opinions you don’t want to hear), but processing the creative journey of my friend Jonathan Larson, who I did not know since junior high.  But with who I intersected with in the final 6 months of his life, before this death at the age of 36. 

I didn’t need to know Jonathan more than a few minutes to know we were the best of friends.  We met during the final months he was composing Rent, a musical set during a pandemic, and discussed writing, artistic survival, crafting a story, and collaborating with others.  We happened upon this by discovering our mutual love of Sondheim, and became inseparable for one week, spending any time off from writing and rehearsing in each other’s company, asking ourselves the same question about making a living, negotiating the grants, the diners, collaborators, the workshops, the crafting, the love of the work, comparing notes. All the while partying. However flawed the cinematic retelling of Tick, Tick…Boom!, I was elated to see a major motion picture about the artist’s journey and sacrifice.  Tick, Tick…Boom! didn’t go far enough.  Jonathan in my view made the ultimate sacrifice, perhaps as some insane cousin to Marie (a scientist with a passion to help people, dealing with a pandemic) who indeed eeked out a seminal work of our time, transforming the art form forever, before his illness was detected.  I have dreamed of Jon, sometimes with a crown of disease.  I searched for this in the film, and did not find it, nor my friend (until the end with the reels of Jon himself).  I got through watching this film by singing at the top of my lungs through it all.  Celebrating the writing.  Celebrating the songs.  Reliving it and thinking, “what a waste.”

With only a few lines to go before my 2 pages are up, may I now pivot to a celebration of Jon’s mentor and mine, Mr. Sondheim, who left us in 2021; I was not sad, but frozen on the subject, and only just now contemplative.  I am grateful to have performed in 4 of the shows.  I will raise my voice in the living room again (perhaps one day on a stage) when I can get through it. (I could barely get through the covid birthday bash for “Steve,” as Jonathan would call him.  Sang and cried throughout.)

But last night, our last night in Santa Fe, we celebrated Sondheim and a few others. 

I convinced Sam to go to the film, despite the Ansel Elgort scandal. And I was instructed by both my kids there would be no singing in a public movie theatre under any circumstances. But even the mask did not muffle the sobs during West Side Story (2021 version; aka Rita Moreno’s revenge).  Despite the controversies, you had me at Cool.  Even Bernardo’s bad Puerto Rican accent couldn’t disrupt the journey I was on.  I leaned in, as the stakes got higher and higher.  I prayed the story would end differently this time.  I celebrated this early work of my creative hero, Mr. Sondheim.  Trifecta:  Bernstein, Sondheim, Robbins.  The original stage musical Westside Story is a masterful work.  Spielberg is no slouch either.  Or Kushner.  Or Shakespeare.  You may be surprised to know that I was bolled over by the remake.  Not perfect, but neither was the original film.  And now we have two of them to enjoy.  And even though it was brought to you by a whole lotta white men, the women’s performances won the day here.   They were spectacular.  I celebrated the brain trust of all of these artists, discussed the choices that were made in a world still beset with racism with the kids, debated the choices that Maria made with Sam, forced both kids to watch YouTube videos of Moreno’s sensational dancing in the 1961 film, and went to sleep with musicals running through my heart and brain.  It drowned out El Torito and the 4 subsequent text messages from friends who contracted covid over the holidays.   

With so little to be sure of

if there’s anything at all

I’m sure of here and now, and us together.

Anyone Can Whistle, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

No day but today

Rent, music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson

Much love and tidings,

Cyndy Fujikawa