Love Virtually

How are you?  Holding up ok?  I hope you are being safe and respectful and finding joy in unexpected places. 

I’m holding up well enough.  The wife and the cats appreciate the broadened quality time with me and I them. The time is being filled with a seemingly endless honey-do list and I’ve gads of time to work on my music.  Between the house-work and the mouse-work I’ve been able to occupy my time…time…time...

Time – it is a unique concept these days.  For myself - and so many of you, I’m sure - this concept of “time” has been a new experience.  Not just for the fact that most of us are living thru our generations’ first - and hopefully, only – pandemic but for how it has begun to shape our everyday.  Routines are smashed or repurposed (I’ve stopped watching cable/national news and have subscribed to just about every standalone network that includes British TV) while we wait.   

We are all waiting for the day we can safely reconnect/touch/embrace our loved ones, get back to our jobs, return to something akin to normal (whatever that may look like in the future).  Until then, we are finding ways to occupy our time; games with the family, exploring new interests and hobbies, video conference family gatherings and happy hours, learning how to be a performing musician with nowhere to perform.

The implications of this new reality have sent shock-waves thru my foundation.  The thing is… it never occurred to me that, long as I was physically capable, I wouldn’t earn a living performing music.  Music is transcendent, right?  It goes anywhere and everywhere. It is mutable, viable, transferable.  At its minimum - where there’s a sidewalk full of people there’s an opportunity to open my case, play a few songs and make a few bucks in tips.  What happens when the sidewalks are empty? The venues are closed? And standing on the corner trying to gather a crowd is an arrestable offense?  So, I’m learning how to share myself by myself. 

Most of my life has been shaped by performing in front of crowds - sharing in the connection, the back and forth of the emotional energy that is part of the live music experience.  Its a big part of why one becomes a performing artist and the

concept of not having that connection has been difficult for me to accept.  We may live in a digital age but I’m from an analog world where the live experience has always been a visceral and tangible part of the music.

I gotta say… it’s a little freaky playing to a 4x6 inch screen while reminding myself that you’re all out there on the other side of it – alive, involved, listening.  I’ve been learning to trust in the connection of scrolling comments and floating emoji’s as I shuffle my way thru a set of music willing myself to make those virtual connections a synergetic reality.  (and trying not to focus too much on why I didn’t bother to comb my hair before I hit “RECORD”.)  With you, I’m learning to accept this new reality and 'virtually' sharing myself with you all gets easier with each time I start a video session.

You, my Fine Folk, are the reason for what I do and why I do it, so…

Thank you for continuing to listen.

Thank you for your comments, your floating hearts, your waving hands.

Thank you for filling my virtual tip jar.

Thank you for sharing your time with me.