Well, with plenty of time on my hands (due to the cancellation of my live gigs, the loss of my private music instruction business and leaving my part-time job working in a grocery store because I was too chicken-shit to remain essential) I’ve been doing, creating, discovering, pulling my hair out, eating my way thru the refrigerator, forgetting to put on pants (that last one’s not true…I never actually forgot…) and doing my darndest to do anything but twiddle my thumbs. So, in case you are the curious type (and, since you’re reading this blog we’ll assume you are) I thought I’d show and tell;
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“How I’m Spending My Pandemic Vacation” by Lojo Russo, Grade umpteen
If there is one thing this “this” has taught me (and believe you me, there’s a LOT this “this” has taught me) it is that time is a relevant…oops, I mean, irrelevant. Sometime after midnight the evening of March 14 I ceased needing a calendar let alone a watch. It took me a couple weeks to figure it out who and what I was to become. The first 2 weeks were spent in a bewildered state of “what now?” and a constant panic of “what next?” However, I soon found my footing. Then I found my shoes and gained some traction.
My go-to-fall-back position was, of course, the Honey-Do list - I leaned on that to stabilize my world and give Time a place to hang out - oh, and we did a shit-ton of puzzles. Then I remembered [dunh, dunh, duhhhn!] The Internet!
March 12th BC (BEFORE CORONA):
Private music instructor teaching guitar, ukulele and mandolin to more than a dozen children and adults.
March 26 th AC (AFTER CORONA):
Online Music Instructor providing my students with personalized instructional PDFs and Videos to help them continue their lessons. It was and remains a head-trip figuring out how to put what I teach with my heart and my hands and turn it into fonts and frames but I’m learning a lot about what and how I’m teaching them.
March 14 th BC:
Full-time performing singer/songwriter playing live performances in front of hundreds of adoring fans.
March 27 th AC:
Online Talent providing an “Almost Live” musical experience to thousands of adoring fans. And, it felt…weird… but good. It felt good to be able to express my music publicly - even if the public was an internet based social gathering/sharing site. I’ve done a few shows now and even one “socially distanced” live show and it’s getting easier to be myself within a forum that keeps me distant from the people and the feelings (yours and mine) that make performing, well, performing. For me, playing a show to an actual live audience is at the heart of being a performer. It was and remains a head-trip trying to express my heart and soul without you… but I am learning.
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I've missed some opportunities that I may never get again (like playing a festival in Texas that had Joan Jett and Collective Soul as headliners) and I've learned some things that I'll never forget (like remembering to comb my hair before a "live" feed) but the thing I miss most is You. Being able to see you (in person), visit you, hug you - all those things that we used to take for granted are now, literally, in a virtual stasis. I know it won't last forever but I am curious as to what our new normal will look like.
Eventually this “vacation” will end but until it does
I’m going to continue to socially distance, wear a mask in public
spaces, wash my hands for 20 seconds, finish my Honey-Do list and use my
time to explore, enrich and expand who and what I am.
Oh, and finish a shit-ton of puzzles.
Oh, and finish a shit-ton of puzzles.
