I get it. We're all struggling. All sick of hearing about COVID-19 and how it's changed everything. We've all looked at the same memes about being stuck inside, all shared in the collective outrage at people who refuse to take this pandemic seriously and shared in the collective support of our health care workers, grocery store workers, and others who are the front lines of this. Those of us who are teachers are scrambling to figure out online learning and posting about how much we miss our students. We're all (or at least I am), completely and utterly terrified when we read articles about the current death toll and about how much this pandemic might spread, how long this all might last.
So I'm not really expecting anyone to read this (which is how I usually approach this blog), because the last thing anyone really needs is another online take about COVID-19 and how we're coping with it. But it has quite literally taken over the world, and all of our lives and brain spaces, and so I need to write.
*My girlfriend is sitting next to me planning right now. I can't bring myself to do it. I've been making the excuse for the past week that technically this is still our Spring Break, and so I don't need to be thinking about school yet, don't need to be planning for online learning yet. And technically I'm right but...the bigger reason is just that I'm at a total loss. I don't know how to do this, I don't want to figure it out, I'm struggling to see the point in trying to continue teaching when everything has been disrupted to such an insane level and everyone's lives are being so deeply affected...and it's only been the first week of this!
I have no idea what I should be doing. Should I be picking music and recording rehearsal tracks for an end of the year concert, so that kids are somewhat prepared by our given return date of April 20th, when I know full well that it probably won't happen? Even if somehow we do get to come back to in-person school by that date, what are the odds that they also let us have mass gatherings again? Okay you can come back to school but no concerts, I imagine being told. Or even worse, and I fear much more likely, things are still bad by mid-April and they cancel in-person learning for the rest of the school year.
*I am not built for this. None of us are. We are social creatures, we want to explore and venture out and connect with others. We are part of a community and we are part of a social fabric and we are not, even those of us introverts who love solitude and canceling plans with great enthusiasm, built to be isolated for long periods of time like we are being asked to do now. Like we have to do now if we are going to have any chance of lowering the death toll from "catastrophic" to "still really really bad."
*Members of my profession are struggling with this in a very specific way. I am not going to sit here and say that performing arts teachers/directors/performers have it worse than anyone else (most of us are fortunate to still be drawing a paycheck during this crisis, for example), but we are taking this hard for a particular set of reasons.
I am a choir teacher/director/conductor. My entire art form is based on in-person interactions. People, physically occupying the same space, breathing the same air, inhaling and exhaling together, forming a community of musicians. Then we usually share that with a living, breathing audience who again, is occupying the same physical space as we are. That's the whole thing. It's our livelihood, it's our source of joy, and right now it is the very thing that can get people killed.
Just sit with that for a moment. Doing the thing you love, in the way it's supposed to be done, is the exact thing that spreads this virus. That makes it more likely that the most vulnerable will die. That, I believe, is the true heart of the struggle. It isn't just the disappointment over cancelled concerts and seasons. It isn't just the stress over having to learn how to use technology to teach remotely. It isn't just the worry over lost income for gigging artists and arts organizations.
Yes it's all those things, but at the core the struggle is this: The art form I love, the art form that is my primary career and a huge part of why I get out of bed every morning, is now dangerous. My art form involves the exact set of circumstances that will make this pandemic worse and make it more likely that someone I love will get sick and potentially die. So to try and save people, to try and save our whole damn society, we have to stop. We have to stop doing what we love until things get better. The nature of this pandemic is an existential threat to the way we live our lives and find artistic fulfillment.
And let's be very clear on that. We have stopped. Virtual choir, Jesus Christ if I have to see one more post or read one person mentioning a fucking virtual choir I am going to scream. I don't want to do it. I have no plans to do it. I get that it's something. I get that it is (maybe) "better than nothing." And all those choir directors out there who are trying to make it work, to keep your singers connected to each other, I don't actually wish any ill will upon you. You're doing something. Probably because at the very center of your being you need to do something or you will lose your goddamn mind. I am glad for you. I hope it works out for you and your singers. I just can't do it. It's not the same. It's not the thing I love, and it can never replace singing together with others, can never replace true communal music making.
I'm holding out hope that this nightmare will end, and that I can eventually go back to doing the thing, the real thing, that I love.
And then I feel stupid. People are literally dying. More people are going to die. Millions more are losing their jobs and have little to no safety net for what happens next. We can't even fathom the economic damage this is probably going to cause, we have to postpone that reckoning because we're just trying to stop the virus. Doctors and nurses and other healthcare workers are risking their lives to try to treat and contain the infections. And through all of this, all of this apocalyptic, paradigm-shifting turmoil, I'm struggling because I can't teach choir?
That's the battle I fight with myself every day. We're at war, suck it up, there will be time for beauty and music-making again when the fight is over and bodies are buried. We'll need it more than ever then. But also I know my feelings and grief are real and valid, and I'm allowed to feel them, even write about them, even though seem so small and inconsequential in the shadow of what we're facing.
*So this is what I've decided to do. I'm not going to overload my kids with assignments. I'm going to focus my remote learning on connection: helping them feel less isolated, trying to maintain the connections I have with them, giving them cool things to go listen to or to engage with. I'm going to use social media to record videos for them, trying to both reassure and engage their creativity during this crazy time. I might assign them to choose and learn some solos to help prepare for All State auditions this year, and I will even choose some music and record rehearsal tracks to have them learn their part on some choral repertoire that we can hopefully sing in person together someday. None of this is going to be "choir," the class I've taught for my whole career and the art form I love so very much and the thing I have done with young people day in and day out for the past 12 and a half years. It can't replace that hole in my heart and the hearts of some of my students.
But it will be something. I am going to try and be a bright light for my students during this dark time,and I am probably going to do a really crappy job of it. But I, like many of you, have just come into a very large surplus of free time, and I need to do something. We are doers. We teachers, artists, human beings, we need to feel like we're doing something. And even as the memes and posts call us to be more mindful and present in this time and make the best of this unprecedented slowdown, we all know the truth: we need to be doing and taking action if we are going to have any hope of feeling like we have a purpose. Without purpose, we die. And so, while I grieve the (hopefully temporary) loss of the purpose I love so much, I am joining all of you in trying to hastily assemble a new makeshift, ramshackle purpose to try and keep myself and my students going until the sun rises.
So I'm not really expecting anyone to read this (which is how I usually approach this blog), because the last thing anyone really needs is another online take about COVID-19 and how we're coping with it. But it has quite literally taken over the world, and all of our lives and brain spaces, and so I need to write.
*My girlfriend is sitting next to me planning right now. I can't bring myself to do it. I've been making the excuse for the past week that technically this is still our Spring Break, and so I don't need to be thinking about school yet, don't need to be planning for online learning yet. And technically I'm right but...the bigger reason is just that I'm at a total loss. I don't know how to do this, I don't want to figure it out, I'm struggling to see the point in trying to continue teaching when everything has been disrupted to such an insane level and everyone's lives are being so deeply affected...and it's only been the first week of this!
I have no idea what I should be doing. Should I be picking music and recording rehearsal tracks for an end of the year concert, so that kids are somewhat prepared by our given return date of April 20th, when I know full well that it probably won't happen? Even if somehow we do get to come back to in-person school by that date, what are the odds that they also let us have mass gatherings again? Okay you can come back to school but no concerts, I imagine being told. Or even worse, and I fear much more likely, things are still bad by mid-April and they cancel in-person learning for the rest of the school year.
*I am not built for this. None of us are. We are social creatures, we want to explore and venture out and connect with others. We are part of a community and we are part of a social fabric and we are not, even those of us introverts who love solitude and canceling plans with great enthusiasm, built to be isolated for long periods of time like we are being asked to do now. Like we have to do now if we are going to have any chance of lowering the death toll from "catastrophic" to "still really really bad."
*Members of my profession are struggling with this in a very specific way. I am not going to sit here and say that performing arts teachers/directors/performers have it worse than anyone else (most of us are fortunate to still be drawing a paycheck during this crisis, for example), but we are taking this hard for a particular set of reasons.
I am a choir teacher/director/conductor. My entire art form is based on in-person interactions. People, physically occupying the same space, breathing the same air, inhaling and exhaling together, forming a community of musicians. Then we usually share that with a living, breathing audience who again, is occupying the same physical space as we are. That's the whole thing. It's our livelihood, it's our source of joy, and right now it is the very thing that can get people killed.
Just sit with that for a moment. Doing the thing you love, in the way it's supposed to be done, is the exact thing that spreads this virus. That makes it more likely that the most vulnerable will die. That, I believe, is the true heart of the struggle. It isn't just the disappointment over cancelled concerts and seasons. It isn't just the stress over having to learn how to use technology to teach remotely. It isn't just the worry over lost income for gigging artists and arts organizations.
Yes it's all those things, but at the core the struggle is this: The art form I love, the art form that is my primary career and a huge part of why I get out of bed every morning, is now dangerous. My art form involves the exact set of circumstances that will make this pandemic worse and make it more likely that someone I love will get sick and potentially die. So to try and save people, to try and save our whole damn society, we have to stop. We have to stop doing what we love until things get better. The nature of this pandemic is an existential threat to the way we live our lives and find artistic fulfillment.
And let's be very clear on that. We have stopped. Virtual choir, Jesus Christ if I have to see one more post or read one person mentioning a fucking virtual choir I am going to scream. I don't want to do it. I have no plans to do it. I get that it's something. I get that it is (maybe) "better than nothing." And all those choir directors out there who are trying to make it work, to keep your singers connected to each other, I don't actually wish any ill will upon you. You're doing something. Probably because at the very center of your being you need to do something or you will lose your goddamn mind. I am glad for you. I hope it works out for you and your singers. I just can't do it. It's not the same. It's not the thing I love, and it can never replace singing together with others, can never replace true communal music making.
I'm holding out hope that this nightmare will end, and that I can eventually go back to doing the thing, the real thing, that I love.
And then I feel stupid. People are literally dying. More people are going to die. Millions more are losing their jobs and have little to no safety net for what happens next. We can't even fathom the economic damage this is probably going to cause, we have to postpone that reckoning because we're just trying to stop the virus. Doctors and nurses and other healthcare workers are risking their lives to try to treat and contain the infections. And through all of this, all of this apocalyptic, paradigm-shifting turmoil, I'm struggling because I can't teach choir?
That's the battle I fight with myself every day. We're at war, suck it up, there will be time for beauty and music-making again when the fight is over and bodies are buried. We'll need it more than ever then. But also I know my feelings and grief are real and valid, and I'm allowed to feel them, even write about them, even though seem so small and inconsequential in the shadow of what we're facing.
*So this is what I've decided to do. I'm not going to overload my kids with assignments. I'm going to focus my remote learning on connection: helping them feel less isolated, trying to maintain the connections I have with them, giving them cool things to go listen to or to engage with. I'm going to use social media to record videos for them, trying to both reassure and engage their creativity during this crazy time. I might assign them to choose and learn some solos to help prepare for All State auditions this year, and I will even choose some music and record rehearsal tracks to have them learn their part on some choral repertoire that we can hopefully sing in person together someday. None of this is going to be "choir," the class I've taught for my whole career and the art form I love so very much and the thing I have done with young people day in and day out for the past 12 and a half years. It can't replace that hole in my heart and the hearts of some of my students.
But it will be something. I am going to try and be a bright light for my students during this dark time,and I am probably going to do a really crappy job of it. But I, like many of you, have just come into a very large surplus of free time, and I need to do something. We are doers. We teachers, artists, human beings, we need to feel like we're doing something. And even as the memes and posts call us to be more mindful and present in this time and make the best of this unprecedented slowdown, we all know the truth: we need to be doing and taking action if we are going to have any hope of feeling like we have a purpose. Without purpose, we die. And so, while I grieve the (hopefully temporary) loss of the purpose I love so much, I am joining all of you in trying to hastily assemble a new makeshift, ramshackle purpose to try and keep myself and my students going until the sun rises.
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