Pandemic Life - Lockdown or Breakout?

it’s in times like these - when everything is shaken up - that we realise the things that hold the most value for us. Equally, as some parts of life have had to find a new shape and others have had to stop for a time, it facilitates a sharp focus on our priorities. For some months now I have been challenged to examine my life and identify anything that is either superfluous or encumbering. It has been an interesting journey to navigate as sometimes things that have endured the well worn passage of time have become old friends and it’s hard to relinquish them. These may have related to activities that have been a part of my routine and maybe even my livelihood or they have been the thought patterns and attitudes that influence my inner world. The latter have been the most challenging and yet the most liberating! As we allow ourselves to jjetezen habitual patterns that have a negative effect on our responses to situations and people, making ourselves vulnerable by admitting their existence, we discover a freedom in the process of letting go. The lens that we see out with becomes clearer and our ability to process and respond to situations on a daily basis have a lightness about them. I highly recommend checking out your harbour to see if any vessels have anchored there that need to be evicted. Things like offence or judgements, which we so quickly make often without even realising it, really don’t belong there and if we choose to harbour them then we are the losers in the end as we end up with a lot of unnecessary baggage to carry around. 

However as I have explored this process I have also begun to find great joy in discovering the things of the highest value. Sometimes the elements we take for granted suddenly find their importance magnified in times of struggle. During this pandemic the richness of creativity and music in particular have been an enormous source of life to me. I have rekindled the pleasure of enjoying playing music again instead of it always being purpose driven. This connection with the essence of who I am has been extraordinarily liberating. The subtlest of adjustments in the way we see something can bring huge benefits. Pressing the pause button on so many things that absorb my time has offered the opportunity for this rediscovery. I have also been quite overwhelmed by how the shared experience of music has transformed our neighbourhood community. On a weekly basis we have been playing a song collectively with musicians in our roads for the NHS clap on Thursdays and having discovered there are so many talented players we organised a playathon to raise money for charities and the NHS. We didn’t anticipate what an exceptional time this would be. As different people played in their front gardens, the community gathered (at a safe distance) and moved up and down the street listening to the various contributions. It was beautiful and inspiring as people from different generations with contrasting styles and musical experience were united in sharing the gift of music. The afternoon culminated in a joint rendition of You’ll never Walk Alone and then an old gentleman playing a steel drum spontaneously started playing a hymn which the whole road joined in with. It was so powerful and moving and highlighted for me the tremendous value in music and it’s importance as a vehicle for cultivating opportunities to share together. I have the tremendous privilege of teaching 50 students a week to play the violin and piano and whilst this is my job it has suddenly become hugely important. The opportunity to mentor others to have a lifelong joy in playing - whether it becomes a vocation or not - has found it’s relevance magnified in these difficult weeks. In times like these the value of the arts is heightened both for our personal wellbeing and as a context to cultivate community. In the future we may reflect on this pandemic as being challenging for all sorts of reasons but I suspect that we will also find that the changes it has brought to our lives may be highly significant and transforming to our future.