I have sequestered myself at the office again. I am late arriving because Thursday is my on-line piano lesson. I am not so sure why I continue with the lessons, I never practice much any more. Not having a singing season to attend or the open mic nights has put me off my rhythm in many ways. I so rarely pick up the guitar, that I noticed I hadn’t used my tuner app in 17 WEEKS! arrgh! That is not good. Such a lazy musician… Here is my grand opportunity to really dig in and work at things and what do I do? I surrender to the idea of lock down. I surrendered completely and find myself pacing the room more often than not. That isn’t good. It also isn’t as unusual as I might imagine. There are huge numbers of us, all around the world going through this – feeling the same inertia. When is it going to end? Not likely soon. When are we going to rise into our lives again? Sooner than we think.
Already, many folks are finding work-arounds that really work. The masks are out in full force around here, not many go without and definitely not indoors. Whether that is a fact of being Canadian and a naturalized cooperator or not, is not certain. My piano teacher, who always was a bit daunted by germs, has worked out a method of quickly and thoroughly cleaning her studio between students. She did request hand sanitization before and after but now has installed a hard surface floor and moved her library of books to create a distance between her seat and the student. I feel quite secure and safe from transmission of disease. During the recent months, we have been doing my lesson on-line and successfully, since she has a brilliant ear and doesn’t need to be in the same space as me when I miss the e-flat.
(excuse me, I was distracted by someone’s exposed underwear for a moment)
There are other work-arounds that people are using as we slide back into living our dailyness. The first thing to notice were the clever masks, folks are having fun with this sometimes. We are also adjusted to the line-up at the beer store and some use the time for casual, masked chat with people. Nice, actually. The wheel-chair buttons to open doors are in use almost everywhere by everybody. I even catch myself elbow-bumping the button. Most of us are leaving space when we can and not being so insistent on quick service. It’s ok.
My feeling is that retail is going to die, though. It was on the ropes and as soon as a cheaper, less energy consuming method of home delivery takes off, it’s a goner. Amazon’s push to deliver via drone will likely end up being the way things are done. I am in fact surprised that someone hasn’t grabbed the opportunity already. I will miss being able to look at stuff before I buy it but that was happening anyway. Most of what I go out looking for is not in stock. Since store rents are so high, most businesses only stock what sells quickly. For example, my shoes almost cannot be bought at retail stores. Size 13 and one half is not common enough. Even the on-line shoe sellers carry only one or two styles like that. The lower costs of not supporting a bricks/and store should mean that more business folks will take a risk on slower sales and expand their markets with more stock. Sports have solved the situation in a semi-satisfactory way. The bubble and no-travel Stanley Cup battle is on without major incident. The players are staying healthy and getting on with the game. Our symphony is doing a season on line and the chorus is actually going to do a zoomish kind of rehearsal. Is that best? No. Is it a new way of doing things? Yes.
We are still moving and we will. Covid and Donald Trump will move out of our daily lives at some point. Maybe, it will be a better world? Could be. Already, the economic slow down has impacted the environment in a very positive way. Folks aren’t stupid… they can see that the air is cleaner, the animals returning. Stuff like that. It happened in six months time. That’s good news. We aren’t yet destitute and probably won’t become so. We aren’t going to be able to just buy stuff, willy and nilly anymore. That’s a permanent change. The fantastic costs to taxpayers are looming, so things have been altered for the long term.
Big, bad things are on the horizon but we will survive through it. As soon as we let go of the longing for the last century and it’s abundance materially…we will be fine. Changed, altered, hurt but fine. S’okay. No guarantees in this universe and lots of surprises to come. Both up and down surprises. We are better for the experience, we are rounder, stronger. What (as they say) doesn’t kill us… makes us. Ha. Somehow, though, I have got to lose the damn donuts.
Robert On The Air 