Six months is sometimes a long time. In this case the last six months have seemed like much longer than half a year. After touring all summer and into the fall, we fell softly in a cozy little basement apartment in Portland. I immediately appreciated the new and becoming familiar sights and sounds of home, settling in for the winter.
Spring started creeping in as did COVID-19 and now it is May and we are quarantined in our homes all over the country and world. No touring, no gigs. Not since mid March. We now have live streaming and Patreon and bandcamp and all the other virtual outlets for working musicians. But that’s it. Many of us can still work from home, myself included. I’m teaching violin and viola lessons and classes online now.
The days meld together, but time seems to stretch and two months feels more like two years. Nothing will ever be the same, this is perhaps an understatement.
Here is my newest song. Built from a poem I wrote when the pandemic first started to feel real and my experiments with alternate guitar tunings:
Destination
Quiet in the afternoon of company
In a country far from her destination
Trapped in the circles and layers of your mind
That man can drive you crazy
Undress me with your promise of heaven
Don’t worry I don’t believe in love or destiny
The keys were easy in the room by the river
And it’s all coming down on me
Pretend to hurt
Feeling it all
Know nothing
Before the bitter pill before the taste of disappointment
Drenched in the feelings of a good childhood
No sound, floating in the lake, you’re breathing me in
You’re breathing me
Pretend to hurt
Feeling it all
Know nothing
Quiet in the afternoon of company
That man can drive you crazy