fire up the new year
after what seemed like an intermedable year of rollercoaster politics, global pandemic and social distancing, 2020 is actually coming to a close… how did you fare? what changed in your life? how did life continue for you despite these events that almost seemed to make time stop? and, finally, do you think your perspective on life has changed permanently? i ask these questions because i’m amazed at my own answers, and i’m super-curious to hear what others have to say…
my 2020 began auspiciously with a date with donna green, a fellow artist, a fellow Aries, friend of friends, south shore resident, music aficionado, philanthropist, entrepreneur, and farmer. like our mutual fire sign, we were fire from the start. to coin my friend michael levine’s phrase, “worlds in collision.” as we pushed and pulled, the pandemic took hold and stopped the world for almost two months. two months of forced suspension for two firebrands. it was like science fiction. we farmed and danced and celebrated our lives to a soundtrack from our adolescences— the hits of the ‘60’s— and it was like time traveling; two hippies farming under the spring sky, overlooking the ocean, while hawks circled above…
spring gave way to summer and we opened the farm stand, adding tents, hippie flags, peace signs and music on saturdays. the weekdays were filled with trips in donna’s truck for corn and additional produce, bookended by the weekends filled with music and trips to my carriage house in boston. as summer and the virus initially waned, other former life activities returned and the near-idyllic days of spring became a distant memory. but like any profound experience, the impact remains to be synthesized as part of our personal mosaics, and its lessons galvanized onto our perspectives over time. as i write in the darkest days of december, i am struck by my own instinct to re-impose “normality” onto my own life, juxtaposed by an inner rejection of what “normality” had become, pre-pandemic.
what do i want to keep and what do i want to let go? i ask myself. most of my pre-pandemic life had become a choice. if i can change my life again, what do i choose for myself today and what does that mean? regular, monthly travel was part of my “former” life. i felt informed by it. it defined me. i embraced the refuge of the road. i kept up with friends in other cities. even my dentist was 3,100 miles away. i mostly stopped traveling in 2020 and i see parts of myself i don’t recognize. this is uncomfortable. where am i?
as a musician and performing artist, i rely on live audiences to practice my craft. the summer music program at the Magical Moon Farm gave me an outlet to connect with people, but winter is falling in North America. the island of summer is being overtaken by waves of cold, rain and snow. what now? music, the invisible art, doesn’t exist without listeners. do i still exist?
we all have our 2020 stories. the question i ask myself, and i imagine you ask yourself, is, “what about me matters in a post-pandemic world?”
i can see now, more clearly than before the pandemic started, that what i “do” doesn’t matter so much as what i am... i “knew” this before, but the events of 2020 have forced me to live it. how do i treat my children and other loved ones? am i kind to strangers? am i compassionate? how do i interact with frontline workers in the grocery store, in doctors offices, in schools? can i afford to think less about myself and more about others? can i think of my life purpose as service and not as a quest to accumulate personal wealth and recognition? and what does it mean to be an American, especially after all of this political strife?
such big questions… they will not be answered immediately. i’ll have to see how the impact of the events of 2020 sits with me over a little more time, but what is definitely true and conclusive about 2020, is that the world has changed, and America, especially, has changed; so of course we’ve all changed in profound ways. only time will tell us in what ways we’ve all changed, but i believe a great deal of good will come from all of this, if we let it.
in the meantime, the holidays come and i see my life evolving around my children, one of whom now lives in Boston, my other loved ones, including my dear Paul and Clayton and our work as the van Gogh Brothers, and my many friends near and far. these relationships have come to form a tight center, and i am allowing myself the freedom to let these relationships dictate how i balance my life as i move along the curve.
my other media advisory work continues and it very fortunately affords me a good lifestyle, along with continued recording and music licensing with the van Gogh Brothers. we are set to complete our 15th album, tentatively titled, “Ghost,” in early 2021. i am hoping to travel to New Orleans with Donna in early January, pandemic permitting, where i plan to see my son and his family. gigs during the continued pandemic are scattershot and last-minute— i ~might~ do a solo show at vincent’s worcester on saturday december 13th, from 6-9— please check back. all other gigs are TBA.
and despite all the soul-searching and reflection, life continues with a good slug of hilarity. the picture above was taken the night before thanksgiving at my daughter’s home in south boston as we prepared creme brulee and, as my friend and former bandmate, michael levine remarked, it closely resembles my behavior with a fire extinguisher in the dorm of a college where we all stayed as a band after one of our gigs in the 1970’s... i am happy to report that we don’t ever have to grow up, after all...
happy holidays and love to all,
jc