midsummer night's dream
life has taken on a surrealistic hue that feels like reality imitating fiction. i’m spending most of my time on boston’s south shore at magical moon farm with the lovely donna green. i am helping out with the farm’s many dimensions, not the least of which is its weekly music program. this has been a lifesaver in the time of covid, with socially-safe outdoor performances. the musicians and audiences have appeared and we all get to revel in something resembling normalcy— the creation of community in the midst of isolation.
i love this shot of a family enjoying wsu bluegrass under the elm tree taken on july 25th. it reminds me of photos taken in the early 1900’s at church suppers or methodist campgrounds. the light seems to capture the farm’s magic— a peaceful, yesteryear tranquility. this has been the atmosphere of the summer, with the strange past/future overtone of the pandemic.
our lives continue in this time/space suspension which sometimes feels confusing as we wait for the outcome- a cure, a treatment, an abatement— a way to “go back to the way we were.”
we’re all feeling it as we soldier on and try to make sense of our before and our yet-unknown after lives. it sometimes feels like i’m not doing a thing no matter how much i do, or that whatever i do doesn’t matter, but it does. this is a test of our humanity because our willingness to carry on in the face of such uncertainty is the result of one thing and one thing only— our belief that carrying on is our human responsibility. we carry on with our work, we carry on with our encouragement of others, we carry on with social customs and in these efforts we prove our own humanity to ourselves and to those around us.
much has changed and many of us are asking the “deep” questions of ourselves, either by choice or in response to the parts of our lives removed by covid. this is not such a bad thing, and in some ways it gets us to appreciate the value of what is truly meaningful. for me, the absence of travel, which had become so central to my existence, literally grounded me in the earth as i tilled, planted, weeded, watered and tended to the gardens this spring and summer. this, for me, was a complete and literal— and ironic— reversal of life. how has this affected me? profoundly— and i’m only just beginning to realize the impact of this on my spirit and psyche.
at the same time, other parts of life have remained largely unchanged. i spent a good part of my days on the telephone for my advisory work and that has not changed, while my work in the recording studio, after a months-long suspension, has resumed with deeper appreciation, enthusiasm and humility caused by its temporary absence. the same is true for live performances with the van gogh brothers.
our studio work has resumed with dave minehan at woolly mammoth in boston with renewed passion and commitment to the music and to each other. it looks like we will have a new album completed by year end. we are working at a new level of creative collaboration, fueled by the urgency of the state of the world and the unspoken notion that somehow art makes a difference, and that we need to fulfill our part of the bargain as our way of contributing to the preservation and restoration of civilization. amazing.
we are able to perform live outdoors at magical moon farm at 575 summer street in marshfield, massachusetts, and will return on saturday, august 8th at 2:30 for another performance following our initial show on july 4th. the saturday music series, “live at magical moon barn” has been a lifesaver for us and for many. this is a socially-safe environment (masks are mandatory) with 5 beautiful acres of gardens, a hippie-chic farmstand and several groups of farm animals all overlooking the ocean. a great way to spend a summer saturday.
i hope you are all able to find time to enjoy these summer months and to revel in the notion our collective humanity, while continuing to give of yourselves for the good of our beautiful and precious lives together. i look forward to seeing some of you in the weeks ahead.
go well and god bless,
jc