On Sunday we celebrated Alaina’s 40th birthday, marking not only the day of her birth, but also the one year anniversary of our lockdown quarantine when we moved to the Land with no idea about the future. We lived there for about four months then returned to our beloved Brooklyn home and have remained in partial lockdown with limited school and work. It has been a difficult situation but we have been lucky in many ways. From the beginning of this pandemic, we held great hope in the development of a vaccine that would end it; in January, we upgraded our president and began delivering doses to the elderly and essential and, within a year, Alaina and I have established pharmaceutical immunity. We celebrated with our first indoor dining experience and an Airbnb house on the Connecticut coast with friends!
I know this is not over and Covid will continue to wreak havoc around the world, but the relief of having protection is enormous and the prospect of building herd immunity through a rapidly progressing vaccination campaign brings hope that we can return to some semblance of a normal life soon.
This past year has been a drag; isolation and ennui as we waited for our paused life to resume. But there were aspects that I will remember fondly, especially expanded family time and a focus on creating music. Before the pandemic, my work schedule was essentially 9-6, leaving a little time in the evening and weekends for my true loves. My wife and children are my favorite people in the whole world and my time with them was sadly limited, but these days, as we work and study from home, I feel much more integrated in their lives. It has been a profound joy to spend this time with Ivy and Miles, watching them grow every day in their seventh and fifth years of life. I do occasionally find time to slip away from my family and make music in my studio, which has been an essential escape and meditation during this period. I have recorded many hours of new music, some of which is compiled in Supergood Shed Sessions, and even cleaned out the archives to post about 20 years of my back catalog on digital platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. In that sense, I would say that this year has been a fairly productive one despite the severe limitations. I feel fortunate to have a solo musical practice and pursuit that was able to continue unabated during this year of isolation. I hope that we can return to our pre-Covid patterns soon, but I also hope that I can continue to be more present in my family life and spend more time creating music than I might have before the day it all changed: March 14, 2020.