Last night, we had a movie date: dinner and “In The Heights” at the local Nitehawk Cinema. We have watched countless movies at home during the pandemic, but returning to a theater was monumental! Sharing the experience with strangers, laughing and cheering while being served delicious food and beverages, felt like a real return to the community that I love and missed over the past 15 months; I look forward to more concerts and theatre in the near future!
I have shifted into summer mode, with reduced work schedule and expanded travel plans. Vaccination rates are high and COVID levels are low, and while I know this is not over, it feels safe to see friends and family, which we have been doing as much as possible! We’ve made recent trips to Boston, Warwick, Bellport and Maine to share real physical space with temporarily estranged family, and we’ve attended a wedding, postponed for a year, to celebrate the love of our friends. It all feels good and important, maybe even more than it did in early 2020, before we constructed our protective social shields. Hopefully we can maintain this appreciation for freedom and social proximity as the virus fades from our communities and consciousness.
Music has always been a calming and reassuring presence in my life and while I love playing in classes at work or with friends in a band, I am grateful that I have been able to retreat to my studio and create alone. Improvisation is mediation and I am enraptured in the flow of spontaneous composition. During this period, I merged my audio process with a visual one, live-mixing personal video with extemporaneous musical production. It is an intimate self-portrait of my present sonic expression and past life experiences. It is Supergood Reality!