March 19, 2020

Lockdown Blog 2: Catching up on life!

The six of us consider ourselves very lucky to be able to do what we do and to have a consistently full concert calendar. Personally, I love to travel, to have music at the centre of my life, to be sociable and to keep busy, so being in TKS really is a dream job for me (if a tad extreme in all four of the above ways!).

However, now that all our touring work has been cancelled for at least the next couple of months, and possibly until the end of the summer (or beyond...), I feel I've oddly been gifted an opportunity to take a step back from the fast pace of my usual working life, and properly slow down for the first time since I joined the group in September 2014. An early sabbatical of sorts.

Thankfully, it's been going pretty well so far! Being forced to stay at home and get into an actual daily routine - albeit limited and confined - is a wonderful change from the usual constant travel and uprooting, and something of a novelty. It is enabling me to eat, sleep, exercise and work consistently, not to mention cook, clean and think! I've finally found the time to start sifting through that dusty heap of books and documents which has lain neglected since we moved house last year; our living room has never been tidier, and we're working on the bedroom... I've finally gotten round to practising the violin and piano regularly for the first time since school; and we've even started doing daily yoga, along with runs round the local park (making sure, of course, to keep two metres from anyone else).

Uncasing my violin for the first time in a while... Looks like I need to adjust the bridge and angle it more towards the chin rest, wouldn't you agree?
Excited to have the piano tuned for the first time since it arrived a couple of months ago from my parents' garage!

I'm not sure how long the novelty will last, nor how long we'll be able to survive on savings, but I'm doing my best to make the most of this bizarre and otherwise scary situation we find ourselves in, and constantly feeling grateful for the roof above our heads and that which others less fortunate don't have.

I'll leave you for now with a really helpful post I saw the other day on Facebook with the following advice for those of us who are self-isolating:

"1. Make a daily checklist, a mix of chores, simple home improvement, musical practice, but concrete daily activities that can be accomplished and checked off. Research has shown that 7 checklist items is an attainable number
2. Have a routine for the morning and get dressed every morning as if you were going out or to work
3. Organize your pantry and know what you have and what has expired. Also, prioritize foods and staples that you can stretch like flour, frozen meat and veggies, boxed milk, juice that doesn’t need to be refrigerated till open, and be sure any Tylenol or cold medicine you have isn’t expired
4. Plan one thing later in the day to look forward to, ex. Watch the Sound of Music and sing along at a volume where you’re getting happy endorphins, but the neighbors aren’t complaining
5. Check in with friends and family on the phone! This is so helpful and so important
6. Do light exercise, it doesn’t take a lot of floor space to do yoga or stretches
7. Tune into a live [worship] service broadcast, this kept me going to be able to worship online and stay connected.

I would add that it's also nice to change into athletic or casual clothes at the end of the "work day" to signal that it's time for fun, exercise, rest, making dinner, etc."

Stay healthy, one and all!