Washing hands

by

Waltzing With COVID-19

Three and a half years ago the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID had become a public health emergency.

Image by Miroslava Chrienova from Pixabay. 

Six weeks later, it grew into a pandemic — from which many of us are still recovering…

However, the WHO recently announced that COVID-19 no longer qualifies as a global emergency.

This is good news.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

Apparently deaths from COVID are at their lowest point since the early days of the coronavirus outbreak.

This is also good news.

However, a lot of people are still continuing to die here in our Not-So-United States of America.

Last night I ordered a pizza and salad from a nearby restaurant, and after I picked it up, a woman waiting outside congratulated me on wearing a face mask.

She, too, was wearing a mask and told me in no uncertain terms that our COVID challenges are not over yet.

In fact, the 40-year-old son of one of her friends had just died from COVID.

Another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

Image by David Mark from Pixabay. 

In 2023, the USA COVID death toll has averaged 150 people per day

Although this is a decline from a peak death toll of 2,500 human beings per day in early 2022, 150 per day still feels like a lot of people dying to me!

And all around the world, people continue to die — one every three minutes — “and that’s just the deaths we know about,” says WHO director general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “COVID-19 is (not) over as a global health threat.”

Yet another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

I wrote the song in the player at the beginning of this blog post during the first year of the pandemic.

I was inspired — in part — by the months-long hospitalization of a fellow singer who was on a ventilator for a very, very long time.

Amazingly enough he has managed to recover — and resume singing!

Image by Bruno /Germany from Pixabay.

He was cared for by a team of truly courageous nurses, doctors, and support staff who came to work day-in and day-out while most of us were sheltering in place at home.

I bore witness to the dedication and patience of many nurses, doctors and support staff during this time because — exactly as COVID was entering our lives — I was diagnosed with an obscure medical condition called PGNMID.

As the COVID epidemic grew worse and worse, I met with specialists at several hospitals, underwent kidney and bone marrow biopsies. and ended up being given three rounds of six-month-long-treatments — chemotherapy+immunotherapy+steroids the first time, a new immunotherapy drug the second time, and an even newer experimental immunotherapy drug the third time.

I appear to be responding well to the latest round of treatments — and may write more about this experience in a future blog post.

I mention it now because I saw firsthand — on a weekly basis — the brave and loving response of the medical community during that horrible time.

Image by Bianca from Pixabay.

Recently another musical acquaintance shared with me that she stopped working as a nurse a year ago so that she could begin to recover from the stress and trauma of being a nurse during the COVID pandemic.

I know she is not alone…

Another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

It’s easy to forget — or ignore — the reality that most of the people who have died due to COVID were connected to a web of caregivers, family and friends who are now grieving their loss.

Deep sigh…

Millions of human beings around our planet — myself included — are now struggling to regain their hopefulness, their sense of connectedness with others, their equilibrium, their sense of purpose, and their mental health after being in survival mode for the past few years.

And some folks are also struggling with mysterious, lingering health challenges after being infected with COVID.

A recent interview on Fresh Air with a neuropsychologist named James Jackson reminded me that there are millions of people here on planet earth who continue to experience a wide variety of debilitating symptoms due to their COVID infection — the “long-haulers.”

As the Fresh Air webpage explains, these folks “struggle to remember things, perform basic tasks and solve problems” — which can lead “to a loss of employment, income, and important relationships.”

Yet another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

Jackson has written a book called Clearing The Fog — From Surviving to Thriving with Long COVID.

I am rooting for all of the COVID long haulers!

I have so many thoughts and feelings about COVID — as I am sure you do, too.

Maybe you will be moved to share a little of what you are feeling and thinking these days about the impact of COVID on our lives in a comment at the end of this blog post.

Image by Lars Nissen from Pixabay.

Part of me was tempted when writing this blog post to share a list of the high-profile folks — such as former presidential candidate Herman Cain — who downplayed or actively denied the significance of the COVID virus… and then ended up dying from it.

However, that seemed too disrespectful and schadenfreudey.

I did stumble across an interview earlier this year with a former Republican senator from Oklahoma — Jim Inhofe — in the Tulsa World, in which he explains that one of the reasons he retired was long-term COVID-19 complications.

At the time of his retirement, he said that he had tested positive for “a very mild case” of COVID-19.

But in this interview he admits that it has been much more serious.

And according to Inhofe, “Five or six others have (long COVID), but I’m the only one who admits it.” 

Yikes!

I think he is referring to other US senators… but maybe he means members of Congress overall?

He also says: “I try to be careful, but I have to be reminded to do things like wash my hands. I have to do things I’m not used to and that’s difficult sometimes.”

I agree.

It can be VERY difficult for us to change our longtime habits and mindsets and patterns of behavior.

Apparently Inhofe has also been an outspoken climate science denier for decades — and we shall see how that ends up affecting him…and his family…and his former constituents…and all of the rest of the web of life here on planet earth in the upcoming days and weeks and months and years!

I think it’s been pretty hot in Oklahoma in recent weeks…

One final deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

Thank YOU for reading and listening to another one of my blog posts.

I am always surprised and heartened to check my WordPress stats and see that people continue to visit my blog even when I haven’t posted anything new in many weeks.

Thank you to all of my visitors!

And thank you to Pixabay for their wonderful and generous photographers.

Graphic design by Stephen C. Fischer.

And thank you to Doug Hammer for playing his Schimmel grand piano so poignantly AND for helping me to mix/master “Waltzing With COVID-19” via many Zoom sessions during the past two years.

If you are curious to hear more music, you can find me singing — with Doug Hammer playing piano — on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, YouTube and other streaming platforms.

And you can listen to “Waltzing With COVID-19” on your favorite streaming platform by clicking here.

Any song you “like” or “heart” or add to a playlist will improve the algorithmic activity of my music there!

Image by Leo from Pixabay. 

I am going to continue to wear a mask whenever I am inside a movie theater or a bus or a subway or a friend’s car (if the windows are rolled up) or a friend’s home or an office or a hospital or a retirement community.

This is a simple way we can continue to respect and care for each other.

One more deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

by

The Parting Glass

Well, 2020 has come to a close…

How are you feeling?

How about a beloved Scottish/Irish song which — I have read — is often sung at the end of a gathering of friends (in the player at the beginning of this blog post)?

That’s what the WordPress blogging community has felt like to me this year — a much-needed and much-appreciated gathering of friends.

I toast you one and all!

Looking back on the past year, I see that my response to Covid-19 entering our lives has been two-fold.

Both involved connecting with other human beings via music and stories.

My first response was to lead nightly half-hour sing-alongs via Facebook Live (which I had reluctantly learned how to use for my Music Together classes).

These sing-alongs lasted for several months and consisted of one Broadway song, one Beatles song, one original song, and a few favorites from the pop/rock/folk canon per night.

I also looked up the history of each song and shared a brief story about how they each came to be written.

A small community of singers/listeners — for whom I am very grateful — developed around these nightly sing-alongs.

I was also very grateful to have a daily musical goal — selecting, researching and practicing a short set of songs to share each evening.

Since all of my public gigs at libraries, retirement communities, synagogues, coffee houses, etc. were cancelled, these nightly sing-alongs gave my life some structure and meaning — and an uplifting sense of connection with other human beings.

Thank you to all of my Facebook sing-along friends and relations!

Then it was time for my summer camping sojourn on Cape Cod — which is also when I focus on writing new songs.

The sing-alongs stopped, and when I returned from the Cape, I shifted my focus to learning how to release music via digital music platforms… and to blogging.

I hadn’t written a blog post since March — but began again in September.

Like the sing-alongs, blogging is a way to connect with other music-loving human beings while sharing some of my thoughts and feelings about what is happening here on planet earth.

Thank you to anyone and everyone who devoted a precious few minutes of their lives to reading one of my blog posts this year.

And thank you to those who composed their thoughts and wrote a comment, too!

I have been honored to see the total numbers of visitors and page views continue to rise each month.

Pianist Doug Hammer and I recorded “The Parting Glass” a couple of years ago when I was learning a bunch of Irish-related songs for an hour-long musical program in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.

It uses the same tune as another song called “Sweet Coothill Town,” which is about emigrating from Ireland to America.

Doug and I have been excavating the past 20+ years of our musical collaboration — almost all of which was recorded so that I could have piano tracks with which to practice/learn new songs — in order to find music gems we can polish and share.

I am very grateful for Doug’s gifts at the piano keyboard as well as his gifts as an engineer and audio archivist.

Let us hum along in honor of the end of 2020 and all that we have lost — which may include friends, family, and other beloved members of our community as well as many ways of being in the world (going to the movies, eating in a restaurant, attending a sports event, etc. etc. etc.) which we might have previously taken for granted…

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

I look at our human response to the challenge of Covid-19 as a preview of our human response to the even more enormous, profound, and far-reaching challenge of climate change.

Who will listen to our scientific community?

Who will remain in denial?

Who will be willing to change DEEPLY ingrained assumptions and habits and hopes and dreams — about how often we travel, about how large our houses can be, about how many cars we own, about how fast and far we can drive, about what we eat, about how we use water, about how much electricity we use to write and read blog posts, and on and on and on — in the days and weeks and months and years ahead?

As the father of one of my friends used to say, “The jury is still out…”

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

Thank you to Doug Hammer for his ongoing presence in my musical life here on planet earth.

Thank you to the wonderful photographers at Pixabay for their beautiful images.

And thank YOU for reading and listening to my last blog post of 2020.

May continued hand-washing, continued mask-wearing, continued social distancing, and much-needed vaccines allow us to return to some sort of new, post-pandemic way of life in 2021.

If you are curious to hear more music, I’ve released a couple of songs in the past week.

You can click here to listen to the Frank Loesser classic — “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”

And you can click here to listen to Irving Berlin’s beloved “Count Your Blessings.”

Now I will end with a lovely dog-themed image that I found on Pixabay.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

A happy and healthy new year to you and yours!!!

ps: You are always welcome to visit my website, and you can find me on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music and other digital music platforms.

by

The Ebb and Flow

Image by günter from Pixabay

Autumn is arriving here in Boston, MA.

Summer is ebbing, and cooler air is flowing into our neighborhood.

In the morning I sit on our back porch, wearing a hoodie until the sun warms everything up.

I listen for sounds from the natural world — today, a blue jay — competing with the sound of cars and buses and trucks and motorcycles nearby.

And I happily remember my time last month camping in North Truro on the Cape and next to Cayuga Lake in upstate New York.

I find camping to be a terrific reminder of many important things.

For example, how little water one needs to wash dishes.

Image by 国明 李 from Pixabay

Or wash one’s hands.

Or take a shower.

The campground has communal cabins with sinks and toilets and showers, but the sinks have taps which automatically shut off after about three seconds — a simple and very effective reminder to use water more mindfully — and the showers are activated by quarters (25 cents for three minutes of hot water).

And in upstate New York I simply jumped — except for the times when my feisty nephew Ryder pushed me — into the lake each morning and then scrubbed with Dr. Bronner’s soap and a washcloth.

We had no radio, no TV, and no internet.

Image by Mickey Estes from Pixabay

We awoke early — due to birds singing their morning calls — and went to bed early, too.

Sometimes we all sang together after dinner — songs written by the Beatles being the most popular…

I wrote new songs for most of each day — happily holed up on the boathouse or in a tent with my ukulele and laptop computer and rhyming dictionary — and then joined other family members for a swim in the late afternoon.

One of the most powerful part of camping for me is being reminded of the ebb and flow of life.

We see it at the beach.

The waves flow in and out at the water’s edge.

Image by marco bubbio from Pixabay

The tide rises and falls, sweeping the ocean shore clean of footprints twice a day — while revealing (and later concealing) sand bars, rocks, shells, crabs, sea weed, drift wood, and tiny jumping sand fleas.

Back at our campground, we see neighboring tent sites fill with new arrivals and then empty out at the end of each week.

What was once a colorful array of tents and campers and cars and coolers and towels and bikes returns to being a community of pine trees, squirrels, golden finches, blueberry bushes and open air.

I find it a very poignant reminder of mortality — my own as well as the mortality of all the people and places and animals and plants I love here on planet earth.

Image by Peggychoucair from Pixabay

This feeling of mortality seeped into a song I wrote, “Under My Umbrella,” which is embedded at the top of the page.

It seems to fit with the days getting shorter as we approach the autumnal equinox.

Deep breath in.

Deep breathe out.

Thanks for reading…and listening.