How You Survive a Pandemic
When it rains — when the droplets bounce in the birdbath, off the pebble-strewn bed of pooling water, rippling outward in concentric circles, each drop disrupting the rings of its predecessor — and the cat watches from its perch on the paint-chipped dining room windowsill of the home we have rented for a decade, which is longer than I have ever lived in any home, city, or state, her calico back to the antique table that once decorated my husband’s grandparents’ Dallas home (though the chairs were replaced several months ago with a set we found in near-perfect condition one neighborhood over from our home, on the side of a narrow blacktop whose name changes every few blocks — is it Oak there? Or Verdugo? Or Clark? Yes, Clark, I think, until it reaches the Montessori daycare where I recently saw two friends, newly engaged, and their baby, three years old) and where I now sit shuffling papers scrawled with numbers of the month’s income, which is, again, not greater than the month’s bills, and strings of words — miracle, satirical, biblical, mythical, reciprocal — which feel as, if not more, important than the numbers, because, as an American friend, who I met in Boston in music school twenty years ago and who now lives in Spain, recently said on a Zoom call (a tesseract, the author Madeleine L’Engle would call it), “money is part of the cycle of giving and receiving,” and after the moving, the leaving, the disparate jobs and fragmented relationships, the onset of a global health and economic crisis, the cultural reckoning that is too late in coming and not yet resolved, a crisis at the Capital and in the very foundation of democracy, the frequent rain of Boston and imagined rain that I hope we receive in drought-stricken California, this I know: everything comes down to the symphony of sound, the embedded narratives of daily living,
and the spaces between.
And if a pandemic should overtake us again, or if some other disaster arrives, as it will, inevitably, because we live in an organic, temporal, and ever-changing world, one thing will never change as long as humans walk the Earth: the power of music and storytelling.
While the form might change, the fundamental truth does not.
And that is how you survive a pandemic.
~Arielle Silver
East Coast-born / West-Coast-based singer-songwriter Arielle Silver has the heart of Laurel Canyon and the soul of the Chelsea Hotel. A consummate storyteller, her rich, expressive voice and acoustic guitar frame expansive melodies that echo her tours and travels across the American heartland. After a decade hiatus, Arielle emerged with A Thousand Tiny Torches, her fourth album, which was ranked Americana Highways Reader’s Favorite Albums 2020 and has been recognized in the numerous prestigious songwriting contests, including International Songwriting Competition (ISC), Great American Song Contest, and Music City Song Star. Music Connection named her in their top ten 2020 “Top Prospects” and “Hot 100 Unsigned Artists,” writing, “Arielle Silver is a born communicator, an artist whose structured songwriting exudes intelligence and humanity. And the best part is, she’s also got a knack for catchy pop hooks and fun arrangements.” http://www.ariellesilver.com/
In an attempt to keep us connected as we continue to find our way through these often stressful times, some in our extended community have been sharing their experiences, lessons learned and hope as they’ve dealt with Covid, lockdown, boredom, lack of inspiration, etc. We are all looking for ways to make lemonade out of the many lemons! This column will continue on a weekly basis and postings will be released at 10 AM Pacific every Monday, so watch for them! For guidelines and submission details, please contact Julie Zipperer at juliez@far-west.org or Marlynn Block at marlynn@far-west.org. Submissions will be posted based on approval from the Lockdown Lemonade Committee.