What a difference a year makes. 14/11/20.
What a difference a year makes
With Christmas approaching and a New Year on the horizon, I have recently found myself daydreaming about life before the COVID-19 Lockdown of March 2020, and more specifically, about blissfully ignorant Rebecca. Let’s call her, Rebecca version 1.0.
Her half music student, half freelancer lifestyle was uninhibited by the social anxiety that comes from constantly maintaining 2-meter rules, mask-wearing, and almost professional levels of crowd avoidance. She didn’t know what a Zoom meeting was, she didn’t think twice about which way round a shop she walked and sitting next to a complete stranger on public transport wasn’t taboo. Her life was moving and changing- no time to stop, no need to stop, why should she?
However, I now exist as Rebecca Version 2.0, a woman who knows the reality that has been 2020 and the effects of the Coronavirus in the world she lives in. The ‘upgrades’ we all experienced in becoming different people were dramatic ones, forced upon us back in March within an astounding month where each day was a new and scary motion towards a national Lockdown. Therefore, I find myself wondering... what would have happened if I’d continued living the life of Rebecca Version 1.0? It’s like she's either frozen in time or is perhaps living in a parallel universe where Coronavirus doesn’t and never came to exist. And if that’s the case, what is she doing now? What became of her in that other version of the world? What has she learnt, experienced, done with her 2020, and is it everything she expected, different, worse, or better? Also- how has a lack of Coronavirus not affected the world she lives in? Is Trump re-elected, does the Black Lives Matter movement occur, is Brexit worse or better, what’s on the news for the rest of 2020, and are masks still just something worn by surgeons in the operating theatre?
Of course, no matter how hard I daydream, these questions cannot be answered. I can’t live Rebecca 1.0’s life. I can’t visit this other universe and live vicariously through old me. I can’t know what would have happened if nothing had happened.
So, sitting on my sofa in Lockdown Number Two on daydream number 1459 (a rough estimate), I’m finding the memory of Rebecca 1.0 and what the world looked like beyond her unmasked face drifting further away into the distance.
This also means that at the grand old age of just-turned-24, I now think I understand the bittersweet feeling of nostalgia. It sits on my palate with a comforting warmth, however, is accompanied by a hard to swallow aftertaste of loss and fading memory. The interesting thing about this new feeling is how deeply and unequivocally it has affected my relationship with music.
It is as if before March 2020 music's deeper purpose was both ethereal and inconsistent, showing its magnitude in brief gaps of my busy, early 20-something music student lifestyle, where restlessness and a search for purpose define the slight panic you feel beneath your daily decisions.
My lockdown life was amazingly lucky. The media throughout those first few weeks was a constant reminder of how privileged I was; my job and my garden became a luxury, as the stories of so many already negatively impacted by the Coronavirus filled our screens. As my loved ones and I took in the dramatic events around us, I found my gratitude for the cards I’ve been dealt increasing by the day, as did my emotional connection to music. Suddenly, Ludwig’s recording of Mahler’s ‘Ruckert Lieder’ left me in tears from the first note, Puccini’s ‘La Bohème’ with Mimi’s joy at seeing a flower bloom despite her illness made more sense than ever and Judy Garland’s ability to reflect the feeling of lost love with simply her voice was overwhelmingly powerful. As the seasons changed, so did my understanding of the humbling power of music, gradually crafting the calmer, more grateful Rebecca Version 2.0 that exists today.
For Rebecca Version 2.0, the drive she applied to her career is now less important than simply appreciating what music can do. In this year of chaos, music has allowed so many the space to reflect on what has happened and what matters when the world just stops. It has been the soundtrack for our at-home workouts, the accompaniment to a family sing-along, the reminder of a time when we danced with our friends, or even just a calm moment in a day as we close our eyes and let sound and nostalgia take us somewhere else.
Therefore, as we look at an uncertain 2021, it is now more than ever that we need music’s ability to lift and empower the human mind. Whether that’s the growth and compassion it's given young performers like me, or the moments of comfort and joy it's given to those who have had the hardest year of their lives- music is needed. So, Rebecca Version 1.0, I miss you, but I will never be you- and that’s fine by me.
