3/16/2021 After One Year of COVID-19

Content Warning: There is brief mention of suicide in this post.

It is fascinating to think that about a year ago, I had left the NW ACDA Convention with such optimism for the near future, not knowing what would be coming the very next week. As we cross the line of one year since the shutdowns began, I am taking this opportunity to reflect on the year; what has happened in my own life, what I’ve lost, what I’ve gained, and what I plan to do going forward.

Of course, one cannot consider the past year without considering the loss of life. I’ve been fortunate not to lose anyone to COVID-19 specifically, but unfortunately, I have lost people whom I’ve cared deeply for by other causes, some of which may have been avoidable if not for the overcrowding of hospitals attempting to deal with the chaos that the pandemic created. Just between March and April of 2020, I lost a former student, a former teacher, and a former classmate. In the fall, I lost another former classmate, and this past February, I lost my grandfather. Of these losses, two were due to expected medical issues, two to unpredictable accidents, and one to suicide. Needless to say, coupled with the anxiety induced by the pandemic, it has been a year of intense grief and difficult mental health for me.

I now turn my mind to what I have gained over the past year, and my spirit is able to lift a bit. In moving to Los Angeles and beginning my studies at the University of Southern California, I have gained a collection of colleagues that I deeply respect, and among them, despite having either met them only once in person, or not at all, new friends whom I have come to love each in their own right. I have gained the mentorship of my new professors, and I am steadily building upon the wisdom that they impart to me daily. I have gained new purpose in my composition, and have been more prolific this past year than in any of my years prior. Looking back on my works since beginning at USC, I notice that they, in different ways, have each sought to provide some manner of solace. The Second Coming is a cathartic work to allow myself and others to express the fears and anxieties that we experienced over the summer, An Actor’s Elegy is a piece that allowed myself and others to grieve for the friend and mentor we had lost, even Puzzles from Wonderland sought to just bring a little levity about, as it had been such a trying year. I intend to create more works that can provide some comfort to those that hear them. I am consumed with a particular project at the moment that is more of a personal curiosity - more on this later - but my mind is swimming with ideas for what may follow.

Over the next few days will be the National ACDA Conference, which I see as bookending this first year of great transition, as it was the regional ACDA Conference last year that began it for me. As I look back at the year that was, I find myself wondering about the year that will come. I have cautious optimism about the possibility of being vaccinated before the end of the summer, with the hope that I may be able to spend more time face-to-face with my new colleagues and friends in the coming fall. I find trepidation at these next few months, as I know how easily some will forget the seriousness of the pandemic because people are beginning to be vaccinated, and a year has passed, which will no doubt desensitize some to the tragedy it can inflict (and already has). Most of all, I find myself motivated to grow more, learn more, do more, in order to be more of the person and the artist that I wish to be. It will be an interesting year, no doubt.

I’ve been reflecting on my cycle of yesteryear, Some Blessed Hope; three Victorian-era poems that deal with themes of winter, grief, and hope. I find each of those texts to hit me differently now this year than they did at the time when I set them, at which point my focus on mental health came from a different perspective. The beauty of these poems is in their applicability to all suffering, grief, and darkness. Unfortunately, the set was completed just before the pandemic hit in earnest, and has not been performed as a full set yet. Perhaps one day, I will have the chance to hear them together in live voices.