Creativity during Covid-19

We are nearing the 1 year anniversary of the creation of this blog and looking back I realize I have spent a large portion of a couple of the posts I have written apologizing for my absence or making promises that never fully came to fruition. Alas, such is the life of a man approaching his mid-20’s; creative projects often get pushed aside when that business called modern life must be attended to. This relates to the theme of this blog post as I actually have a pretty solid excuse for my recent 2 month absence from writing anything here. That excuse is the recent Covid-19 epidemic which brought the world into lock-down.

When I first heard of the virus I was busy attending a training course in Administrative Assistance, in my continuing effort to round out my CV. Everyday, articles would be published about the growing severity of the situation and naturally it had become the major talking point during coffee breaks. Then in early March it was announced that schools would be closing and we trainees were sent home. It was a strange thing to have all the plans you put in place suddenly upended (you know me, I like my plans) though as a whole I counted myself fortunate, when others were losing their jobs or students were having their terms cut in half. The question soon loomed over my head: what was I to do with myself? Fortunately my grand selection of hobbies and interests allowed me to keep my brain active and within the space of a few weeks we were even able to continue the training course remotely. However, I also found myself reflecting on what I could do to help people in some minor capacity during this uncertain and difficult time? I’m not a healthcare worker but maybe I could share some of the passions which were helping me on a daily basis with the wider community thanks to my social media connections. I have mentioned My Poem A Day project on a previous blog post, and after recording and sharing a reading of a W.B. Yeats poem on St. Patrick’s Day (the celebrations were understandably cancelled this year) I saw that the great actor Patrick Stewart had begun reading through Shakespeare’s sonnets and posting a new reading everyday on Facebook. This inspired me to follow suit, I would share the poems I was reading with my connections online. The initial videos, recorded in our kitchen using my IPad, were well received and encouraged by friends, I made this a ritual during the weeks of quarantine. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from the 23rd of March to the 18th of May I read a different poem and posted the video. By the end I had done readings from works of 7 poets over 26 videos. I was even asked to make one for one of my town’s pages.

Great art can be created in times of uncertainty but it can also be used as a source of comfort. While I was not writing as much as I would have liked to, I did continue reading, and made quite a dent in my ever growing “To Read” pile of novels. Most significantly I also picked up a musical instrument for the first time in years. I saw a news article about how people were making use of their time in quarantine by learning to play the delightful ukulele. For some reason this caught my attention and within 24 hours I was contacting our local music shop, that had started offering a home delivery service and bought a lovely wooden tenor uke. 4 weeks later I know over 4 chords and am in the process of learning some songs with the help of online instruction videos.

So what comes next? As of this post, lock-down restrictions are gradually beginning to ease, I am still completing assignments for my training course and am still plucking away at my 4-stringed little friend for at least half an hour everyday. This has been an unprecedented, world-altering and truly difficult time for countless people and I’m hardly the person to sum it up in a single blog post. This is merely my attempt at chronicling my experiences and how I managed to find comfort during a crisis through creativity and the arts that I have always loved.

For now I have to try to look to the future with hope. Isn’t that really what any of us can ever do?

Feature image: notepad and blue pen