I feel like I am in a seemingly endless boxing match. I am not losing yet, but there is no clear favorite either. I keep getting hit over and over, with no final round in sight. I often doubt that I can win when I am unable to even count on a final bell. But I also know that I cannot give up. If you have not already been able to discern my metaphor, it is simply a representation of my struggles with this pandemic-stricken world we now live in. Like everyone else, I remain in a perpetual state of uncertainty as to when it will all end and what other joys it will rob from my life.
The latest victim is one of my favorite places in this world. It is the one space I could employ as my refuge from life’s normal, pre-pandemic chaos, let alone the current landscape. It is, of course, Roy Thomson Hall, home to my beloved Toronto Symphony Orchestra. My wife and I have been season ticket holders for over twenty years now; so long that Friday night shows had become a normal part of life. With the madness that accompanies both of our demanding vocations came the need for something like this. Something so calming that it could help us effectively decompress to allow for proper entry into the two-day recovery period that occurs at the end of each of these five-day nightmares. The orchestra was it for us.
If you’ve never been to an orchestra hall and heard the beauty of unamplified art flowing through the air with a somehow aimless intention, then I am afraid you are missing one of the most magnificent gifts to this tiny blue planet on which we live. We have dragged doubting friends to the hall to experience what, I rather effortlessly consider magic, only to have them incessantly thank us for this enormously belated introduction.
I understand that I may have failed to convince some of you of the brilliance and wonder found while witnessing 100 distinctive devices coming together to create one seamless swish of splendor. And as I have done so many times as of late, I will concede this round as well. However, surely you have had something you adore as much stolen from you by this pandemic, and you can relate to the absolute and inconsolable feeling of abandonment you now have. Admit this much and you will then be able to understand my angst.
Empathy and sympathy for each other’s loss is all I ask. I understand that this in no way equates to the actual loss of a loved one that some are experiencing, and my heart of course breaks for those individuals. But I think it would do us all well to remember that people are also losing the things in life that bring them comfort. That help them cope in a normal world, let alone one victim to a pandemic stranglehold. Things that help them get to that next day and the day after that. If we all understood this about each person we encounter during our day, especially those who were alone before this all started, then we can at least begin to return some semblance of beauty back to our lives and to those around us. If we can just do this, then we can get through this.
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