contributed photo

Since launching The Circle nearly six years ago, around 160 CLP alums have stepped in to share something. It is an honor and joy to help shape and edit the interviews and other pieces — each one thoughtful, wise, funny, interesting, aspirational and/or inspirational in its own way. (Please reach out to me if you’d like to consider your own post.)

As creative director & editor of The Circle, I also create posts, mostly focused on non-alum kindred spirits who align with CLP’s vision and values. Which is to say that I don’t usually include my own personal pieces. Sometimes we need to say the thing, and sometimes it’s more helpful to stay quiet. In fact, the only personal-perspective post before this one was the very first to launch the blog. (I figured if I was asking every CLP alum to consider co/creating a post, I should do the same.)

I decided to share this piece today for a few reasons. First, because my new song, “Italian Balconies,” carries so much of what I’ve been wrestling with during and since covid lockdown. Second, because the music video for it features numerous CLPeople. And third, because the writing of the song was inspired in part by Genevive Walker’s blog post and poem, “What if We Were Still.” In it, she writes about cultural and habitual busy-ness and the lockdown’s stillness:

During that time of confusion and fear, a hope swelled in me that we would learn something invaluable, unforgettable, transformational, and universal. I began to hope that we would not emerge without that learning; that we would become better because of what we had endured in our isolation and stillness. I hoped we would not squander this opportunity for revelation.

Amen.

I so clearly remember the exercise in Cohort 10 where we were each given five index cards and asked to write one of our top core values on each. At the time, I had no idea what to write. I looked around for clues. On my right, someone was writing “Love.” On my left, someone was writing “Family.” I thought, “oh, ok, I understand now.”

I wasn’t raised within any formal religious structures. This was sometimes counter-culturally confusing; moments in a church or synagogue when seemingly everyone (but me) knew what to do — stand, sit, respond, sing, recite a prayer — all in unison. It was also liberating in many ways, giving me the freedom to find my own ways into spirit and faith — including through music.

When I was in the values exercise in Cohort 10, I wondered if “being bad at” naming my values was connected to not experiencing much formal religion; maybe faith communities talk about explicit values more than I did(n’t).

Regardless, ever since that exercise, I think about my values regularly — they’re even written in orange marker on one of the dry-erase boards perched next to my desk. I tend towards Integrity, Contribution, Creativity, Health (of self, others, and the so-called natural world or environment), and Learning.

After I resigned myself to covid ‘lockdown,’ I prioritized learning (and basic coping, depending on the day). I wanted to honor the challenging, painful time as an invitation to find healthier ways of being. I wanted to respect the time and space away from “normal,” to progress — individually and hopefully, collectively. I prayed we wouldn’t squander the opportunity. I prayed I wouldn’t. If we were all going to suffer on that global scale, I wanted it to be in service of positive transformation.

‘Lockdown’ was a time of solitude for me, interspersed with intense online connections during and after live-streaming concerts from my home. Initially this was a (very) scary prospect. I’m a performer and an extrovert who enjoys connecting with people, and I’m also private and reserved in some ways. The idea of setting some kind of “stage” in my home and clicking a big, red *GO LIVE* button on a social media platform to immediately begin broadcasting to anyone who wanted to see and hear me there, was unsettling to say the least.

But I wanted to offer music as comfort and a connection point, and I needed to connect. I found a neutral-background corner, propped my laptop on a stack of books that was perched on a chair that was perched on a table — and hoped it didn’t all fall over. I aimed some lamps at awkward angles and hoped they didn’t fall over. I took a big deep breath (or 20) and clicked GO LIVE.

The first concert was a mess; but in March of 2020, open-hearted and honest won out over any production-value critiques (except for my own). Over the next year or so, I truly learned the power of music to connect — both as a performer, and as an online concert audience member. In March of 2021, a full year in, I hadn’t cried. At. All. I accidentally logged onto a livestream multi-artist concert, and heard Patty Larkin offering a song and lyric that went right through me. I finally sobbed all that was welled up behind my coping-armor and grief as she sang: “Who holds your hand when you’re alone?”

I kept lists during lockdown. What do I miss? What do I not miss? What do I want to let go of? What do I want to do differently? My intention was to move forward — if I made it through — smarter, stronger, happier, healthier. I was frustrated anytime I heard someone say “I can’t wait to go back to normal” — when normal was broken in so many ways. I thought, please let us not return to normal — let us instead choose progress towards healthier ways of being.

Stillness does not come naturally to me. Historically, my own physical stillness meant one of two things: either I was either behind the wheel of a (moving) car, or I was injured. But I eventually relished the lockdown’s forced stillness, the way it reduced options and simplified life and choices in many ways (and, I realize, deeply complicated them in other ways, especially for health care and essential workers, parents and teachers).

I read and edited Genevive’s “What if We Were Still” piece, and found it perched on my shoulder, repeating the title question: What if we were still?

What IF we were still? What if I were still? Am I still still? The sentiment sat there, asking if I had returned to any ‘normal’ ways that were not serving me, or those around me, or the planet.

One afternoon, I had a guitar in my hands and was watching the snow falling outside. Across from me, a newly-adopted five-year-old, one-eye, big grey cat was sleeping. (I re-named him Milo, not keeping the New Haven Animal Shelter’s name for him, Captain Jack Sparrow.) I started singing something new, the musical equivalent of doodling, and some words fell out, which eventually became:

Milo, see it snowing

We’re going nowhere

Quickly, Milo show me how to sit still

Been so busy doing things that all fools will

I was feeling the sadness of systemic brokenness, the pervasive (earned and unearned) mistrust, the suffering, injustice, climate change, demagogues and acolytes, mountains of plastic pollution in our oceans and ecosystems and bodies. Eventually, those feelings became these lyrics:

Every clock is broken

Everyone’s vertigo

Swimming in an everlasting plastic sideshow

(In full disclosure, the first draft was “everlasting plastic crap sideshow” and I was advised to omit the “crap.” Sound advice, always.)

Throughout lockdown, I was amazed and inspired by all the ways humans found connection in the isolation. Online chats, virtual family dinners, craft circles, workshops, book discussions, virtual movie nights, mentoring, games, concerts, on and on and on. In the moments we (and I) chose to not numb our loneliness, many of us remembered each other. We remembered — or learned — that we need each other. We appreciated and loved each other through so many creative avenues (remember that outdoor banging of pots and pans at a certain time every day?).

I was moved to my core by video footage from across Italy. All the people who, in the midst of the chaos and confusion and fear and grief, turned to their open windows and balconies to sing — to themselves, to each other, for each other, with each other. That eventually turned into these lyrics:

I miss the quiet of a quarantine

Any forest talking to the trees

Bridging all the lonely

Singing from Italian Balconies

(In the second chorus, we’re in Any forest listening to the trees.)

I was both saddened and moved by the responses to humanity’s relative quiet. It was stunning and inspiring to see all the ways we, and the animals and ecosystems around us, can heal when given the time, space and resources to do so. (Side note related recommendation: the Biggest little Farm movie.) Toxic air pollution and carbon emissions plummeted, animals were in spaces they’re normally scared or polluted out of:

Milo, remember lockdown

Dolphins swimming Istanbul and we could see the bluest sky

Over China for the first time

In such a long time

The many ways we tried to demonstrate to strangers and family members that we care:

Thank you signs on paper plates

Painted hearts on wooden crates

Hands against a windowpane

Showing how much love remains

All the protests against continued inhumanity and injustice, declaring once again that Black Lives Matter and vowing to keep the promises we made to ourselves and each other:

Remember when we said we’d never

Never go back, never go back

Remember when we said we’d never

Never, never forget

I recorded and released the song about a month ago, and also knew I wanted to produce a music video for it. I was determined to plant a flag in the sand of stillness and all that it can enable, energize, heal. As I reflected on who I wanted to invite, whose hands I felt comfortable putting the soul and spirit and meaning of the song into, I realized that in many ways, we CLP alums are on our own Italian balconies singing.

The director and I knew we wanted to film us simply being together, and also actively and authentically reflecting on the themes in the song. At one point, everyone on “set” at ConnCAT was journaling on the general prompt: What did you notice, learn, love, or want to hold onto from quarantine time… What do you miss?

We then asked a second prompt, and filmed each person writing their answer on a chalkboard — the list below includes some of them. What if we were still ___________:

Thinking of the vulnerable.

Listening to learn.

Loving.

Forgiving.

Singing.

Overcoming fear.

Listening to the rising sun.

Elevating one another.

Not sitting in traffic.

Turning towards each other.

Spending more time in nature.

Growth.

Love — Amor — Salva.

Slow. Small. Attentive.

Kinder.

Grateful.

What if we were still.

Find out more about Lara’s music at her website

To reach Lara directly: Lara@LaraHerscovitch.com

print