MUSIC, ART & FAITH

Sharing ways to stay strong and carry on while living in quarantine

- Jim Henman

It’s Saturday, March 29, 2020 and my wife, Suzanne, and I are starting our seventh day in quarantine in our apartment. It’s 6:30 a.m. and I’m up early as usual these days. We are trying to follow the quarantine protocol set up by the government.

I’m having my first coffee as I write this. I usually try to meditate for 20 minutes but not today as I want to get some thoughts down on our pandemic experience.

After being told to return home by our insurance company, we arrived from vacationing in warm Mexico last Saturday night, three weeks earlier than planned. We wore our masks at the Cancun airport and on the flight home to Halifax. We decided to follow the isolating guidelines and head straight home, not stopping anywhere. We are very grateful to one of our sons, who had bought groceries and left them at our door.

I am a musician/songwriter and Suzanne is a visual artist. All of my gigs have been cancelled, perhaps for the next six months, and any shows that Suzanne was to be part of have also been cancelled. It took the first part of the week for us to accept this blunt reality. Suzanne has decided to begin work on quite an ambitious art project, so I plan to take photos of it every day as she progresses. I will show her the photos when her work is completed.

A NEW REALITY

I just glanced out our studio window to see the great view of the Halifax Public Gardens in the early sunrise. The city looks a bit lonely with not one person or vehicle in sight. It’s very still out there in the dim light.