Picking Up the Pieces

I apologize in advance if this gets wordy. But this is the story of how COVID almost killed my hope. ALMOST. That’s the key word here. My Dad would say this story “goes around Shank’s barn” before it ties in with my choir program, but stay with me.

Let’s set the scene: on March 9, 2020, our choir department had just qualified all four high school ensembles for State Contest, and we were two days away from taking our top choir to the Music For All National Choir Festival. About a month prior, our a cappella group, Eleventh Hour, had performed at the state music education conference. We were riding high. Until COVID-19.

On March 10, the school district cancelled our MFA trip. March 13 was our last day of school before Spring Break. We didn’t return to the classroom in earnest until January 25, 2021.

My teacher friends all had different responses to the pandemic. Some immediately began learning how to edit video to produce virtual choir projects. Some reworked their curriculum to maximize learning over Zoom. I did a little of that. But to be honest, what I did the most was worry. You see, I’ve always had a touch of concern about health matters. I’m an asthmatic, and when the pandemic hit I was the heaviest I’d ever been. No one knew much about COVID in the early days, but doctors were pretty clear in announcing that people like me had a higher chance of difficulty.

Fear is a powerful motivator. I had previously worked with a trainer (erratically), so I got in touch and asked if we could make a real and substantive plan to make up for lost time. Over the course of the Summer and Fall, I lost 30 pounds. I started riding my Peloton regularly, and I actually used the weight set that had been gathering dust in my basement for a decade.

School was supposed to begin in August with live teaching. Towards the end of the summer, numbers spiked and we went remote for the first quarter. I had to hold a cappella auditions via Flipgrid. Second quarter was set to resume in a hybrid model, but after ONE DAY teaching live, I was quarantined due to a COVID exposure. Within two weeks, school made the decision to go back to remote for the rest of the semester.

At this point, I really felt defeated. The combination of isolated holidays and continued remote teaching crushed me. I fell off the diet wagon, but kept exercising. It didn’t matter. You can’t outrun your fork. I gained 40 pounds and was heavier than when I started!

Shortly after Christmas, my greatest fear materialized: I got COVID. My positive test came back on New Years’ Day. I was out of commission for three weeks. Thankfully, I never hit the hospital, but it was difficult. At long last, I went back to work on January 25. After a full semester of remote teaching, a quarantine, and actual COVID, I finally returned to live choir for the first time in 10 months. It was six-feet-apart-masked choir, but half a loaf is better than no bread!

Rehearsals were different. Students were different. Everything was awkward and quiet. Even my a cappella group, Eleventh Hour, struggled to find motivation and excitement. I asked them to open up about why the best singers (the rock stars) were struggling. They told me:

“After a while it felt like we’d never get to sing again, so I kind of just gave up”

“It’s been so long I forget what it’s like to do it.”

“I’ve had so many other things happening at my house, I can’t seem to connect to my art any more.”

I understood. I felt it. We all felt it. I told myself it would just take some time to get back into the swing of things. I turned my attention back to my health. I hadn’t exercised in a month due to extreme COVID fatigue. First time back at it - and I got a massive headache! Two days later I tried again - an even worse headache. Two days after that - I developed a low-grade headache that lasted for 7 days. My doctor took me off exercise for two weeks and put me on blood pressure meds.

By the time I was cleared to work out again, it had been 9 weeks. I was hesitant - worried that if I started lifting and got a headache, it would mean I was forever damaged by COVID. I got on the bench and put up the weight. First set done, and no headache. Then the second, then third. The next exercise. Then another. As the workout went on, my spirit changed from “I hope I can do this” to “don’t overdo it!” But I wanted to. I wanted to overdo it, and do it again. My body felt alive, and I cried real tears of relief.

I sat down in the afterglow of the workout and felt things I’ve never felt before. I was renewed. I had invested months in changing my approach to health, only to have it derailed. But COVID couldn’t turn the new me back into the old me. Time spent dormant couldn’t turn the new me back into the old me. Just one successful workout brought me fully back mentally, despite dropping back a bit physically. My brain shouted WHEN to drown out all the IF.

At that point, my hope caught fire. I realized that even ONE solid positive can light the fuse to bring back what once was. That includes my choir program! I knew with certainty that the more we get closer to “normal,” the chances of having that ONE revelatory experience will rise to 100%. COVID can’t permanently change what was. It will be again.

I have a LEGO set of the Las Vegas Strip on my desk (because I love Vegas). It’s fun to look at, but what was the most fun was building it. Seeing it come together, piece by piece, was full of rewards large and small. So let’s look on the bright side - our LEGO sets might have been broken, or even shattered apart, but the pieces are all still there. With care, time, and attention, they can be resorted and then rebuilt. We can choose to move from the frustration of the shattering to the joy of the build. No matter how down your program feels, how down you feel, how worn out this year has made you, think WHEN, not IF. WHEN you rebuild, it will be amazing. Again. You got this.