I think we can safely call it spring now, here in the UK. It’s the end of the first week of consistently decent weather in southwest England and the delicate sounds of afternoon birdsong fill the air. Birdsong is a beautiful sound, redolent of hope and renewal, but it is now tinged with some ambivalence. When I notice it these days, I am often reminded of that time where the nation collectively ‘noticed birdsong’: the lockdown of spring 2020.
It baffles me that it’s been half a decade since then. The dramatic upheavals of the coronavirus pandemic simultaneously seem like only yesterday and also function as a sort of societal watershed- albeit one we rarely look at face on. When a friend and I were recently trying to recall the dates of a particular TV show, we agreed it must have been ‘pre-Covid’, possibly chuckled at the odd shorthand, and then moved on fairly swiftly.
The upheavals of 2020 also precipitated a quiet but significant recalibration of what I actually wanted out of music- a bittersweet but perhaps necessary farewell to late nights playing guitar in the basement venues of London gastropubs, a slimming down of my piano student base to a more manageable number, and some significant upgrades to my writing studio setup.
That year- honestly, where to start? On a surface level it comes to me as this stream of pastoral images- a bluebell wood happened upon in the middle of a 4 hour walk. Dragonflies hovering over the stillness of the canal. Taking random offshoots from footpaths and realising they connected to other familiar places. A hazy evening walk back from the supermarket and then- suddenly- clapping all around me as it hits 8pm. Hard not to smile in those moments. Even that farcical press conference in the rose garden of Number 10 had this surreal, Forsterian languor to it.
Dig deeper and other things resurface. The continual echo of ambulance sirens. The monotony of back-to-back online lessons. Flickering creative inspiration. The ennui, the horror at those daily briefing numbers, the concern for vulnerable relatives or lonely friends. The novelty of a Zoom catchup quickly transitioning into a mildly upsetting chore. Checking spam for the link to an online funeral. The quiet despair at society’s gradual refragmentation after its hamfisted but heartwarming weeks of unity.
There’s always going to be a tension between the way we want to remember things and the way they were, and this contrast is especially stark when it comes to something as unprecedented as the pandemic 5 years ago. But one side of the experience doesn’t necessarily invalidate the other. It was an immensely complicated time and I find it hard to draw any life lessons or conclusions from either the good or the bad within it. Hopefully, as time continues to blunt the more difficult memories, there’ll be no need to do so.