The Coronavirus: An Organist’s View from the Inside

Around this time last year, I sat at the bench of the organ at La Chapelle Royale in Versailles, France; this year, I sit at a bench in my living room playing a disembodied pedalboard that doesn’t make sound.

For me, like it has been for everyone living in New York State, the last few months have been a challenge. Simple events like socializing over coffee or dinner outings seem like a distant memory. Hockey season ended early, and the idea of sharing a communal bowl of popcorn at my aunt’s house seems almost scandalous now. Almost everyone I know has had at least one of their relationships strained by the fallout of the coronavirus. While I hear stories of generosity and selflessness, I also read about increased racism against Asian Americans, the disproportionate effect the virus has had on Black Americans, and the continuation (escalation?) of a seemingly endless culture war.

Many of us have found ways to imbue our new normal with meaning. From my couch I have seen car parades for neighbors’ birthdays, and I have taken part in the now obligatory “Zoom happy hour”—add the word “Zoom” to just about anything and someone, somewhere has done it. I participated in a “virtual graduation” for completing my doctorate. It wasn’t the occasion I had been anticipating, but family and friends made it meaningful. I’ve done a few things in-person, but the necessary planning and precautions make it a hassle. Now, whenever I hear from a friend who had some sort of in-person event, they are swift to qualify that “we were socially distanced, of course!” ...as if I was going to call some sort of distancing police force.

But this all seems meaningless in the face of unfathomable suffering, loss, and death. At this point, more than 100,000 people in the United States alone have died from the coronavirus.

I write from an immense place of privilege. Millions of people have had to go to work; millions of people continue to put themselves and their families in danger every, single, day. All I had to do was adjust my teaching to accommodate an online format, and I grumble about having to practice at home. I find the back and forth conversations online about the “some of [insert historical figure]’s best work came from when they were essentially in quarantine” versus the “it’s ok not to be productive when you’ve undergone trauma” to be utterly exhausting—not because those arguments don’t matter, but because they do. It’s ok to embody either one of those axioms, or both, or neither.

Organ itself is an instrument of privilege because to play one, we need to have the “keys of the kingdom,” the literal and figurative keys to an institution where there is an organ. When this is over, I want this all to have meant something. I want to remember the people who have died, and I want to honor the people who have worked so hard through this crisis. I want to have learned something. I want to share joy. When this is over, I will use my “keys” to bring the organ to new people, new audiences, and I will do something worthwhile.

In the meantime, maybe I can set up that pedalboard out in the garden?