In A Far-Away Land...

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In A Far-Away Land...

You know how most fairytales begin by specifying that either the events of the story or the Prince/Princess live in a “Faraway Land”?

That’s us. All of us.

We are all the people in extraordinary circumstances living out strange stories in our own personal faraway lands. (Though I’m not sure if that take makes me feel better or worse about it…)

What we have at our disposal however, which the characters of the fairytales sorely lack, is a way to communicate between our faraway lands. A way to peek through small windows into the other peoples’ lives. A way to connect.

Is it as wonderful as being able to ride a steed or step through a portal and be fully immersed in another space?

No, certainly not.

But we do have this technology to give us an advantage. An advantage allowing for new and continued connection, friendship, and creation.

Today, I would like to share some of my quarantine connections, and how they’ve worked (or not worked).

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Must We Put On Pants?

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Must We Put On Pants?

Depending on where you are in the country, you may be on Shut-In Day 3 or Day 13. Here in NYC, it’s the latter.

And over the course of these days/weeks, we’ve all been making major shifts in our work lives as we try to figure out keeping ourselves at home while still making an income.

For some people, this shift to at-home and online work has been relatively simple - perhaps their type of work is done mostly online anyway, they’ve worked from home before, or an office just isn’t necessary.

But what about the rest of us?

Artists of all types - and particularly those whose work relies on in-person contact - are now isolated and unable to perform the tasks generally necessary to their craft.

So, how do we move forward with our work?

How do we make any sort of money?

And do we have to put on pants to do it?

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"Snow Day (A Day Off)"

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"Snow Day (A Day Off)"

As a high school student, I had a fairly constant refrain:

“We need a snow day. Give us a snow day. Please.”

Now, this was not me praying or placing a sock under my pillow or attempting to bewitch the skies to make storms appear, this was me on days when school should have been cancelled due to inclement weather even though it had not been.

Some context:

I grew up in Binghamton, NY where most of our snow came from major storms across the interior or from large Nor’easters. So when we had a big storm - even though we knew how to move snow well (it’s upstate NY after all) - we had a snow day.

In high school I moved to Rochester, NY, which sees more snow each year than Binghamton does, mostly due to constant lake effect snow. Because of this, Rochester (for some reason) prides itself on moving snow so well that there’s no reason to ever have a snow day.

Um. What?

Let’s even put aside the obvious fact that big snow storms or large amounts of black ice are dangerous and potentially life-threatening, especially when you have students driving themselves and their friends to school. There’s another big reason that Snow Days are crucial: Mental Health.

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