The Final Word with Senior Correspondent, Helena, U6
On Coping:
The Pandemic and Fear
There’s something deeply disconcerting about this time. Not knowing when or if I will go to university come autumn. Not knowing how long this lockdown will last or when the next time I will get to see friends or family will be. I will even have spent my 18th birthday in lockdown. The lack of normality has got to me. I have never really seen myself as a person who relies on a sense of routine but with the ever-changing chaos these are the things I have begun to cling to. Normality comes with reading, listening to music, walking through familiar parts of town that are no longer familiar because nobody is there. And that’s the problem. Even the things that should be normal are no longer normal. The city is silent, nobody’s around. It’s as much of a ghost town as the villages in the Westerns I love to watch. The silence is uncomfortable, the centre of Edinburgh is usually noisy and bustling; filled with people all pushing past each other to get where they need to go, but no more. The only thing really getting me through this is music. Not the music I typically listen to but nostalgic tunes that I recognise from my younger childhood; reminding me of happier times when I wasn’t so stressed about finishing school, university plans and my grandmother in a care home. Pop music has made more of an appearance than usual but so has music from the 60’s and 70’s - the music my parents played that they remembered from their own childhood and the music I remember from mine. There is something about 60’s and 70’s music in particular that is so comforting and homely; even songs I don’t recognise still feel safe and warm because of the melodies and almost tinny quality of some of it. In an attempt to escape the fears and anxieties that can be all-consuming in a period as fraught as this, I have rediscovered old favourites. I have reread some of my favourite books and revisited all the albums and musicals I listened to when I was first getting into music and musicals properly. I have found myself listening to the Newsies soundtrack too many times for it to be entirely normal and understanding the lyrics of Jason Isbell in a way that I could never before. This escapism has allowed me to leave the fear and anxiety behind even for a moment and find hope and an ability to carry on. I have gained a new appreciation for the music I have loved for so long and gained an ability to contextualise it within my life. Jason Isbell’s ‘24 Frames’ comes to mind here. Whilst previously ‘24 Frames’ seemed like it had no relevance in my life and was merely a reflection of the singer, it feels pertinent now that normal life has in effect gone ‘up in flames in 24 frames’.1 Whilst Isbell is singing about the disintegration of his relationships due to life on the road, he also holds up a mirror to the listener forcing them to see the disintegration of their own relationships - a feat that is somewhat more present now due to being locked inside and only seeing each other at a two metre distance. Every time I hear it now, I feel a desire to call friends and family for a chat and to catch up - something that I never really felt before this pandemic. This has brought me great joy and again has acted as a means of escaping the emotions and fears that this pandemic has birthed inside of me. 1.
Here 24 Frames refers to the speed at which film reels spins. It is essentially equivalent to the blink of an eye.
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