Lockdown woes and the joy of our Kitchen Disco
WHEN lockdown first started, my husband Richard and I felt like most people. A bit freaked out, stressed by the heaviness of the news, discombobulated by the tilt our world was now on.
We’d started 2020 with a very full diary of gigs and overnight they were gone. Not only that, but our kids were suddenly off school and they were unnerved, too.
Meanwhile, online there were so many talented musicians performing songs, accompanying themselves on piano or guitar and sounding lovely. I had such a strong urge to do something fun and creative that we too could put out there.
Richard suggested we do a live gig on Instagram – the easiest platform without needing complicated streaming rights in order to transmit music live.
The first gig we streamed was pretty ridiculous. I put on a sparkly catsuit and I kept having to warn Richard, who was filming it, when he was about to walk backwards on to our crawling baby, who was only 14-months-old at the time.
I did my thing and shimmied about and embraced the absurdity, as did Richard, who joined me wearing an animal mask and playing on his Millennium Falcon bass (he’s the bass player in rock band The Feeling).
Afterwards, we wondered what the hell we’d just done. We’d always been pretty private about our home and we’d never put the kids’ faces out into the world, but in the midst of the pandemic and the whole world gone wonky, none of that felt important or relevant any more.
The desire to connect with folk, have some fun, alleviate some tension and distract ourselves won out.
Still, I was genuinely expecting a lot of ridicule. I was a 40-year-old woman in full sparkle singing pop songs surrounded by her offspring. I assumed people would make fun of me. But they didn’t.
I think the intensity of the news meant daftness was in short supply. Plus, who doesn’t love to dance around to let some of the stress go?
Also, the cartoony strangeness of the sequins and the sprogs was like a caricature of what so many people had been experiencing.
Music has always been our family’s way of flipping the script – to celebrate or dance about and be silly, to shake off tension or to make each other laugh. It doesn’t always work – I’m pretty sure all my kids will leave home relieved they won’t hear me singing around the house any more – but when it’s good, it’s great.
One friend said that when she saw our Kitchen Discos that I looked the happiest she’d ever seen me. Lockdown was downright awful sometimes and I shouted/raged/resented more than normal, but the discos have been pure joy and I hope the kids will look back on them fondly.
Strange times. But I have felt such enormous affection for all who’ve been over to our house, virtually. What a lovely community of dancing people.
I’m proud to be part of the party and it has reminded me yet again of the importance of joy for joy’s sake, and silliness and music as a tonic for the soul.