The Checklist for 2020-21

Ever been lost in the fog? Felt that panic rise up into your chest and throat as you lose sight of the horizon, sense of direction, and orientation? You can look at your compass or GPS tracker for help, but the feeling of unease is always present. As a person and a director of a nonprofit organization, I carry that same sense of foggy anxiety in the face of the harsh reality of the COVID19 world order. Despite the desire to have things go back to normal – to hope the sun will come out tomorrow and burn the fog away – I am certain things will not go this way. Not sure it can. So I accept that I have to find a new path forward, even though I can only see one foot in front of me. I put one foot forward, and fight the urge to look behind me because I don’t know what and where that is anymore. No physical reconstruction plans are possible as it only exists in my memories as an idea, continuously mutated by time. The fog has devoured its stability as something real. Life in COVID times is this fog and it demonstrates itself to be unpredictable, disorienting, ever-changing, and unstable. A blessing? Maybe…

In March, like many, I began my COVID hermitage and took advantage of that time to hide, hibernate, meditate, and take online courses. I tried to fill up this vast emptiness with a routine and a rhythm I could follow. I used little mental mantras when anxiety would start to crawl its way up into my head; I’d say things like nothing lasts forever, this too shall pass, and on those dark, cynical days adapt or die!

Over the following months, I crawled out from under the covers and found some new “mantras” that morphed themselves into checklists. I kept them handy as I thought about Back to the Beat in COVID times and the kinds of programs I wanted to offer. One of these checklists came from Grace Lichtenstein’s book “Inside Real Estate: The Complete Guide to Buying and Selling Your Home, Co-Op, or Condominium.” It has made the instagram/facebook rounds with beautiful, soothing colors and backgrounds with the quote being attributed to “unknown.” But it had more meaning to me when I found that it wasn’t from an enlightened, half-starved sage sitting at the top of some inaccessible, oxygen-deprived mountain peak. The quote was and still is practical advice that lends itself to some essential, sometimes uncomfortable, self-examination points for any nonprofit organization that hopes to serve and inspire its community. It is like the biblical commandments of what thou should and should not do as a nonprofit.

“Work for a cause, not applause. Live to express, not impress.”

So many self-inflicted roadblocks came up when I felt as if no one understood what Back to the Beat had to offer, or they didn’t take it seriously. Sometimes the frustration built up and I ‘let loose the dogs of war,’ plowing ahead to prove and validate the work. However, I discovered (as many before me have) you can’t change another person’s perspective in a single effort, no matter how dramatic, fiery, and bridge-burning it sets itself to be. That tack tends to lead to plain old burn-out. So, if I find myself lying face down on the floor, I make an effort to ask my smushed self: is this about my ego, or is this fulfilling a need?

Don’t strive to make your presence noticed, just make your absence felt.

Music and art are meant to be integrative, not a replacement/substitution for ongoing wellness approaches. When I began meeting with potential partnering groups, that’s one thing I needed to retool or reconceive: Back to the Beat is meant to supplement and integrate with existing programs and projects. It is meant to help individuals rediscover, reconnect to their own inner music and art – their own creative soundtrack. The “absence” of us means healing has begun, is ongoing, and on its way…

At a time when communities are starting to get swallowed up by a kind of fog and broken down by the elements, nonprofits need to focus more on how they can help to repair damage, restrengthen or simply heal the communities where they find themselves. That is how we will not only survive an uncertain future, but continue and thrive as the community heals. It is our time to take on the challenges and to look beyond self-contained survival.

In scientia veritas, in are honestas