Last Year This Day Was A Thursday

March 12, 2020, was the last in-person meeting of my live sound class at the Ocean campus of City College of San Francisco in the BEMA department. It was our midterm week and we all gathered in Studio A to discuss next steps of taking the class online (remote) so that we could all Shelter-In-Place. Most of the students had completed the hands-on competency requiring them to wire up our audio rack in the dark with a flashlight (just like we do as professionals at live shows all the time). I gave the midterm review and we all bid each other “adieu.” Off we went to a life homebound for a length of time we had no clue.

It’s a year later. I moved. I needed to get away from something bad. Now I’m into something good. So good. So, I must do a little reminiscing and reflection on what this past year and the few months leading up to it bring to my heart, mind, and soul. There are many things I miss, just as you. I thought I might pay a little homage to it in pictures:

November 2019 – February 2020 – Audio Events with Students

Nov. 2019 Music Expo SoundGirls Tech Team

Students in 3D and then suddenly not. We ended up in a visual grid with each other for the entire past year–a Hollywood Squares on steroids, but tonight and this weekend, I’m remembering us all working together with skin, muscle, and bones in the game.

Swimming in the Bay Saved Us So Many Times

Dana and Jody getting away from the homestead

Swimming the Bay is the most intense soul cleanse. To get your mojo on enough to dive into that cold Bay and swim out fast to warm up, then turn around and tread the current to take in the iconic beauty of SF: Ghirardelli Square towering sign, Coit Tower, TransAmerica Pyramid, dozens of apartments and homes, and beautiful Aquatic Park. One day in June 2020, I looked up as we swam and I stopped immediately. The Ghirardelli sign was GONE! OMG! Were they going under due to this blasted pandemic? My heart pounded in wonderment beyond the pounding of the cold. We discovered later that it was taken down for a rebuild. It took 4 months and then was BACK in September!

Birds, Birds, and MORE Birds!

I spent a good part of every day during this pandemic watching my avian buddies and felt supercharged by their soaring wings and sonorous voices singing, chittering, chirping, and tweeting. They uplifted me every day. The first time I filled this first feeder I incorrectly added a red food coloring to the water. THEN, read to NOT use it so I immediately dumped it and started over, but the bulb was stained forever after. (I ended up with THREE different feeders spaced across my balcony since Herm decided that the Sugar Shack was all for Herm.) That little bugger then flew up about 50-yards away to the electrical lines and would hang out ready to chase any other Hummingbirds who dared to sip out of any of the 3 feeders. What a little territorial piggy! Tessa, the Townsend Warbler, who visited daily didn’t take to Herm’s display of attack and just shined Herm and kept sipping little bits out of the one hole that didn’t have a daisy covering, so she could get to the water.

Dana Masked

One of my first decorative mask purchases – it’s an analog SYNTH mask!

Dana and Jody in Lacey’s Homemade Masks en route back from a swim

Walk at Ocean Beach with Yoriko’s Homemade Mask

Worst Shield Purchase and Never Used – Ugh. Prisma Photo bizarro

So, yeah. I bought a lot of different things to cover my face. Several were from friends who took to making homemade versions and those are the best! All in all, I missed showing my smile. I kept smiling even though no one could see.