Anyone who’s lived with me for more than a day knows I can’t carry a tune. And they also know that doesn’t stop me from trying. At the top of my lungs. Because singing makes me happy. Or, better said with proper self-talk, nothing can make me happy without my permission. I make myself happy with the sound of my warbling. Especially when I make up my own words.
But the other day, when I realized I’d been in COVID mode for three whole months, my self-help music therapy just wasn’t cutting it. Three months since the good ole days turned into the “new normal.” Three months since I first grasped the fact that I wasn’t going to travel off the mountain for a really, really, really long time. Three months since I’d been closer than hollering distance with my kids, my friends, my in-town party pals. The more I tried to put it all to music, the more I got a melancholy late Beatles vibe.
Yesterday, all my friends were not six feet away.
Now it looks like COVID’s here to stay…
Well, that certainly wasn’t the song I needed in my heart to put a smile on my face! I needed more zippity do dah, a full-blown bright lights with a backup orchestra kind of melody. The kind that got Cinderella up out of the ashes and off to the ball, that got Peggy Sawyer to put on her tap shoes and head off to 42nd Street all the way from Allentown. I needed a spoon full of sugar mixed in with my spiced rum and sour grapes!
Luckily, it came to me. My Julie Andrews Sound of Music moment. Well…minus the stellar voice and the ability to dance around on uneven ground. But, in my head, I saw myself bouncing and pirouetting in a field of lupines at the base of Saddleback when I belted out the words. So…here it is, my version of My Favorite Things by Rodgers and Hammerstein. (For you younguns and/or those who only have a vague recollection of the original tune, please YouTube it so you can get the cadence just right and, hopefully, sing along with your own words!)
Stephanie Chu-O’Neil
Rangeley is rising with yellow flags flying
Essential workers who keep resupplying
Curbside delivery for most everything
These are a few of my new COVID things!
Zoom chats and FaceTime and DVR replays
No shoes or hair dos and life in my PJs
Feeling my heart soar each time my phone rings
These are a few of my new COVID things!
Already “at camp” and not on vacation
Not rushing up here for self-isolation
Surviving and thriving since early this spring
These are a few of my new COVID things!
When the news bites, when the facts sting
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my new COVID things
And then I don’t feel…so bad.
Maine plates and low rates of local infection
Face masks and good sense without rude objections
Amazon stuff on my porch with one fling
These are a few of my new COVID things!
Restaurant takeout on our new “pandem-deck”
Some of it paid for with our stimulus check
Government kickbacks without any strings
These are a few of my new COVID things!
No need to juggle our friends’ invitations
No need to clean house for high expectations
Nesting like love birds without any wings
These are a few of my new COVID things!
When the news bites, when the facts sting
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my new COVID things
And then I don’t feel…so bad.
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