Dear friends,
The last few days have been really weird. Starting off as something tragic, scary but very distant, the Coronavirus has scooted into UK reality. Venturing out from my self-imposed album writing / new project launching exile for the weekend was the first time I’d ever seen a supermarket shelf cleared by fear. Many of us have been fortunate to live fairly pampered lives, well-off or not (and I’m certainly not well-off), and I’ll admit to becoming a little bit obsessed with reading social media feeds and breaking news today, trying to work out how to take this seriously without giving in to hysteria.
I’m a musician. I can’t do much in a crisis like this except offer friendship and music, so that’s what I’m here to do. BIG HUG.
First off: I send out a weekly email which is a sort of thoughtful pep talk in the form of a secret blog post where we can have a nice chat in the comments – click here to receive it. Last week I shared the timeline for my new project launch and the news that I am launching a weekly podcast series as part of it with some very exciting guests. Hooray!
Secondly: this afternoon, to stop myself from refreshing web pages, I uploaded the instrumentals for the entire SMW back catalogue, and you can get them on a free / pay what you want basis from Bandcamp.
I’ve been thinking about doing this for a while, but the very real fact that many of you are being asked to work from home prompted me to extend this invitation to enjoy an instrumental backdrop to your daily activities. Those of you who have a copy of my career-spanning hardback lyric book might want to hold it in one hand and a hairbrush in the other – you do you. There are 6 lyric books remaining, if you missed out…
It’s a very strange and uncertain time, and there’s nothing wrong with admitting that some days are rough going, global pandemic or no. I shared a link to a 7 minute guided meditation on Twitter today and it helped at least one person, so I’ll share it here as well. If you need a little bit of calm I highly recommend it, and if you like that one this is my go-to YouTube playlist. I started near-daily meditation at the start of the year and it’s changed my life, even just a few minutes a day gives me a far better ability to keep things in perspective and live more intentionally. Let me know how you get on with it.
Sending love to you and yours, stay healthy, stay kind and thanks as always for your eyes, ears and hearts. I’m testing a new live-streaming system this week and will be in touch with news of an online gig soon.
Love,
Laura xxxx
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