Far be it from me to want to reduce the difficulties, troubles and other complications that everyone has had to face since the start of the pandemic. I am particularly thinking of families with young children or teenagers, or both!
Curiously or contradictorily, if I may say so, I think I have rarely appreciated so much the beauty of the works of art that I am still able to frequent. There’s the wonderful Julie Nesrallah at the CBC who gives us three hours of classical music every morning of the week (yes, she knows how to pronounce in impeccable French the name of Yannick Nézet-Séguin and other Quebec musicians); at Radio-Canada, there is Stanley Péan for jazz, Marie-Christine Trottier for classical in the evening and, for songs from here and elsewhere, Monique Giroux and Claude Saucier, in particular.
The light is not only “at the end of the tunnel”, as the other says; you can also see it, or hear it, at home or not far away. Music on the radio, of course; but also, in Montreal anyway, there are visual works of art to admire in the galleries, Simon Blais, Mature Art, at 1700 La Poste or at the Molinari Foundation, among many others. My friends would rightly reproach me for not mentioning the libraries, where I often go to borrow books.
And that’s not counting the parks along the Rivière des Prairies (I’m talking about the neighborhood I live in today), including the extraordinary Île-de-la-Visitation nature park, where I can walk console for not daring to go see a film on the big screen, for example at the Beaubien, or, above all, a show at the Agora de la danse.
Do pandemic and confinement make us more receptive to the beauty that surrounds us? It is, in the circumstances, the grace that I wish for all.