Yesterday I had to let everyone who was coming to the next set of concerts that they wouldn’t happen. It filled me with great sadness. I know it’s the right thing to do, and anyway, the decision was made for me. St James decided that the concerts wouldn’t go ahead.

In all my years of playing, this has never happened. I’ve never been due to perform and then not. It’s a strange feeling. Ben Ward, my associate artist, has been nothing short of fabulous. Totally understanding. The people who I’ve spoken to at St James have also been very helpful. But still I feel terribly sad.

I listened with horror to a radio program yesterday about all the performances, shows, gigs and festivals that are stopping. Opera Australia may have to sell off assets. Will the already battered and fragile arts community in this country survive this crisis, I wonder?

It’s a sad time to be an artist. I feel strangely muted. Anxious and unable to speak through my cello. I know that this will pass – both the feeling and the crisis. I know that come the spring time, things will be different. This is not the end-of-days, and a friend reminded just at the time I needed to hear it.

But it’s hard. Standing apart from people is difficult. Not hugging people I see if difficult. And not performing what I had practised and rehearsed and got really excited about is also difficult for me.

I know that in a few days I’ll feel better. And I know what I will do. Because I know how it will make me feel. I will sit down at my dear, dear cello, and I will play Bach. And it will soothe and calm.

Thank you, J.S.B.

I write this surrounded by packing boxes. Most of them are full. And in between packing boxes, life goes on. Children are taught in the schools I’m in. Rehearsals are happening for the next concert. Yoga is practised (although I have to admit, I’m tired) and taught. And in between I’m packing up my life.

Long-suffering-husband and I have lived in the same house for 8 years, and for the most part, we’ve loved it. It’s a beautiful house, made of sandstone. I have a beautiful room in which to practise, and a great veggie patch out the back. It’s in a great location. We have fabulous landlords that leave us alone. So why are we moving?

NOISE.

It’s funny that two musicians living in a house are not the noisy people, isn’t it? It’s the noise from our neighbours. Shouting. Constant shouting. Adult to adult. Child to child. Adult to child. Child to child-across-the-street. There’s tantrums that would win at least a Logie, if not an Oscar. Sometimes I think that something genuinely has happened to one of the kids, like a limb has been amputated. But no.

There’s also industrial noise. Grinding of motorbikes that are being restored. And spraying of something that smells so awful I get headaches. Paint? Glue? Varnish? Who knows.

As someone I spoke to said ‘It’s human-ing at it’s worst.’ Yep. It’s hard not to want to totally remove yourself from society. Is everyone that thoughtless? It’s been hugely upsetting. It’s been hard to practise. It’s made me feel anxious and incredibly angry.

The good news? We have a beautiful house to go to. It’s quiet. We even know the neighbours. It has a dishwasher (our house, not the neighbours. Actually, they have one too…). We’re moving soon. But right now, surrounded by boxes and dealing with noise and paint smells, things aren’t all beer and skittles.

But it’ll be over soon.

This week I started a new music program. New school. New teachers. New kids. New hall.

It’s a school in western Sydney, and there’s funding to run a music program out there for three years. I’m hugely excited about it, and very hopeful.

I walked in to teach this week in a hall with no air-conditioning. So it’s going to be steamy for a while. And freezing for some of the year too. But that, I think, will be the hardest part. Don’t get me wrong, I have some tricky characters there. Refugees. Kids doing it seriously tough. But there seems to be a really supportive staff, and a hugely supportive principal and assistant principal.

After all these years of teaching the types of kids I do, it’s now easy for me to clock the trickier ones. And I’ve chosen to be pretty hands-on this term, getting the kids to engage. So lots of playing. Lots of noise-making. And today I watched some serious grinning happening.

You know when you see a kid smile with their whole body? Not just their face, but their whole body changes? I got that. A number of times. I saw shy little people look at me sideways and smile. I watched some ‘busy’ boys calm down drumming. And this is week one.

It’s so important, you know. This music thing. Especially for kids doing it tough. It truly does change them.

Like many people in NSW, I love the south coast. It’s a place of wild beauty – bushland going down to the beach. Beautiful beaches. Clear, cold water. And now it’s burning. It’s so dry – and now it’s devastated. And my heart is breaking.

I was down there, and got caught up in the fires that happened over the New Year period. I’m not going to write about climate change, or the drought, or the fact that most of the politicians in power have thought that it was okay to leave the country. My place is not to change anyone’s mind here. Or even to have a political rant. I’m happy to do that with you over a glass of something.

But this happened to me…. I was in a house. I was safe whilst the wind blew in a particular way. I was with people I loved. I had enough to drink and eat. And I had my cello. I felt hugely uncomfortable and anxious. And what did I do? I sat and played. And I’ve been talking to musician friends – they did the same thing. My former cello teacher in London brought in the new decade by playing all the Bach suites. His way of starting the new decade (in the best possible way, I think!).

So I sat and played. I felt better. I was asked to leave the door open. People in the house listened. People dropped in and listened.

And through all this craziness, music calmed.

So here’s a thought. So far, economics have ruled decision-making. It’s what has made people vote a certain way. It’s the reasons we’ve been told by the people who run the country that that’s how things are going to happen. But when things really get bad, that’s not what people turn to. They turn to music, to art. To the things created by people who are paid badly, who are undervalued. Who don’t even have a minister in the portfolio reshuffle.

Worth thinking about?

I sigh. I shake my head. I try not to wail.

But it’s hardly surprising.

I’m not sure if you know, but this thing has happened. This is a direct quote from Limelight magazine. The writer says it so clearly, so I’ll quote Mr McPherson. “The Australian arts world is reacting with fury to the news that the arts have been demoted in Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s restructuring of the public service announced yesterday. The Arts, already an addendum to the Department of Communications and the Arts, will be merged along with the rest of the department into a new one with the unwieldy title of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications.”

That’s right. There is no longer a department with ‘Arts’ in the title. I suppose that right now, with NSW burning (and no-one meant to relate this to climate change), water restrictions being upped (but it’s still okay to fill your pool up) and Christmas on the way (and all the craziness that goes with it), that it’s easy to overlook this.

But it feels awful. I work in the arts, and this is a way that the Government, the mostly-men leading this country is subtlety saying ‘Umm… Rachel? The thing you do? Along with your friends? Yeh – that thing. It doesn’t actually matter. Not a bit to us. You got a problem with that? Too bad. No minister to complain to.”

It just makes things harder. Harder to succeed. Harder to feel valued. The article in Limelight (worth a read, you know) starts the discussion we need to have. In the arts industry, artists bring in a lot of money to the economy. And we’re struggling. We’re struggling to pay our bills and our taxes. We’re struggling to stay positive. We’re struggling to keep the black dog from consuming us. We’re working incredibly hard. I can’t remember when I last had a full day off.

And who cares? Well, it seems the government has washed its hands of us. Not that I think Morrison and his mates would approve of me anyway. I sure as hell don’t agree with what they are doing.

But it’s still a slap in the face.