Over the course of our quarantine, Left Bank and Mr. FLWR have gotten closer—he closed out Left Bank Live with a performance that literally made me cry (see: chat comments), his sweatshirt is my quarantine uniform, and the vibes that HNRY FLWR and the whole We Color Live team exude is the exact kind of warm and fuzzy friendliness that makes the quarantine quotidian dare I say it, enjoyable.
For what feels like eternity, but has in reality only been a few months, quarantine has that ‘waiting room’ effect—you sit in a full bodied isolation waiting to hear what an outcome will be; good news is few and far between (but welcomed nonetheless), and bad news seems to be inevitable. For many, it’s the prevalent, unrelenting force of ‘news’ that keeps us at a standstill—vacillating between reading The New York Times too often to too little, coping with the prolonged since of waiting with distractions (Netflix, Hulu, books), wondering when this unseen force will let up, and if you’ll ever be able to leave.
HNRY FLWR’s “Waiting Room” personifies the exact feelings we all intimately share. Yet, somehow, through all of the uncertainty, we as people are able to find enjoyment in thing’s that would have been overlooked; virtually watching films with family, getting absolutely obliterated with friends on Zoom, commiserating with coworkers on Google Hangouts, blooming a new love over a shared love of documentaries. What we learn through this time of being in a proverbial waiting room is that life has its sweet moments amid the darkness.
“This song was written while sitting in a waiting room for my bandmate in a pediatric cancer clinic in New York City. Between the battle for his life and an intense breakup I just had, I was in a terrible space. As I was waiting, a volunteer clown came in and started making all the kids laugh. That moment shook me — to see sick children finding joy helped me find my own joy amid the darkness. Breakups and cancer are not contagious, but love is. The lyrics for this song were written right then, under the fluorescent lights of the waiting room.”’
HNRY FLWR
What we learn through this time of being in a proverbial waiting room is that life has its sweet moments amid the darkness. And, whatever the final conclusion is—be it good or bad—we have experienced a fuller version of life and love in the process.
Image: Carla Maldonado x We Color Live