Beautiful Moments: 2020
It’s wonderful, the way time smooths edges and crystalizes beauty. Every year brings good and bad, light and dark, joy and pain. It’s true, the scale on 2020 seems tilted, but there was beauty even here. And memory is a finicky thing; it discards what seems like most of our lives, holding onto just a few glimmering moments. Here are a few of my moments, as they unfolded through this year.
On a warmish Sunday in February, we pull up to a house I don’t even want to bother with. A family is leaving as we arrive. I speculate to Joey that they don’t seem to have liked it; there are no thoughtful looks behind them as they walk away. We walk through the house. I like it. Joey nudges me. See, it was worth our time. We walk out onto the back deck, and I see the yard for the first time. “Dammit. This is our house.” He reaches for my hand and grins as we walk into the yard. He was right; I was wrong. When we leave half an hour later, we look longingly behind us. We put an offer in that night.
A day or two later, after some negotiating that nearly derailed the whole thing, our offer is accepted. I tell Joey to meet me at the fanciest restaurant I can think of. We sit in a quiet upper room. We order our meal like we’re not about to empty our savings account to make a down payment: cocktails, appetizers, entrees, desserts. We toast to our future. I am teary most of the time; my word for 2020 was Home, and soon we’ll be in ours. (The irony won’t reveal itself to me for awhile yet: it was our last nice dinner out before everything went sideways.)
We sit cross-legged and on the dusty floor of our house, which we seem to have destroyed. We’ve been sniping at each other. We’re exhausted; we’re attempting a half-dozen home projects as a pandemic begins, the world shuts down, and we adjust to doing our normal jobs from home. I’ve got a weekly schedule of what we need to get done before move-in, and we’re not going to make it. Joey’s working as fast as he can, and it’s not enough. We look at each other. I hold out my hand, and he fits his into mine. “Rule #1: We’re on the same team.” And we get back to work.
On the longest night of the year, we invite another couple over for dinner. A perfect summer salad, burgers, sun tea. We build a fire in the fire pit and make s’mores. The light fades, the night settles, and the conversation quiets in that peculiar way it only does around a fire. When they leave, I tell Joey it’s the most human I’ve felt in months.
On a random Saturday, we drive away. East. Fast. Music loud, windows down. The scents tell stories in motion: the watery rot of the river, the sweet stink of cow pasture. We take a turn off the highway (suddenly: the scent of black walnut), driving toward a state park we’ve never seen before. We park the car, turn off the lights, exit into the cicada whir of an Alabama summer. The stars are magnificent. Joey has an app on his phone that can identify constellations as he points his phone. We stand there until our necks are stiff.
As we near Boone, we miss a turn because I was messing with the podcasts. The alternate route we take winds through tiny Appalachian towns. We cross streams, drive through tree tunnels, lose cell service for half an hour. I roll the windows down and let the damp chill soak into my skin while the wind makes me shiver. The first time I feel cold after the heat of summer is one of my very favorite feelings.
It’s a drizzly day, and we’re walking the grounds of an old mansion. The views are obscured by fog, and this isn’t what I’d hoped for. But I’m with my parents again, and in this year that I’ve spent missing everything, that’s enough for happiness. We’re laughing. Something about wildflowers. Everyone waits while I take photos - I’ve been this person forever. I feel known, loved.
Our first Halloween-as-homeowners. There are two bowls of candy on the porch: one for chocolate, one for fruity. A small sign says, “please take 2!” Our wireless speaker is playing an eclectic mix of spooky songs. Joey decides the children need more ambiance, and he lights pillar candles. The kids mostly stay in their groups, wait a ways back, keep their distance. We wave through the storm door and eat charcuterie while we watch Halloweentown.
I told Joey that if he planned it, I would go, so now I am camping in the middle of November. Step 1: sit in a chair near where Joey is pitching the tent, because he’d rather just do it himself but sometimes he needs help. Step 2: ask Joey if he will please set up the hammock between those two pine trees. Step 3: spend several perfect hours reading in a sleeping bag in a hammock while Joey happily putters around collecting firewood and using a hatchet and starting fires. Step 4: Applaud when you smell smoke.
I step outside almost every day and take the same picture of our ginkgo tree. From green to golden, I am enchanted. As the light fades in the evening, it seems to glow in the dark. The morning after the first hard frost, it’s naked.
He’s standing on the roof in the cold and dark, but the lights are finally up. He looks down at me and says how happy he is that he finally got to put lights up for me. That he remembers driving around as teenagers, and that I always said I liked the big white bulbs but they had to be hung straight. The house looks nice, but my smile is because this time, I’m not the only one wrapped in my memories.
Just a note: I’m intentionally sharing the soft, lovely memories of 2020, which was a tough year for me like it was for so many. The moments that glint darkly in the saddest part of my heart will stay private for now. With time, some of them will lose their edge; some will remain sharp. They matter just as much, but they aren’t for sharing.
