hindsight

I remember leaving Grandma Eleanor's house as a young girl, the way she'd stand at her storm door while our car backed down her driveway, waving and blowing kisses. I could feel the love her eyes sent through the glass to the backseat where I sat. 

It was always lovely to visit. It was always hard to leave. It was both.

Overnight, one year quietly blended into the next.

I've been trying to think of something nice to say about 2020, minding Bambi's mother's rule, maybe not saying anything at all.

It was basically a shit show. But part magic show, too?

There were double rainbow sunrise hikes in Hawaii, remarkable piano skill progress via instruction on a tiny rectangular device, small folds of cloth over faces that had the potential to save scores of lives. All basically magic. I want to believe that, but I want to protest it, too. Too many people died, too many seasonal celebrations were called off, too many lives did not seem to matter.

It was a disaster. It was a miracle. It was both.

I think our boys will remember sidewalk air hugs and safe-distance patio visits and Sunday baked good deliveries the same way I remember Grandma Eleanor at the door. These smaller moments tell a bigger story about the different shape life has taken during the pandemic, about the again and again of it all. The boys missed school, the state fair, the neighborhood pool, crowded streets, the collective pulse. They missed people they love.

The five of us found value in the nothingness of everything, gathered around the front room fire for family read aloud, walking in the woods. We have been reminded of so much this year. Some of it trite and annoying, but man, the importance of the world beyond ourselves, the increased ability to be at ease with sadness. Patience and fortitude. The way bliss lives in a thousand ordinary moments. To look at everyone else with grace, and to give some leeway to ourselves too. And sometimes to screen-time limits. How hard it is to stand on principle when it leaves you standing alone. How challenges may be faced best with courage, plus kindness and flexibility. How to surrender. How little we need, and how much we have. 

Bless the magic.