We’re quickly approaching the one-year-anniversary of our world standing still. A year since the Utah Jazz basketball player, Rudy Gobert, touched the microphones in a mock attempt at humor, then came down with the virus, and the NBA suspended play.
A year since Rockland’s school closed down for “two weeks”. A year since my husband was sent home to work from a makeshift desk in our basement where he could spread out for a couple of weeks, a month, the summer, the rest of 2020. He remains home a year later, and while he still has a job, his company will be selling the building—it turns out they can save money having their employees work from home. And, thus, our down-sized home has become a little closer, a little louder, a little less cozy.
He went into the building to clear out his desk on Friday. He looked at his large desk calendar marked with activity—up until March 20. He said if that calendar were to be found years from now, people would say, “Oh, that’s when the pandemic hit.”
This week, my therapy dog, Ivy, and I will be visiting an elementary school where I once taught, and up until a year ago, still returned after school to tutor students. I haven’t been in the building in nearly a year. I have students I’ve never met in person; I simply know them from the neck up because that’s all I can see of them over Zoom.
Anniversaries can be hard. This one especially. As I consider the loss, I am reminded of what got me through: hikes with Angela and Rockland; Songs from Home videos by Mary Chapin Carpenter; brown butter caramel lattes at the Scission Coffee (now Sleeping Bird Coffee) truck; neighborhood walks with Ivy; take-out from local restaurants in an effort to be supportive, and receiving our food in brown paper bags on which the staff wrote our names and thanked us for remembering them; weekly visits with my mom when it was safe to travel back to New Jersey; puzzles; books; coffee with my son, Joey; flowers; birds.
I look forward to being on the other side of this, to the day when I can invite friends to my table again. And, in the process, I hope to remember the value of the little things that brought me life this year. For my people. And, for their smiles.