a 2020 vignette.

As the queen of nerdy introspection and optimistic New Year’s talk, I am here to talk about the one oddly plain visual that sticks with me from this year more than any other. 

In late March and early April, my husband’s work was pretty unpredictable. (The weirdness in mine is about to hit – I’ve heard tell that even the IRS is baffled by all the changing guidance for COVID funding…sigh…we’ll get to that.) He worked ten- and eleven-hour days regularly as we learned how to manage the virus. 

So I made a point of getting home at 5 every day to spend time with our dog. 

Winslow’s a huge joy in my life, even though he’s a kitchen towel thief and a sofa pillow-licking varmint. In the early pandemic days he was about seven months old and just beginning to really be a companion who actually listened to what we told him to do. We had ample daylight (spring winter > fall winter forever) and plenty of tennis balls, so we played a LOT of fetch. 

This is the vignette: I’m at the top of our red-dirt driveway, the sun at my back, taking its sweet time to go down. I’m up to my ears in Sam’s big Carhartt jacket, probably listening to some kind of light-read audiobook like Elin Hilderbrand,* clapping and hollering for Winslow to bring me the tennis ball back. And he’s panting, cause this is the fiftieth time but he loves it so much I don’t have the heart to make him stop, as he runs up the hill to me, a picture of Labrador joy with SOMETHING IN HIS MOUTH ZOMG. 

Years ago, as an opinionated teenager on the Internet (as opposed to now…don’t say it), I unequivocally hated those posts about how awful Mondays were. I kind of still do. I think I remember posting something about all the good things that might happen on a Monday. “Somewhere, someone is opening a pack of Skittles!” I wrote indignantly. (Yes, it was 2012, why do you ask?)

I won’t say 2020 was an easy year. I’m still wrestling with the uncertainty of the future, even – there’s no magic switch to be flipped on January 1, 2021. But, despite everything, there were moments of joy this year. And perhaps I can see them better for the work I had to do to find them.