Thursday, December 31, 2020

Things That Happened in 2020


January: We rang in the new year with my brother and parents, and it was absolutely lovely and dorky to get drunk with them and watch the ball drop on YouTube. I made Noah a play mat for his birthday, and we all got a text from the Ontario government that was like, "Trouble at the Pickering Nuclear Plant!" and then the government was like lol, jk, idk. I led a workshop for a local climate change group to try to lay out some mission statements and values, and it went really really well. We all got really into dumb Instagram filters.

February: My sister moved in with me! I was so happy that happened. Mike and Noah and I went to Jekyll Island with my parents for the last two weeks, and holy mackerel, what a necessary trip. It was bookended by two absolutely endless travel days, but the six days in between were sunny and full of shopping trips to Target, good seafood, and a kid who pooped on the potty at 4:30 in the morning. It was great to just be with my parents, and in the sunshine. I was working and grouchy for a lot of it, but I was also present and having fun through most of it, too. Given everything that came after, I'm so grateful we got this getaway with them.

March: So, March was when the COVID-19 crisis started to unspool for real. I had a coffee with a friend on March 9, and it felt subversive and strange to be sitting in a coffee shop with them, just shooting the shit about partners and kids and whatever; three days later, schools were being cancelled and the library closed and you could not get a roll of toilet paper for love or for money. I spent that time feel like my skin was on fire: such severe anxiety! Such fear! I was worried that I was going to die, that we would go hungry, that we would unravel the world and be utterly unable to put it back together again. Mike was here, finally, working from home, and the transition from long-distance relationship to being together 24-7 was not without bumps.

April: After my March breakdown, I sort of snapped out of it, albeit with frequent relapses. We got into a semi-rhythm of being home with Noah. I dialed down my hours at my regular job but wrote a lot of things. We planted seedlings and most of them came up, and some of them promptly withered away. I did a lot of online shopping, which was sort of fun. Mostly, I grieved in a very gentle sort of way: I missed my friends and my family, I missed preschool and coffee shops, I missed pop-outs to the grocery store and taking the train. I missed the things that gave my life shape and meaning, and I looked for replacements. Gardening helped. Long calls helped. But nothing can replace being in a room with people, being present

May: In late May, a police officer killed George Floyd and three more stood and watched, and America started to erupt in protests. People in Toronto gathered in Trinity Bellwoods and drank beers and generally were complete knobs about the whole social-distancing thing. In our house, we started to gradually see people after being cooped up for three months straight.

June: We snuck up to visit my parents at the cottage; I spent a lot of time in the garden, after dinner, watering plants and worrying over shoots; America continued to disintegrate, and it seemed like maybe something could grow from the wreckage. A friend who tends towards pessimism told me that, despite everything, this was the most hopeful she'd been in years. Really and truly, the air felt electric with desperation and tenderness and rage and the possibility for change. Noah and I attended a Black Lives Matter rally in Stratford. I read a lot. I donated some money. It was what felt right.

July: Mike's brother died. Jamie was an ornery, persnickety man who had so many secrets; he was also a generous and loving man who had come through fires. His death from liver failure was a tragedy, and I am still in my feelings about it, five months later. Mike went down to Toronto while he was in hospice and had Jamie's last week with him. I stayed away because of COVID. This fucking year, man. This fucking year. Jamie, I hope you're up at the great snack table in the sky, headphones on, a good beer in hand, waiting for the opening band to start playing.

August: We went to Toronto to bury Jamie and have a memorial picnic in High Park, and everything was hot and fraught and ultimately not very healing at all; what grief process is? We went to a playground and some little fucker LICKED NOAH'S FACE, which I will absolutely die mad about.

September: Noah started kindergarten! I was a mess, because it really felt like we were throwing him to the wolves. We also had a visit with my Toronto bestie, a woman (and her family) who has been my anchor for the past 18 years, who had a baby of her own last fall, and who I would literally move mountains for (but I would complain the whole time, because I'm still me). I spent ages in the kitchen processing the last of the thousand or so tomatoes we grew, making enchilada sauces and salsa and tomato paste and one million other things. I realized that, after nearly five years of balancing kid-work-self, the scales were going to have to tip towards self in a more meaningful way, so I tried not to panic as my work motivation evaporated.

October: After Thanksgiving, my mom and I jumped in the car and had a three-day micro-vacation in Dundas, Ontario, with day trips to Hamilton and Guelph. It was a lot of walking, a lot of talking, a lot of reading. We hiked for several hours and talked about nothing and everything. We went to Ikea, which was stressful. We ate ramen and watched a John Mulaney special on Netflix. It was a bit boring and wholesome and, after seven months of heart-mayhem, an absolutely balm. This was right before Ontario's COVID numbers starting ticking back up again; it was not exactly carefree, but it was responsible and delicious and I still think about that hike at least once a week.

November: We had a heat wave! I wore shorts. Also, America had an election. Also, I knit myself a cowl. Also, Rudy Giuliani booked the Four Seasons Total Landscaping for a press conference and I am still laughing about that.

December: We spent the month trying to figure out what we should do re: the intersection of family and Christmas; in the end, we decided to do December 25th at home, with just the four of us, with an eye to having a visit after we'd quarantined for two weeks. I made a turkey dinner. I bought yarn on the internet. It was nearly a green Christmas and then it snowed overnight and was magical.

In conclusion: Obviously, we'll remember 2020 as Year 1 of COVID times; the news was often pretty bleak; many of us struggled with anxiety; we were apart more than we were together; we lost people; we had to negotiate things that we previously took for granted; work was touch-and-go; I often felt overwhelmed or sad. But this was also the year my sister came to live with us, that my brother went to live with my folks, that I grew food for the first time, when I sent and received care packages. It was the year my Mother's Day gift was a small cafe set up in our attic, complete with baked good and tea and New York Times Magazine, where I could be alone for a couple hours. It was the year my mom went swimming every summer day, and I ordered books through the library, and I unexpectedly deepened friendships with people I really care about. It was sitting on the front porch at dusk, watching fireflies; it was knitting my mom a sweater; it was homemade Chinese food and a Star Wars Christmas special; it was matcha lattes in the park with a friend. It was a hard, bitter year, but I don't get the sense that it made us hard or bitter. I feel like we're on the edge of something that might change us all, for the better.

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