The Chronicles of 2020: Times Like These
un·prec·e·dent·ed
/ˌənˈpresədən(t)əd/
adjective
without previous instance; never before known or experienced; unexampled or unparalleled: an unprecedented event.
“Times like these.”
It’s a phrase we have been hearing often this year.
Unprecedented, unique. Like never before. Now, more than ever — The commercials scream at us.
Times like these have presented mass amounts of loss in many various forms; none that I want to discount.
But for many, they’ve also caused us to slow down and observe more. To soak in the sunny moments, and perhaps force a bit more reflection.
So on that note, I want to share two moments of reflection that I recently had.
1.) Grapefruits
It’s no secret that I love margaritas. This spring, I’ve occasionally been playing with variations of the standard marg recipe. A few weeks ago, I decided to mix up a grapefruit marg.
As I sliced into a grapefruit while preparing my cocktail, I paused and found myself gazing at the deep ruby color.
It flashed me back to winter mornings in Illinois, with my dad. Growing up, one of my favorite things to do before heading off to school was to split a grapefruit with him as part of our breakfast.
He would carefully carve out fruit from each nook, and we would eat at the kitchen counter as the sun slowly started to peak up from the horizon. Occasionally, if my mom wasn’t in the kitchen, we would sprinkle a little sugar on each half and wink at each other.
I can’t pinpoint exactly why I look back at the time so fondly, if I’m being honest. We didn’t necessarily share stories or wisdom or jokes; it was early, our brains were still waking up. He would normally read the paper, I was probably watching the news on the TV, in a time when smartphones weren’t yet glued to our hands.
Maybe it was the silent camaraderie of starting our days off the same way. Maybe it’s part of what has shaped me to love early, quiet mornings. Or maybe it’s just the simplicity of it.
2.) Blue Skies
As I pulled into the parking lot of my Eye Doctor, I glanced up through the sunroof of the car. It was a clear day, something we hadn’t seen for what felt like weeks here in Maryland. April offered a lot of rain, but the onset of May was finally starting to feel like perhaps Summer was on 2020’s agenda afterall.
I parked and sat for a moment, staring at the cloudless sky. It took me back to one of my first trips to Maryland, almost 10 years ago now.
It was 4th of July weekend. Andrew picked me up from BWI airport, and we were driving to Rehoboth Beach for a few nights. I pulled a mixed CD from my backpack that I had burned specifically for the trip, and slid it into the CD player of his Ford Taurus.
As we drove, I observed the landscape. Growing up in the plains of the Midwest, and then living in the wide-open Front Range of Northern Colorado, Maryland always felt very ‘low’ to me. With its hilly landscape and massive lush trees, to this day I still struggle with a sense of direction in this particular state.
The vibrant green forestry offset the clear blue sky for as far as the eye could see. ‘It was pretty,’ I told myself. Which was a shift from my former attitude of ‘Maryland is a dreary and sad place’ — an opinion that I had formed over a few weekends of playing volleyball tournaments in Baltimore, during my high school years.
I locked the car and headed into my eye exam, smiling at the memory. That weekend was the first time Andrew told me that he loved me. It was my first time ever trying a Dark and Stormy, my first time playing on Delaware’s sandy Atlantic beaches. It was probably the first time that I realized I was willing to move to Maryland and immerse myself into the intimidating East Coast culture — for a guy who would eventually become my husband.
These are unprecedented times. But scrolling back to that definition at the top; unprecedented does not have to mean scary, dark, awful. It can also mean that we allow ourselves to experience new things that bring us joy, calm, and even certainty. I hope you’re able to find some of that, in times like these.
