One Year Ago, One Year From Now

One year ago today we were sitting in our rental house on Abbey Place in Los Angeles, a heat wave melting us. We were working and trying to make it through another day of life in the Safer At Home world. It was Day 90 of The Distancing. At some point in the late morning Angela called me into her office (AKA her bedroom) where she was laid out on her bed, working, listening to a Zoom PD about something or other. 

Brent & Angela one year ago tomorrow

I found this house, she said. On Redfin. I didn't even know what Redfin was at that point. She sent me the link and we looked at it. We dreamed. She had made a list a few days earlier of everything she'd wanted in a house and it seemed to have all of that. And some. And so...she called our friend Brent, who became our real estate broker Brent and the next day (one year ago tomorrow) we would visit Club Cleon for the very first time. We'd fall in love instantly. We'd know this was where we were meant to be. And we'd put in an offer that very evening. 

One year ago.

I keep thinking, as The Distancing becomes much more of a memory, of all that life entailed a year ago. I listen to podcasts recorded last year and I giggle at the reminder that we quarantined our groceries for days on end. That we wore gloves whenever we went outside. That we weren't as big on the masks back then. (Well, we were by June.) I smile at the memories but I also remember the real fear. And I remind myself it's not over yet. We just have better masks now. 

The 400 days we spent physically distanced from most of the world was hard. It was devastating. It was, at times, simply too much to comprehend. We lost friends and family members we still haven't properly mourned. We lost time together which we'll mourn forever. We lost momentum and energy and fight. 

And in some ways we gained all of that too. We gained more time with family and friends then might have happened in another timeline. We reconnected with people via Zoom and FaceTime in ways that kept us up to date daily, weekly, monthly in ways we'd never been done before. Game nights became once a month instead of once a year events. Coffee with college friends became regular dates. Yes, Christmas wasn't as magical as it usually is for me but I adjusted. I rolled with it. We all did. 

Angela and I never would have contemplated moving much less buying a house if it weren't for that time. We likely wouldn't have started our Instagram cooking show that brought us so much joy and hopefully a little joy to some others. I'm not sure Angela would have ever perfected her homemade pizza dough recipe, a staple we now love and serve to family! I never would have taken the month of November to write a novel. 

I certainly wouldn't have taken the time out to begin meditating once a week, on a schedule, had I been in production on my film instead of locked inside. The film will still happen, one day, but I also know the meditation will continue. I still remember how it felt that first Wednesday night when we sat down to worship and the meditation was so new, and so welcome. 

One year ago Club Cleon was but a dream. A dream we barely dared dreaming. We sat and looked at those photos on that website and wondered what if. And then we bought Bob the tomato a bigger house and thought, no, this can't possibly happen. 

And yet it did. 

As we move back toward one another, toward the way things used to be, I have to think that The Distancing gave as much as it took. I have to have faith that we'll come out the other side of this OK. Not great, not happy, not even better. Just OK. I have to have that faith so that I can continue on. So I can keep venturing out, in my dreams, and in my physical space. 

One year ago. 

What will one year from now become?