Scone Truck

Just now, Tim, my cute husband drove into Redmond to pick up some scones from the fair scone truck while I took another Zoom meeting. I’m anxious, I keep checking the family finder app to see if he made it. I look at Facebook. I’m a wreck and I can’t figure out why. I hear from a friend that he was spotted in line, the app says he’s on the way back. I take a deep breath and focus on the Kindergartener that we are talking about and yet I’m still distracted. I see him pull in while I finish up the call. As it ends, I race out of my chair to see if he has been successful. Yes, there are scones on the counter and I take a deep breath. Really, was I that hungry for a scone. I don’t know, what is going on?

I sit back down at my desk and take a bite. It is still warm. Delicious. And then it hits me. 

Ten months ago we saw the scone truck and stopped for it. We had a great adventure which ended with a bag of scones in the car and eating them while they were still warm. And that next day everything changed. Covid had struck for real. School was shutting down. Everything has been different. I lost my job. I lost my dad. We have lost our way. Everything that we used to accept as our normal is gone. I’m so sad.

Remembering back to that day, we weren’t perfect then and everything wasn’t great. My uncle had just died and we were worried about a pandemic but our lives had gone on. We were at a baseball tournament and we were laughing with our friends while others sat in all day meetings trying to figure out the next steps. I texted with those at the meetings and dreamt up what it all meant. 

A year ago this week, I sat at this very desk as we mourned the loss of Kobe and the implications of that loss. My brother’s wife was pregnant and we talked about my parents not being able to visit if the pandemic really happened. It was a different world with different worries, but somehow the same.

As I sit here today eating a warm scone wondering if I can sneak another without anyone keeping track, I think about all that we have lost and all that we have gained. Two friends shared with me this week that they are getting divorced. I told Tim that I’m so exceptionally glad that we are going through this pandemic together and how sad I am that others don’t have someone to share it with like we do. 

As I sit at my desk trying to get our 9 month old puppy to not eat my chair, I’m reminded of what a great addition he has been to our lives and how we wouldn’t have even considered him during our old life--too busy, too much travel, gone too often for baseball, too long during the day and yet, all of us can agree, he’s been the greatest addition to our family, the very best lining of this pandemic. 

I think of all the days I spent in San Diego this spring and summer and how we share pictures and messages now more than we ever used to. I think about how Uncle Bill and my dad would have loved Finley and how frustrated they both would be at how long this has all gone on. How broken it all is. 

Nothing is the same. And yet. 

As I look out the window I notice the tree that I’ve been staring at for 10 months and realize, it is all about to loop. Snow, maybe, there is still hope, but then spring will bud on the tree and it will be pink before it is green. I wonder when this is all behind us will we notice the warmth of the scone, the process of individual leaves growing on the tree outside our window, will we remember why we do the work we do, will we even be the same? Will we want to be?