A List of What is to Come
I’m standing in my kitchen stirring onions in a pan when she tells me “I feel like I have nothing to look forward to.” Her words echo in my heart, haunting yet familiar. I want to reach in to give her a hug, tell her she isn’t alone.
But I can’t. We are hundreds of miles apart. Yet this intimate and vulnerable confession feels like something only whispered over a glass of wine while standing barefoot in your best friend’s kitchen.
If only that were true.
We are in the second week of the stay at home order issued across the country due to the pandemic. The fear and uncertainty and disappointment is a fresh wound. It’s an experience that in any other time would draw us closer to the ones we love for comfort. Not this time. Now we nurture friendships through screens.
She had texted to tell me she was canceling her flight to visit me in April. We both knew this was the right thing to do but it stung all the same. When you live states away from your best friend, the in person visits give you life. But this is just another canceled disappointment on top of many this year. As dates on the calendar slowly fall like a slow motion domino, I begin to wonder if she is right.
I stare out my kitchen window swirling the wine in my glass and her text in my mind. Laughter leaks through the glass panes. I watch Mike chasing the kids around the yard, celebrating this unusual warm day in March. It’s a tease; we know there will be more snow. But it’s a reminder that the thaw is closer. Spring is not far away.
I stare at the bare branches of the dogwood tree right outside the window. I can almost smell the pink flowers that bud in May. She has these trees too. I saw them last year when I visited in April. You can stand in her kitchen just like I am right now and stare out the wide picture window at a valley of trees watching the seasons change. It’s something we can both look forward to.
“But you do.” I text her back. I need to give her hope, because I need it too.
“You will watch the trees in your kitchen bud and flower.”
I know that is not enough. I know she needs more. Tears fall as my fingers fly across the keyboard.
“You will hide easter eggs for the kids and dress them in matching outfits on the fourth of July. You will celebrate birthdays, even if it’s just at home. You will welcome your new niece born into this world. You will watch your baby girl learn to crawl and eat real food and say Mama and smash cake. Those things you can look forward to.”
I don’t know what to expect from this year but I know that babies grow and seasons change and at least this I can promise her, and myself. A little hope with a few typed words.
There is more to come.
***
“Get your suits on kids, we’re taking dinner to the beach!”
It’s one of those surprise warm days in September when you know it could be the last chance to dip your toes into the lake. Once you survive a Minnesota winter, you never waste a gift like that.
In record time, the suits are on, the cooler packed, and the bikes loaded with towels as we push off down the alley. We have perfected our beach ready-ing routine over the summer. Just in time to put it away for the year.
On the ride to the beach we pass neighbors and friends from school on their front lawns, driven outside, I assume, by the same motivation to lengthen the summer. We stop to catch up, sharing updates on school, comment on new haircuts, exchange banter about the weather. “Got to get outside while you can!” we say, as we do every year, but this time the words feel more like a cautionary tale.
When we pull up to the little beach at the end of the block we are relieved to find it quiet, plenty of room to spread out safely. In the past this might have made me sad; I once loved the spirit of a lively beach in September. I wonder when these feelings will return.
Mike and I sit on the shore finishing our hot dogs and melon and roasted potatoes watching the three kids clasp hands to run into the water together, squealing giddy joy just like they did at the first run back in June. But it’s a fleeting pleasure as they discover the water they knew from summer's warmth has turned sharply cold.
The youngest recoils, running back to me in a mess of tears and disappointment.
I pull him into my lap, reluctantly, I’ll be honest, because snuggling a wet cold baby is not pleasurable. I wrap him in a towel and feel his breathing slow as he leans into me for comfort.
Change is hard.
That’s what he would say if he knew how to articulate it. It’s a disappointment we can all relate to this year—the let down when life is not what you thought it would be. I myself have melted into a mess of tears over canceled hopes this year.
Now we sit here on the edge of another transition, another goodbye, another summer to pack away. I’m sad too. It was a good summer. Better than I knew it could be.
But I know there is more to come. I just wish I could tell him that, the way I did my friend on that evening in late March.
I wish I could tell him about the leaves that will fall around him soon, like confetti from the sky. I wish he could know about that first taste of a snowflake and whispered crunch of footprints in a snowbank. Or that feeling you get on the first warm day in spring as the last pile of snow melts into the mud knowing that beach season is coming next. I wish he knew about Christmas.
It feels like hope.
Maybe this is just one of those things you gain with experience. Sometimes you learn it over years of watching the shifting seasons of life. Sometimes you learn it sharply one day when the world you once knew comes crashing down.
I think of that list I shared with my friend back in March. Every item has been checked. Perhaps it’s time to make a new list of what is to come.
What’s on mine this year? It’s basic, but just what I need.
Sip hot apple cider spiked with rum.
Fill my home with gobs of pumpkins.
Walk on a path paved in golden leaves.
Roast a turkey and eat leftovers for days.
Go over the top with Christmas decorations and break all the rules starting in early November.
Pile on the couch under blankets to watch the first snowfall of the year.
Serve hot chocolate to red cheeked faces after sledding adventures.
I could go on but I don’t need to. That is enough for now, I’ll be surprised by the rest. The greatest gift of life is there is always more to come. There is no better time to learn this than now.
This post was written as part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to read the next post in this series "Make a List.”
PS. Want more muses from my corner? Sign up for the Raise & Shine Letter . It comes out monthly and is certainly something you can add to your “What is to Come” list!