Day 288 in 2020

Last fall, at the beginning of Calvin's first year on his dance studio's competition team, I took a picture of him rushing in through the studio door, dance bag on his shoulder, jacket trailing behind, because every time I sat in my car after dropping him off and watched to make sure he got safely where he was going I thought he looked so grown up and so professional. It's a grainy, unremarkable picture, but one that meant something to me alone. Here, then, is a capture of the new routine—walking through the basement door, no rushing required because traffic did not slow our arrival, and no bag required because the shoes live down there by the makeshift dance floor all the time now. It's a stark contrast, one that breaks my heart every time, but we'll be back some day, I dare to hope.

Day 262 in 2020

Distance dance team. 2020.

Day 166 in 2020 (isolation days...)

In our new reality choir concerts are spliced together from individual recordings, bassoon lessons are held over Skype, and company dance auditions are recorded in the living room.

Ballet

Contemporary

Hip Hop

Jazz

Day 105 in 2020 (isolation day 180)

Dance class via Zoom. 

Day 78 in 2020: isolation blog day 3

I had that moment today.

Calvin and I took Gimli out for an hour-long walk along our community trail where we saw more people than I have ever seen out on the trail in the past year of weekly walks there, and they were all either smiling and laughing or talking with great energy, no real moderation, no between. Gimli, of course, doesn't understand the difference. In our home, uniquely prepared for this time of isolation by our basic lifestyle and personalities, Gimli is the only one who has really suffered. He's confused when Jon doesn't go to work and expects continued playtime, not understanding when it is denied. His afternoon walk or hike has been shifted daily thus far, now that I don't have to drop a kid off at school at the same time daily, and yesterday we completely forgot to feed him lunch. Too many cooks. But we will eventually settle in to a new normal, and so will he.

But my moment today was bigger than that. I took pictures today and thought about what I wanted to write about how this isolation was changing things, affecting us, and there were so many things I thought I could say, all of them positive, or just informative. Then I sat down and edited pictures and the heaviness and extent of what we are facing finally hit me. The length of time, the extent of the loss. Months just gone from each other's lives. 

I snapped shots of Calvin practicing for dance down today, down in our basement where we created a mini studio for him a few years ago. He was working with videos sent home by his dance instructors, not unlike the remote learning he did with his bassoon teacher last weekend, or that Jon is doing with his piano students, but actually this was a little different. These are steps to dances prepared for a competition that may or may not happen (more likely not). That made it seem so sad, and I thought what a terrible, terrible loss this is for people at pivotal moments in outward life. These are his formative years, and he could spend some of them in veritable lock-down. 

But that still wasn't my moment. My actual moment came when I sat down to talk to him about it just before bed, to listen to his stresses, his sadness, and his uncertainty, and try to provide guidance or comfort. Then I realized that in the end, time will go on. Certain moments may be lost, but others will replace them and these will be what make up his formative years. Will they look like what I expected them to? No, but then this generation was never going to look like ours, or like what ours expected it to, either. They will make their own way and it will form them and the future may be better for it.

But honestly, that doesn't make it any less sad to me right now.