... when everything that happened seemed to be on the open road, and Facebook was there to chart it all, flaunting to the world what I chose to divulge, through the lens of my shiniest self (which periodically aligned with my real self). I can't decide whether the "on this day" function is a cruel reminder, an impersonal curated way of keeping track of the passage of time, or a beautiful nest of memories.
After months away, Facebook got it right today, nudging me in the direction of what I might want to be reminded of: feeling popcorn in my belly as my firstborn made her presence viscerally known; celebrating my first dose of post-partum freedom by eating raw pork (?!) in Bremen with new-found kindred musical souls; cracking 226km/hr on the autobahn as my (once again) pregnant belly flip-flopped; kissing my daughters' hair after being reunited post-tour; enjoying the view of the Danish countryside on the train back to Sweden, splitting a beer with my husband, as we prayed our tour grant money had come through so we could pay the band - things that all seem so far away and exotic, now that my days are currently spent rooted in one place, going into month 5 of a nightly curfew, growing a vegetable garden, making music for no other real reason than to stay sane (and maybe that was always the case), writing grants, fluffing up a day's work.
Life is funny; in every moment of intense happiness and pleasure, there's always a shadow, and in every time of difficulty, there are moments of pure joy. I'm not sure which camp I even sit in anymore these days - the shadow or the joy. But the waiting feels excruciating for anyone like myself (with zero patience and poor impulse control) - waiting for this to pass and to see what lies on the other side of it all, waiting for the next tour dates to be confirmed, waiting for grant results, waiting for venues and country borders to fully open again, waiting for the right time to drop the album, waiting to see what we learn, waiting for the snow to fall enough to play, waiting for the sun to shine, waiting to see if justice will be served, waiting for us to grow into better versions of ourselves, waiting for the next variant's unknown characterstics, waiting for the text announcing my daughter's (hopefully negative) Covid test result to pop up so she can go back to school.
I've never spent so much time on a fence, certainly not long enough to realize that from this vantage point, there's enough height to see both sides.