“That moment...” memes have been all over the Internet for
some time now. (Side note: I have to confess that although I’m usually amused,
I can’t help but cringe at the fact that those “moments” are never described in
properly complete sentences. Seriously, how hard would it be to tack on a phrase
that explains the “what about it” of the moment instead of leaving it sitting
there, alone in the dark, as an unsupported dependent clause, on the dangerous
streets of bad grammar?)
Anyway, those moments...those moments are significant, and very often extremely relatable, and I realized this year that
those moments are small, quick, bright lights of life that possess an
unforgettable quality. Those moments can be a little elusive at first, but once
you locate them, either within big events or during every-days, they will shine
and become bigger than the flashes of time they were originally discovered in.
This post is about my “13 best moments of 2013” (in chronological order, and you bet
I am going to write them out properly):
1. February 14, at a Tragically Hip concert in
Toronto: I laughed at that moment when I was convinced that everyone with
seats close to us had to be enjoying themselves more than anyone else there because
they got to watch us clearly having a better time than anyone else there, putting
on a sort of complimentary performance ourselves. We even made t-shirts, which we proudly showed to everyone around us. We rocked out the whole way through, which ended up giving Joel rock-neck the next day. You could literally feel the
pure joy and energy in the brightly lit air around our group of four—it was
contagious.
2. April 22, at work: I’m fortunate to
work for wonderful friends of mine, and the business’ office is in their home.
I was at work this Monday morning when coincidentally, my friend was in labour
upstairs—like, she was having a baby
upstairs. That moment when you can almost recreate feelings of labour pain
in your mind because your own memories of childbirth are so vivid and so
intense, knowing the very same thing is happening a couple floors up from where
you are sitting, to a close friend, is really quite a distracting, exciting,
heart-beating-fast-and-hands-a-little-shaky-most-likely-out-of-extreme-empathy kind
of moment.
3. May 19, at Ravine Vineyard Estate Winery:
Joel and I went with the boys to see Hayden perform there during a fundraiser
for House of Hope. We’ve been fans of Hayden since Everything I Long For was released in the ‘90s. I’m sure you can
imagine our excitement when we spotted Hayden himself chatting with people at
the entrance when we arrived. We excitedly walked up to him and introduced
ourselves. Joel asked Hayden if he could get a photo with him, to which Hayden
agreed (he’s really cool). I was to be the photographer. I had a coffee in
hand. The sun was shining brightly, and I was a little star-struck. I couldn’t
see the icons on Joel’s phone, so it took me longer than it should have to get
to the camera app. I finally did, and then with coffee still in hand, tilted
the phone to the picture-taking angle, which also ended up being the
pouring-coffee-all-over-my-dress angle. That moment when you pull a dumb blonde
move in front of a musician you admire is a combination of embarrassment and
hope that this event has made you more memorable to the famous person than just
some boring girl taking a photo without spilling her coffee all over herself. (Hashtag:
blondeshavemorefun)
4. June 6, at my sister’s house, for my
cousin’s bachelorette party: A group of girls, some family and some girls I
had just met, were all dressed up and having photos taken by a photographer
(which, by the way, is a fantastic idea for a bachelorette party). The
photographer was trying to get us to relax and “act natural,” so we started
fake laughing. The moment the fake laughter turned into real, pure, genuine,
hearty laughter still makes me smile. The picture below captured that moment.
5. June 8, at my cousin’s wedding: The
song “Knights of Shame” by AWOLNATION was played at the end of the reception,
and after having fallen in love with this song over the past few weeks, I
completely let loose and “became” the song, together with a dance floor full of
other people equally excited about it. During the song, a moment flashed by in
which I felt so fully alive because I was participating in a collective
celebration of a couple, of family, of marriage and of this totally awesome
song. I loved that moment. I loved that moment and that song so much that I
actually wrote a post about it earlier this year.
6. June 29, in Tobermory: Joel and I were to
be attending our friends’ wedding the next day in Owen Sound, so we had decided
to make a weekend of it and drive up a day early and go to Tobermory for the
afternoon (Tobermory is one of our favourite places). That afternoon, at around
2 p.m., we were on the beach at Singing Sands, the temperature was perfect, the
breeze was light and gentle and the sun was shining. The moment that we heard a
child’s cry riding on the wind and carried over to our ears, that sound
registered as the most beautiful sound we could hear because it was someone
else’s child crying. We did not have our children with us.
7. August 16, at the Angel Inn: As Joel
and the rest of Mosaik rocked out “Don’t Walk Away Eileen,” things got a little
crazy on the dance floor, and in a burst of wild energy, I began fake punching
a guy dancing near me to the rhythm of the song. This was all in good fun, I
assure you, and of course Joel was standing a few feet away, probably wondering
what was up with me and then quickly dismissing it as the legitimate behaviour
of a mother of small children who doesn’t get out much. The moment I looked
around and saw a lot of people laughing at me made me feel good, the way a
comedian feels when people laugh at his or her jokes. As Gob said in Arrested Development, “They’re laughing with me, Michael!” (hopefully...)
8. September 2, in Niagara Falls, on the
Skywheel: This was Labour Day, and Joel and I had the opportunity to go on
a date, but as it often is with dates when you have kids, and gracious
grandparents offer to take the kids for a block of time which provides the
opportunity for a date, the dates occur at unconventional date times. We went
to the Falls and rode the Skywheel at about 9:30 in the morning that Monday.
This was that moment when you are kid-free and you are riding a Skywheel cabin
up, up, up, and the giddy feeling of being on a teenage-type date at age 31
dissolves slightly into a moderate nervousness because the cabin is shaking and
you don’t remember this thing going up so high before, but then being glad of
that fear because it means you did something “exciting” that day.
9. September 8, at a Zusters rehearsal: We
were jamming out one of our new songs, and what was originally a song that
risked being left out of our upcoming album altogether, with a few adjustments,
swiftly became a favourite. My sister and I had gone back to the drawing board,
and I had edited the lyrics a bit, and she had made some changes to the verses.
All of a sudden, on this day, when we started jamming out the song, a funky
beat emerged that melted effortlessly into our revisions and then flowed into a
chorus and a moving ending, full of strings, and tucked between the notes on
the staff was a moment—that moment when you are participating in making music
with ones you love, and everyone participating believes in the song with all
the passion they can muster, which forms a layer of light that surrounds each
sound wave and assures you without a doubt that this is what you are meant to
do. Seriously, it happened just like that.
10. September 28, downtown St. Catharines: I
was out with a group of friends to celebrate my birthday. While waiting in line
for the bathroom with a friend, we asked a random girl to take our picture for
us. We smiled, the flash flashed, we thanked the girl and then eagerly looked
at the photo to see if it turned out. There was a blonde girl peeking out from
behind me, who had totally photobombed us, and she did it so seamlessly that
she looked like a legitimate friend of ours! The moment we saw that picture and
marveled at the girl’s seamless photobombing skills was unforgettable—I still
laugh whenever I look at this photo.
11. November 1, at home, at night: Arcade
Fire’s new album Reflektor had just
come out a few days earlier, and I had been listening to the album nonstop.
Quickly, the song “Afterlife” became one I would often skip to. Joel was out,
the boys were asleep, and I went downstairs with a glass of wine, blared the
song and danced by myself in the dark. There was a moment in there during which
I stopped feeling silly, finally turned off enough lights to make me feel
comfortable and let myself “dance like no one’s watching.” I may have looked a
little like Greta Gerwig in the video below—which I am totally cool with (she is
pretty awesome).
12. December 7, at home in my bathroom (I
hope this isn’t too much information): That moment, during the grueling process
of toilet training my 3-year-old, after having fought a desperate battle with
him all morning, and a losing war for the past four months, when my
one-year-old dropped a deuce in the toilet after
telling me he had to go—that moment was so hilariously ironic that I felt a
little lightheaded when it happened and had to pinch myself to believe I wasn’t
in Bizarro World. The leverage from that moment was ultimately the toilet
training turning point – so in other words, my one-year-old helped to train my
three-year-old.
13. This moment happened with both of my boys,
on different days, and on dates I cannot remember. With Emmett, it was a
voluntary “I love you so much, Mama” when I was unknowingly hungry to hear
those words from him, and with Lennon, it was a few minutes after his nap one
day when he sat snuggled contentedly and quietly on my lap for a long while.
Both of these small moments displayed the immensely satisfying and calming
feeling only brought by the intersection of two things: both parent and child
wanting to show their love for each other—to each give and receive that love—at
the same moment in time. Of course, parents love their children always, and
children love their parents, but let me tell you, the moments that these
expressions reciprocate at the same time can be rare. My kids don’t regularly
offer up that “I love you” statement (which is totally fine), and they often
wrestle out of or run away from a hug when I just want to hug them (which is
also OK). On the other hand, they sometimes really want to be held or to have
my attention, and cry recklessly for it when I am in the middle of doing
something else, and so regrettably, I pick them up out of frustration or tell
them to wait until I have a minute. You see, the stars were aligned in those
two different-but-the-same moments, those small moments that meant a lot to me.
There you have it. My 13 most memorable moments of 2013.
What were the tiny-in-time, brightly-lit moments of your
year?
