Can We Make the Golden Moments Last?
Finding magic in the everyday, courtesy of the pandemic
A couple of weeks ago I took my first plane trip since before Covid began. It was a short trip, just a few days to do some work and to see one of my dearest friends. Our friendship stretches back more than a decade. Although we live far apart, we usually see each other three or four times a year, sharing adventures and confidences, laughter and tears. During these past two years, it has all been Zoom. To be together again — well, it was all magical, but one of the days we went on a hike, stopping to listen to the birds, to watch the late afternoon light slant into sunset, to bask in the companionship we had missed for so long. “This is perfect,” my friend said quietly, looking at me. And it was.
The first time a golden moment like this happened to me, I was seven years old, watching the sunrise with my dad as we walked back to our campsite on the beach. Suddenly he stopped and showed me his watch. “It’s 5:55:55,” he said, and I saw the numbers lined up there for what seemed like an infinite second of perfect happiness.
Since then, whenever I see 5:55, morning or afternoon, it always makes me pause and notice what’s happening around me. Will I remember this moment forever, too?
