I was blessed to be able to spend the past two weeks in Lake Tahoe. I’m grateful for a few days of solitude to write and revise my newest novel, which I think is now ready to start sending out to agents (which is both exciting and terrifying). I enjoyed a few days alone with my husband, some nice time for the two of us to be alone together. Then capped off with a week of family time with some of my boys and cousins.
It was magical.
Magical that it happened at all. I was prepared to cancel the trip up until the moment I left, depending on COVID, but we figured out ways to travel that still felt safe to us. Meaning, no beaches with the crowds of people not wearing masks. Only visiting with extended family outside, not sharing meals or going to restaurants or into each other’s houses. So different from our typical, annual Tahoe tradition, but still miraculous in this adjusted way.
Magical weather! Blue skies, no humidity, average of eighty degrees during the days and pleasantly cool at night. One thunderstorm, which I loved because we never get thunderstorms in the Bay Area.
Magic that the group of people I was with were able to understand and accept each other’s different comfort levels with safety precautions. That we were able to enjoy each other’s company in unique and ingenious ways. Magical how much energy and happiness I get from being around people, all the more noticeable when those interactions have been so limited.
Magical that instead of focusing on the myriad of ways in which this trip was not what it was supposed to be, I was able to deeply appreciate what it was. I should have been writing with my Baes at the Writers Workshop during week one. We should have had our normal, full, overflowing houses of family during week two for Cousins Week. But we did make the best of the options available. And I am hopeful that next year we will all be together again.
I also hope that you find a way to make the most of the magical moments that occasionally pop up for you, even though they may be rarer and harder to find among the disheartening happenings in the world. Don’t stop looking for the magic because those moments, and our gratitude for them, are what gets us through these difficult times.