Special moments are about to start happening. Please pay attention.

Every now and again, there is a moment of perfect resonance. Two people, or three people, or four, or more will be in perfect sync, perfectly present, and something so funny or real or current will happen, and it will live forever.

Once upon a time, I was leading a group of students through a program called Write a Book With Me. In it, we showed up together on Zoom for real-time writing sessions. We’d hang out for a few minutes, we’d write for anywhere from 25 – 55, and then we’d come back and reconvene. In theory, we were supposed to be talking about the work we’d just done. In practice, it was mostly makeup and dick jokes.

These sessions were available twice a day, six days a week, for anybody who wanted to attend them. Some people were insane (ahem) devoted enough to attend them all.

By several weeks into the program, we were all punch drunk. We had been fighting back Resistance, hacking away at our manuscripts, bleeding on the page. When we came back from our writing sessions, we were like young soldiers, giddy and giggly from the trauma and lack of sleep.

One day, a new soldier joined our ranks. His name was Tom. He thought the class started at 5 pm, but we had actually started at 4, meaning we were already wrapping up and acting like 12-year-olds by the time he arrived. He was thinking he was showing up for a Q&A session and trying to a Serious Writing Conversations. He had Qs and he wanted As!

We, on the other hand, were debating the merits of licking our bronzer palettes to see if they tasted like chocolate. 

At the time, I had no idea he didn’t know class was officially over – I just thought he was late – so it never occurred to me to catch him up. After several minutes, and quite a few tries to get us to act like adults, he left in disgust.

“I think we scared him off,” I said into the mic.

“Poor Tom,” wrote Maryann in the chat.

“Poor Tom!” said Holly.

“Poor Tom!” mused Heather.

One by one, we all chimed in with our sorry-not-sorry to Tom, the Diligent.

I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard, before or since.

For days, we didn’t let it go. We couldn’t get two sentences out without somebody citing Tom. It became an anthem for us, knee deep in the weeds of newbie authordom, a battle-cry for our defiance of the odds.

We had been through so much together, spending more time with each other than some did with their partners. We were all nervous first-timers, holding each other up while we went through something new and foreign and scary and HARD. 

For us, the ones who were still standing until the very end, we were not getting by on discipline, or order, or motivation. We were getting by on fumes and grit.

And then Tom showed up, all eager and earnest and a lifetime too late, a freshly-laundered American recruit docking in occupied France and ready to fuck. up. some. Nazis.

That tiny moment with Tom cemented us as a group, taking us from Craigslist roommates to comrades-in-arms. A ridiculous moment that could never be replicated, could never happen under any but those particular and bizarre circumstances.

You may have noticed that we are living in particular and bizarre circumstances now. 

Moments like this one are coming. Please look out for them so you can remember them and keep them safe when times get tough.

When Jack was tiny, he used to ask if he could “play my tattoo”. (I have a blue electric guitar on my stomach, one of my late stepdad’s, from back when he was Kinda Famous. His new wife wanted a permanent memory of him when he died. Since nobody else was stupid enough to do it, I tagged along.) Jack would toddle up, a giggle building, his expression hopeful. I would pretend to say no, but always say yes, and he would tickle the strings with his finger and hum a little melody.

He did it again today. It’s probably been close to a decade.

The moments are going to start coming, ridiculous moments that could never be replicated, could never happen under any but these particular and bizarre circumstances.

As a society, we have been in a haze for so long we can’t remember what life was like before technology, and instant gratification, and smartphones.

We have forgotten what it was like to be in the same space and enjoy it.

We have forgotten what it was like to share a tiny joke in the quiet.

We have forgotten what it’s like to not have somewhere to be.

Slowly, though, it’s coming back.

Keep watch. These moments are going to be the ones that sustain us.

xx
Naomi