It was the last full moon of 2022. Appearing brightest in the sky on Dec. 7, this moon was special. It eclipsed Mars in a rare lunar occultation, harnessing the planets’ rusty dust into an angry red glow. According to the Farmer’s Almanac, this event is known as the Cold Moon. December’s moon has also been called Hoar Frost Moon, Moon of the Popping Trees and Frost Exploding Trees Moon. But for me, the last full moon of 2022 will always be known as the Popping Covid’s Cherry Moon.
After two years, eight months and 24 days, I was starting to think I was one of those unicorns who was somehow immune to the coronavirus. I mean, not by accident. I had dutifully vaxed, boosted, masked, disinfected, isolated, tested and otherwise followed all the CDC recommendations — even after they’d became a meme for hilariously bad advice.
Time flies when you’re coming undone. Can you believe it’s been almost a whole year since the CDC halved the quarantine period from 10 days to five? Of course, that was when the whole world was a-twitter that the #CDCrecommends you “run with scissors,” “end your quarantine when you’ve reached the center of your Tootsie pop,” and “drunk-text your ex.”
I’m not sure exactly when I started to let my guard down, but it might have been around the time that comedy like that officially entered the chat. Oh, I still wiped down my grocery cart at The Market whenever I shopped. I washed my hands every time I walked into my condo. I had every intention of getting a flu shot and a booster before Thanksgiving. But next thing I knew, it was the first Friday in December, just before that Cold Moon, and I was making my way through Salt Lake City Airport en route to a girls’ weekend in Scottsdale.
I remember walking through Terminal Two, looking at the masses of people ambling to their gates, hogging the width of the moving sidewalk, pulling wheelie bags and juggling Venti Lattes and thinking, Something feels different. That’s when it hit me. No one was wearing a mask and I could see faces again. I felt a sudden surge of love, actually. Like, not just the holiday romcom vibe but an actual rush of emotion. Here was humanity, back to doing its thing in all its nonchalant, anonymously rude, get-the-frick-outta-my-way glory. It was strange to feel ordinary again. It was so beautiful, I could’ve cried. And in the middle seat of the plane next to an extra-large, ginger-bearded man who practically sat on my lap and snored for the duration of the flight, I almost did.
On the plane home, I assumed my first symptoms were just the after-effects of that weekend. A couple days later, when I’d reached the maximum hangover gestation period, I began to assume it was a cold. I decided to lay low just in case. I was, in the words of Dwight Schrute, ready to face any challenges that might be foolish enough to face me. In retrospect, I should’ve heeded the Dunder Mifflin Assistant (to the) Regional-Manager’s other piece of wisdom: Whenever I’m about to do something, I think, Would an idiot do that? And then, I do not do that thing.
Especially not after testing positive for SARS-CoV-2, which was what finally happened. I canceled all my weekend plans and grimly hunkered down at home.
So, what to do when you’re not doing a thing? For me this past Friday, isolating on the couch with a frozen pizza, the answer was “Love, Actually” — this time, the movie, not the emotion. I might not exactly feel the holiday spirit myself, but at least I could watch other people feeling it. Skeptical that my Covid brain would endure yet another viewing of the 20-year-old classic, any doubt was put to rest at the first note of the wedding flashmob performance of All You Need is Love. From there, I was as hooked as I ever was.
The moment that resonates most for me, even two decades later, is the Christmas Eve scene with Karen, played by Emma Thompson. We see her giddily opening what she thinks is a gold necklace she’d found earlier in her husband’s pocket. She opens the present and inside, finds instead a Joni Mitchell CD. “To continue your emotional education,” her husband, Harry, played by Alan Rickman explains. Realizing the necklace has been gifted to The Other Woman, Karen excuses herself and we see her sobbing alone in her bedroom to a full-orchestral version of Joni’s Both Sides Now.
The truth is, she’s not alone. Because any of us who’s looked at life’s illusions and still feels hope in something lost and something gained — in love and also in pandemics — is right there with her.