I thought a moment that could be a perfect moment, but at that moment I was within it, and thus not able to view it from the outside and recognise it as a perfect moment.
Someone else had noticed it and pointed it out to me but never had the chance to capture it.
I moved out of my dear old house at the end of June, so this is where I had spent the majority of my time in lockdown. My best friend Vicky would often visit me there. As she was not allowed to come indoors due to the restrictions she would come for a chat and would sit on the floor in my driveway while I sat on a stool in my open doorway.
One day she came by with some dinner for me. It was some stir fry noodles from the uni cantine and she had also brought a portion for herself. So we sat there and ate dinner together, socially distanced with me in the open doorway and her in the drive.
At some point, my lovely neighbour came by (I never actually learned her name but she was always so warm to me) and she saw us sitting there eating together from across our shared front lawn fence. We smiled at each other, exchanged a few small pleasantries and she went on her way.
Some days after this, we bumped into each other again over the fence. She asked about my friend who she saw me eating dinner with and enquired if that was something we did regularly. She wondered if she might be permitted to take a photograph of the two of us the next time we sit to eat together socially distanced. She is also an artist and she explained that when she saw us the other day she felt it was a really lovely moment that summed up the reality of the situation we are all in right now. I told her that we did not have a set schedule when we would meet but that she was welcome to take a photograph whenever next she saw us again.
She never did get to take her photograph though, but I wonder what it might have looked like if she had; what she might have observed and felt as she peered down the lens at this perfect moment, documented forever.
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