things left on the curb.

When quarantine started in March, it took all of three days before I started getting stir crazy. I was the only one in the apartment working, and the hours at my advertising job bled well into the night, so every day felt the same: wake up, drink sad coffee, work until 9, spiral until 1 AM, repeat.

It took a week before I finally dug out my running shoes, and found what has become my go-to route.

I didn’t realize how much I was missing until I started running, but slowly I started seeing things in my neighborhood that I never noticed before. Large, bright sidewalk drawings, beautiful gardens, large, drooping lemon trees — so many little things that I never would have noticed if not for a push to get outside my apartment.

My favorite part of my runs became the things I would see on the curb outside people’s houses. We kind of glance over trash because it’s…well...trash, but the more I ran by these houses, the more I noticed the kind of things they threw away. Mirrors, couches, someone’s old office paperwork, all tossed to the curb, on display for everyone and no one to see.

There’s a house in particular that I looked forward to running by. The first time I passed by it, the sun was setting, and there was something in the bushes outside the house that was flaring the sun in my eyes. I crossed over to the other side of the street and squinted, trying to find the culprit.

It was a whole can of Modelo. Just nestled in the bushes.

It wasn’t resting on the ground, but literally cradled in the middle of the bush, as if someone had placed in there. I let out a little giggle, thinking about who would place a beer can so carefully in the midst of a pretty flower bush, and carried on the rest of my run.

The next time I ran by that house, I saw a pair of glasses. A whole pair of glasses, just sitting there, as if someone had set them down and just forgotten to pick them up.

A thing of perfume, a single sock, a pair of Corona bottles — every time I ran by that house, there was something new waiting for me to discover.

After awhile it felt like an inside joke between me and the owners. Like they would set out things specifically for me to find, and each week they would wait for my reaction.

I’ve ran by that house for the last six months, and I’ve never seen the people that live there. I know they’re there though, because I see the evidence in the things they leave on the curb. It’s honestly become an unexpected joy in this new routine of mine — in a year where I feel like I’ve lost so much, I’ve gained a new appreciation for my neighborhood, and a little peek into the lives of the people I live by.

That’s probably my favorite part of this year. That in a society where we keep things so close to our chest, where we curate our lives to death, we were put through a year where we had no choice but to let other people into our real, actual world, because we realized we’d die without it.

About a month after LA went into lockdown, I was on my nightly run. I remember thinking that I had no idea how I was going to survive, how angry I was that our lives were just flipped upside down in a weekend, when I saw something that made me just…stop.

A car pulled in the driveway of a house I saw nearly every day. A woman got out of the car, and a man half-walked, half-ran to her and enveloped her in a hug. They stood there for awhile, not saying anything, just holding each other so tightly in that driveway.

I stopped running for a second and just kind of looked at them. For some reason I couldn’t look away — the moment felt so personal, so private, and yet there I happened upon it.

I think about that moment a lot, honestly. There was something so pure, so rare about it. Two people, just clutching onto each other, during one of the most isolated years in modern history. It was a moment that I never would have witnessed if I hadn’t been practically forced out my front door into exploring my neighborhood. I weirdly felt so grateful standing there, watching two people hold each other so tightly.

I want to keep the same kind of wonder when life goes back to normal. Because now that I’ve seen all of the simple, unextraordinary moments that happen every day in the neighborhood next to me, I don’t want to miss them ever again.

I went by the house again this morning, and this time I found a little shard of what I assume was once a mirror, winking at me as I ran on.