I woke up in Reno, NV on January 1st, 2020. I was living with my brother, Mason, for a few weeks before flying back to New England to visit family. It’s so bizarre to think back to this time – pre-covid, pre-lockdowns, pre-what-the-actual-fuck-is-happening-in-the-news. Nothing about this year was normal and everybody, in some way or another, had their life flipped upside down. If I had to describe my year, I’d probably call it “The year of Maple syrup and Home Depot.”
But let’s recap, since that’s fun even if no one cares.
Snaps from early 2020, when too many of us took touch, travel, and dinner parties for granted.
One of my goals for 2020 was to find a home base. After four years on the road, I could feel myself burning out. Despite work going well and living the so-called-dream, I was unhappy and attributed it to feeling completely disconnected to any real community or routine.
I made my way back to Boulder, CO in February and properly rented a room for the first time in four years. I had always sworn that I would never move back to Boulder – too many mixed emotions from when I lived there five years ago, plus there were so many other places I enjoyed living while in my van. But I also knew it was the only place that really felt like home, plus it would be easy to reconnect with my old community of friends. Within a week I knew I had made the right decision, and a month later I made an even bigger decision and bought a small home. 1,300 sqft complete with cat-pissed shag carpet in every room, a leaking roof, rotting walls, a hilarious bathroom from the 1970s, and asbestos riddled drywall.
Holding the keys to my new old house, coupled with my first interaction with Smokey, my favorite neighborhood cat and potential culprit of the cat-piss carpets.
I closed on March 12th, on the eve of the lockdowns, which will forever be one of the stranger weeks of my life. Right as I was making the biggest financial decision of my life, the world began to crumble. Fear got the better of me and I flew back to New Hampshire to wait out the storm on my parent’s farm, leaving my run-down dream home in the rearview mirror with no idea of when I would return.
It all started with toilet paper.
The next three months were surreal. The farm was quiet and normal, but the front page of the New York Times was something out of a horror movie. I took over cooking all the meals for my pod, which consisted of my parents, brother, sister-in-law, and farm-dog Ned. All my work had been canceled for the foreseeable future so I settled into lockdown life. I knit, baked a lot of bread, worked on my pastry skills, read, went for long runs in the woods behind our house, and bought a few pinhole cameras.
The Pod.
More importantly, I ran a small but successful business of moving 40 gallons of sweet liquid gold (read: Maple Syrup) to the masses in a time of need. I think my uncle nearly fainted when I told him we sold out in 24 hours using something called “instagram.”
My uncle, Tom, in his sugar house.
By mid-May, I returned to Boulder to face the over-priced dilapidated piece of shit I had bought a few months prior. With the lockdowns beginning to lift, I was able to get to work. I entered into a new stage of life, one I like to call, “The era of shitty contractors and what it actually means to own a home.” The to-do list grew and the trips to Home Depot were never ending.
Perhaps the craziest gem found while doing demo on the house was this naughty wall paper found plastered behind a bathroom cabinet.
Summer rolled in and the good weather meant more opportunities to hang out with friends outside. I took a short trip down to Ouray to meet up with a few of my favorite humans, continued to work on the house, and started bouldering up in Rocky Mountain National Park with an all-time crew, thanks in large part to James Lucas and his insane motivation to secure park reservations. I also met a really cute boy under the Kind boulder. His name is Daniel and apparently all our friends had been conspiring behind my back to set this one up. Thanks, everybody.
Bouldering summer camp led by James.
I almost took a job in Idaho for most of August, but a botched bathroom remodel and scheduling fails tied my hands. I instead spent most of my time on the phone threatening to fire my contractors and driving out to Carbondale for weekend climbing trips.
Dog sitting once again affirmed that I am a cat person.
I got on a plane for the first time since the Pandemic started to see one of my oldest friends get married. I visited the farm in NH again and took a few dips in the lake.
Weddings in the time of Covid // The farm in a late-summer glory glow
In September, I drove north to Lander, WY for a wonderful week of climbing with new friends. I’ve decided to become a sport climber because it’s really fun, even though I think it’s 10x scarier than trad climbing.
Lander, WY.
Thanks to the persistence of my friend Jimmy, we got the band back together for our 2nd annual Green River trip. Nine of us piled into canoes for 10 days of perfect desert weather, floating and climbing to our hearts content.
Evening float down the Green River.
October and November were a bit of a blur. I found myself in the ER one night with a cyst the size of a large lemon in my abdomen. Strict orders and a large amount of pain forced me to take it slow for six weeks. I had to pass on another large film shoot, quickly got out of shape, but remained happy while I just settled a little deeper into home life.
The Cat-fe and Club Y.
Daniel and I traveled back to New Hampshire in December. My sister was finally allowed to come back to the US (she lives in France) and we took every measure to travel safely enough to be reunited. One thing’s for sure, I do not take visiting my family for granted anymore. These two weeks, while slow and unexciting, were wonderful.
End of the year bonfire on the farm. Conway, NH.
Like most people, 2020 gave me a lot of time to reflect on the things that made me happy in the midst an incredibly uncertain future. I only worked two photoshoots and sold a handful of images, which I thought would have sent my self-worth spiraling out of control. And yet, I’m far more content now than I ever was at the end of 2019 – which was a super successful year for me. This may not have been the year of work, but it was certainly a year of personal growth.
I also learned that I still pick up my camera every day because I love it, not just because I need to make a living with it. Well, and because of the never ending Photo a Day.
