Hindsight was 2020, and Now I Can’t Wait for 2022
Written and Photographed by Chika Okoye | Designed by Tamar Ponte
My home in Vegas smells like the scented purple Airwick you get in bulk at Costco. It smells like semi burnt pots and sweet perfume. It smells like my mom cooking soup as she blasts Nigerian music through the house. It smells like comfort; that is until you move away, and you can’t smell home anymore. I missed home halfway through my freshman year of college, and coincidentally enough, the pandemic hit, and not only did it send me home with my crushed dreams of ever attending Marathon Monday, but it shut me into the house I missed so dearly, surrounded by the smells I can’t ever replicate. COVID-19, the virus itself, didn’t alter my life but it forced
me indoors and the things that happened behind those closed doors transformed me. The beginning of the pandemic was odd. I was attending college classes from my childhood bedroom while simultaneously cringing at Gal Gadot and Millie Bobby Brown as they sang “Imagine” in their million-dollar homes. As Americans shut their doors from the outside world, America also closed their borders, confining us all into one of the most transformative modern day civil rights movement the country has seen in decades. During early summer of 2020, we heard the stories and names of Breonna Taylor. Of George Floyd. Of Elijah McClain. Summer
of 2020 was grief, and I decided to take a much-needed break from social media as I wanted to dodge the performative infographics that were plaguing my Instagram feed. Through the month of June, I got to hang out with my mom more than ever before and was once again intoxicated by the smell of her sweet perfume. I stayed indoors and because I was now completely locked away from the outside world, I was finding a newfound appreciation for family. Finally, June 21 —my birthday came quickly. I sat at my kitchen table grateful that my family was all there and taking in the smell of home. One thing to note about my family is that every occasion
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