Even the most world-altering of years will get winnowed down in time, eventually condensed to a string of bullet points in a skimmed-over textbook. But if you survived 2020, certain fragments will surely live on in your head, permanently etched into place. I asked readers to share their most indelible memories of the year. Taken together, the responses formed a kind of kaleidoscopic year in review. All of the era-defining moments were there, but refracted through individual lives. In the first month of the year, a young mother in Los Angeles made dinner in her apartment kitchen. NPR played as she cooked, just background noise, really. Until it cut through.