LONGING TO CHECK MY BUCKET LIST,

When it became glaringly obvious that the 2020 holidays would be like nothing I’ve ever known, I began compiling a list of what I want to do, who I want to see and where I want to go. I labeled it my Post-Pandemic Bucket List, and now I update it almost daily on my phone. It has grown rather long — some might say unwieldy and wordy.

So be it. Thinking of the future has kept me sane at a time when grief has proven overwhelming, and when anger has choked my thoughts and trampled my intentions. Reading the list, however, is like a salve for the soul. It brims with promise and hope.

Topping this bucket list is the people I want to see, those living far and those living close, those I speak to regularly and those who have fallen through the time slots of a too-busy life. These include my childhood friends in New Orleans and in Philadelphia. My buddy in Morristown. The cousins in the Chicago area and those in Northern Virginia, too. And also the aunts, the only survivors of that generation and the last link to a past I now wish I knew more about.

I mean more than “see,” of course. I want to hug with abandon. To linger and loiter over a cup of coffee. To sit across from one another in a restaurant. To walk side by side without keeping six feet apart. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind a crowd, a boisterous one where jostling translates into camaraderie and not a danger. Where you take a sip of beer from an acquaintance’s frosted mug and a bite from your sister’s bistec empanizado.

During these past 10 months, I’ve yearned for what I’ve long taken for granted. A pat on the hand. A shoulder to cry on. A kiss on the cheek. A secret whispered in the ear. The locked arms of comfortable companionship. All are basic gestures we rarely think about — but oh, how important they’ve become when we can’t have them! If the pandemic has taught me anything, surely the most important lesson is our need for human touch.

It’s not just the proximity of people I miss, though. I long for places, too, for exotic locales and well-known venues. I want to traipse through the rugged terrain of Newfoundland, its Cape Spear and L’Anse aux Meadows, home to the remains of an 11th century Viking settlement believed to be the first European presence in North America. That Canadian province has been on my travel to-do list for years, ever since I read two amazing books, “The Shipping News” and “Sweetland.” I cannot imagine a setting more different from my tropical hometown of Miami.

I also want to cruise the cerulean waters of the Greek islands, to savor authentic baklava and a shot glass of ouzo in a whitewashed cafe on a cliff in Santorini. Israel beckons as well, with its ancient history and sacred sites. Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Bethlehem. Nazareth, Jericho and the Dead Sea.

I’d like to return to Catalonia, my family’s homeplace, to my mother’s Sitges, to my paternal grandfather’s village, to the cosmopolitan hubbub of Barcelona. This area remains a setting both foreign and familiar, a setting that speaks to my heart in a way nothing else does. I’ve been meaning to visit for the past five years but for some inane reason never carried out the wish. How foolish, how short-sighted.

Sheltering in place, waiting for the vaccine, the world seems suddenly more tempting than it ever has been. So many places to visit, so many people to embrace, so much to do, and me stuck at home. Sometimes I can taste the frustration in the back of my throat.

Then again, I must ask myself: Why have I waited so long to experience what has always been right in front of me?