Think about your life this time last year, just before Covid hit. What do you miss?
As we approach one year together I’ve been reflecting on life with the worst companion ever, Covid-19. Ideally we would never have met, but this pandemic has now been with us for longer than it takes for a whole new human being to form and be born and get lots of bulky and expensive gifts! A silly analogy considering the pandemic is the opposite of cute new life, causing as it does so much death, illness and all manner of destruction.
I must say, I’m very tired of it. I have come up with some sensible ways to stave off the pandemic-induced loneliness most of us have. What I do is overwork to fill the time, respond aloud to Melvyn Bragg’s podcast to fill the space, and wear a heat pack on my lower back to mimic the reassuring hand of a sturdy man. I also think about fun times I’ve had in the past, and how they’ll maybe happen again at some point. However, as this anniversary looms, looking back is making me melancholy. It’s not an unbearable feeling, rather it’s that sweet type of sadness that’s tinged with some new understanding. Let me explain in the most greetings-card terms possible, that it’s the littlest things.
What happened is this; I checked back over my schedule for this time last year. Living in New York, where a national emergency wasn’t declared until 13 March, this time last year was still relatively normal, with the amount of foreshadowing you’d expect in any mid-range horror film. On the first Monday of last February, I had five different things to do. Was I ever that busy? It seems so, but some were so silly it makes me honk with laughter and miss something Melvyn was asking about Saint Cuthbert. I turn off the podcast and go through each appointment.
First up, I met my friend and sometime writing partner Shaina in our
local coffee shop, where the barista was terminally and notoriously grumpy but made electrifying Americanos. We always got a kick out of her mood, tipping her bigger each time to see if it would elicit a smile the next. It never did. I expect Shaina and I discussed some work stuff and then some life stuff. Maybe it was then that she told me she was initially attracted to her husband because from the back he was shaped like a pizza slice tapering down to a great butt, I don’t remember. I had physical therapy then for a niggling shoulder injury. I was kind of over it but had one session left on my insurance so I went along and shared the studio with some elderly people on stationary bikes and some athletes using a variety of bands, all of us happily breathing away as we were cajoled by our physical therapists.
Then I got my hair done, just for fun, remember that? There was a $20 (£14) blow-dry deal on Mondays you see. Angela, my hairdresser, used to hug me goodbye! That night I hosted a comedy show, sharing a mic with my friends and making strangers laugh as they sat packed tightly in the dark. When everyone laughed at once it made a wave of energy bigger than all of us. Later I went for dumplings in Chinatown, which I vaguely recall was related to some sense of duty; to support the city’s first neighbourhood affected by the pandemic. Knowing me, it was also dumplings for dumplings’ sake. No great achievements for me that Monday, no tasks completed or money earned or ambitions unlocked. What a beautiful day it was, and I didn’t even know it at the time. That’s what I mean about the sadness and sweetness.
I asked the closest thing to a community of strangers that I have now – my Instagram followers – if they knew what I meant about missing the littlest things. They did know, and we talked about it: we miss hugs, we miss sipping a friend’s cocktail to see if we like it enough to order it, we miss making faces at babies, and leaning our heads on friends’ shoulders, and eating from buffets, and the feeling of getting home from work. We miss the smell of the cinema and being close to strangers, we miss aimlessly trailing through shops touching everything lightly as we go, and reading in pubs and making cashiers laugh. We miss spontaneous plans and studying in coffee shops and spotting little dogs in handbags on the train and taking our time in the grocery store and last-minute karaoke. Oh, and hugs again, we really miss hugs.
I didn’t know before that these are the things we would miss, did you? Such a terrible year it has been, an unwanted anniversary if ever there was one, but at least it’s given us that.