Missing you.

Things I never thought I would miss:

-The sticky tabletops and noise and general mess of a Taco Bell at lunch time.

I walked into one the other day, to the deserted counter manned by two intrepid souls in masks and bored expressions. The tables and chairs were cleared from the room, space enough to waltz in if only Fellini would call a tune. Everything absolutely antiseptic, no pools of Baja Blast drying blue on the stainless steel like little science fiction lakes on a metal moon. The folks who can't get served anywhere else quietly enjoying a burrito and a spot in a vinyl booth. The kids you can't take anywhere else cramming nachos and watching YouTube videos at top volume. I miss all of that. 

-The nervy anticipation of a gig before it happens. 

Oh sure, I miss the gigs. I miss the crowds and the small groups you can't quite call a crowd. I miss reading and bantering with a panel. I miss giving autographs and seeing my own book on the shelves. I miss other writers and the booksellers who represent the best in humanity, stacking up chairs and guiding people to the right read and beckoning me into the back room where the whiskey is kept. But at this point, I even miss the worry, the little jumps in my belly when someone starts a question in the crowd and is visibly emotional about what they've read. I miss the worry that my answers won't be good, that I won't measure up to what they imagined when they read me. I miss the painfully personal questions even, the ones I joke to get out of rather than peel myself open wider then I did when writing a novel. 

-The people I hardly noticed in everyday life. 

We all miss the special folks, the ones we're closest to and the ones we haven't been able to touch in far too ling. I haven't hugged my mom in so long I could have been born again. But I realized recently that I miss the guy at the cafe who's bursting for someone to ask him about his screenplay. I miss the woman with the stroller who beams with beauty when someone sees her coming and holds the door. I miss the surly and snarky person who makes me coffee like it's a major inconvenience but they're willing to allow it just this once. I miss the table at the restaurant that has had too many drinks and has no idea how loud they are. I miss the people who watch carefully, who catch the spill before it hits, who hand over a tissue before you have to ask, who treat just existing in public as a cooperative act that goes better when we're all trying to be there for one another. 

I'm starting to think the way I did when I was a child; like I can make deals with the gods. I promise to be kinder, to refrain from wishing hot death on the people who use their cellphones in the theater. I promise to pay attention to all these spectacular people who are bit players in my life and their own whole world when I'm not around. I promise to tip bigger and forgive faster, to offer sooner and always hold the door for the next guy. I promise that the next guy who tells me to smile will not get an elbow smash to the throat. He probably also won't get a smile-- I don't miss that guy yet. But I'll try to believe that he just wishes everyone around him were happier. 

And I'd be happier if everyone were just around. 

If you're reading this, I miss you. Doesn't matter if we've ever met. I am grieving the whole world and you are in it. 

I saw a friend's small child the other day, visiting at a safe distance. He was, as all small children are, like a tiny impression machine that constantly roasts both parents, taking on their voice and their phrasing because right now they are his entire world. He has no playgroup and no preschool. They don't watch much TV and even the traffic that goes by his picture window has been slow for months. 

He raised his perfect little finger the way his mother would do and said, over and over, "in the mean time..." I knew he'd gotten this from his folks trying to help him soothe the feeling of missing the world he is just beginning to know. The park is closed, but in the mean time... Your friends will visit again, but in the mean time... You can't pet that dog right now, but in the mean time....

I'm doing the same trick myself. I miss you all, but in the mean time I wrote you another letter. I wrote you another book.  In the mean time, I'm doing everything I can to hold hope instead of misery. 

This is the meanest time, 

Meg