Just to clarify: I’m not talking about the big things: the lives lost, the livelihoods ruined. I’m talking about small every day pleasures that I miss.
We’re about a year into this pandemic and I’ve been thinking about what I want to do again when this is all over. What’s on your list?
- Eating and drinking in public- not just at restaurant (though I do miss those a lot!) but I miss being able to drink a hot/cold beverage while walking down the street, and not worrying about being six feet away from the people I pass.
- Live performances-Music. Theater. Sitting in a crowd full of people watching the same performance and knowing that it’s evoking similar feeling in the person across the room from me, who I’ll never meet. I miss that sense of connection with strangers in that environment. I miss the immediacy of knowing that the performance is happening, as I’m watching it, in real time: something could go wrong and often does. Someone could miss a note or forget their lines. Someone in the audience could do something distracting. The stakes are higher for live performances, and I miss being a part of that.
- Buying groceries and not worrying about washing them off before I put them away.
- Browsing- In stores. In the library. Looking at things and deciding what I want. Taking my time in those places.
- Getting together with friends- For meals, events, or just spending time together doing nothing special. I miss seeing friends in person as opposed to through a screen.
- In person family holidays – not that zoom isn’t great…It’s not the same though…
- Public transportation- Sitting in a bus or train full of people and reading a book, or just looking out the window, and not worrying about masks and germs.
- Movies in theaters- Sitting in a dark theatre that smells like stale popcorn, and has a sticky floor from all the spilled soda, with a bunch of strangers and watching the same movie at the same time. Laughing together, screaming together, crying together.
Fran Laniado- Author 