I miss coffee shops.
I miss the delicious tang of burnt beans in the air. I miss the cozy background chatter and my color-coded lists of editing and planning.
I miss that my boys are two blocks away, in school, learning long division. Without me.
I miss the heightened buzz of coffee shop caffeine that I just can’t seem to replicate at home. I miss my usual spot, at the tall table near the front door with the chair that has a slight wobble.
I also miss the bank next door where I run in and deposit my freelance writing checks; they know me by name there and we talk about the weather.
I miss dropping by the grocery store on my way home, without worrying about what is going to happen to me if I actually go in.
Then all of this missing business makes me feel like a lout, like visiting a friend in the cancer ward and complaining about the vending machines not working.
Some days we do COVID-19 like a textbook pandemic family: we get along. We do school online and still learn things. We read the news and don’t freak out. We eat a vegetable or two, and we do yard work. Actually, my boys do the yard work, while I post about it on social media.
But yesterday was not textbook. Yesterday was Saturday and it was a mess. I didn’t want to get out of bed. The only thing I ate all day was a Symphony Bar and some raisin bran. At some point the boys were sent outside to play and proceeded to sulk listlessly on the front porch, like sad, unimaginative lumps of pre-teen. Everyone was awful, and that awfulness hunkered down all day long.
I just missed life like I had known it before.
Pre-Saturday I had said: “This will make us value everything so much more when this is all over.”
“This is making our family stronger. We’re reading more. And playing games. And talking to each other.” I said that too.
Well, I hate board games. And I don’t know what all this “extra valuing” will feel like. It’s been too long.
We had our own communion, in our living room, with saltine crackers and orange juice.
All these thoughts then swiftly tumble into guilt, and I cue up my guilt go-to: I didn’t survive the Great War, and we still have wi-fi here, so I should just stop whining.
I decided to scroll through Facebook which was, as usual, a mistake. People were yelling at each other about face masks. Other people are posting articles about how the pandemic is not a big deal, and we’re being duped. Checking into Facebook is a risky little game that ricochets from rage-posting to funny COVID-19 memes to articles about how funny COVID-19 memes are shameful.
And then I read about murder hornets and I took my computer outside to shoot it.
I’m writing this article on my computer right now, so clearly I didn’t do that. But murder hornets are a thing, and they are in Washington state now. So you’re welcome. There’s your new mascot for 2020.
Before coronavirus, I used to love Saturday mornings. The weekend’s here! We have no agenda! Maybe we’ll do some yard work or take a trip to Aldi for some of their dried mango. Maybe we’ll watch an old movie later and eats lots of popcorn, vats of the stuff swimming in butter. But now, with isolation in place, Saturdays are kind of like every other day, except for the mango.
“Just relax,” my brain tells me. “It’s okay. Bake some bread. Figure out how to get out of playing Monopoly, but in a way that is still engaged and nurturing. This is all going to be all right.”
But yesterday my brain fizzled out. It does that every two or three months, because of my hormones, and being in recovery, and because of my live-in roommate called Depression. That fizzing feeling in my brain starts in the front of my head above my eyes, and I wearily recognize it. The roommate is calling in a favor. “Hey,” it says, “I really want us to hang out. It’s time to binge out on feeling like everything is worthless, okay?”
The fizzling started on Saturday and, paired with a global pandemic, it was tough.
Which brings me to the moment when I cried because I missed my coffee shop.
It was about four in the afternoon, and I was heating up a cup of coffee in the microwave. The coffee had that oily sheen from sitting in an abandoned mug in the microwave since morning. I took a sip and it tasted dusty. And I started to cry.
Then, because we are all smushed up against each other, I tried to hide the crying from my boys because a teary mom who is muttering about hornets and coffee shops can be scary.
I know my family and I will get through this. I know we are also blessed because we are healthy. We are safe and well. But on Saturday I guess my brain had had enough. I had no place to put my feelings except somewhere between a closed coffeeshop and Washington state full of murder hornets. None of it made sense.
Then I went back to the only thing I did know that does make sense, like I always do, like an old country song that gives comfort with its melody: I prayed. I cried out to God, and whined my head off.
I stayed still. He did too. He is also in Washington state. He is in and over all of it, and I, thankfully, am not.
Today, I am all for it. This is togetherness, after all, and we need it.
At the end of the meeting, my friend Marilyn suggested we all sing a hymn together. “How about one we would know like ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’?” and I nod enthusiastically. Again, I marvel at this New Dana—the one who does not cringe at singing without accompaniment while my children look on in shock. Today, I am all for it. This is togetherness, after all, and we need it.
Friends, we butchered it.
Our “Holy, Holy, Holy” actually sounded like a dying animal. A really, really sad, dying animal. Also, about half of a verse in, my husband and I realized that we in fact did not know any of the words, except for the “holy” part. For the rest of this poor, mangled hymn we did the “Early in the smaaargha fa la la do si do si dooooooo” thing and hoped for the best. Brian kept eyeing me and singing stalwartly along, perhaps in tongues, and so of course I started to smirk. I don’t think anyone really noticed this because the feedback from all of us on the mics made the Zoom call burst into flames. Somewhere, some Zoom tech guy was watching this and muttering, “Oh stop. Please just stop. This was not what we had in mind with this platform at all.”
It’s ok. We gave God a good laugh, and I imagine he was grateful. And I am grateful too. Especially because our pastor was the first to say, at the end of the first mangled verses, “Guys. Even God didn’t think that was any good.”
And who else should I be sharing all this awkward and holiness with but my trusted friends? My beloved church, so far away right now, and yet always so very close.
