On Isolation.

My dear, sweet one -

I spend a lot of time romanticizing having a community.

I’m a pretty quiet person, really, though I get gregarious when I’m among loved ones who love me. Like when I’m with you, of course. Beyond those glittering moments, I spend a lot of time not really knowing what to say. It’s less about shyness and more about not wanting to bother people, to be overly familiar. I nurse an intense desire to be a known entity among known entities, but it’s hard for me to talk to new people. My dream is to walk into a bar and know a couple people sitting at the bar, and at least one person behind the bar. I haven’t seen a single episode of Cheers but it’s a false reality I cling to anyway. As always, I am writing to you from Beulahland.

I’m kind of a regular here. I mean, I come here regularly of course. Especially since I host my weekly writing group here. One of the bar backs had a beer with me after his shift was over once. I was a little tipsy and overshared a bit, I think. He still waves at me when I see him, but I don’t know if we’ll talk again.

Other than that, there’s this bartender I have a huge crush on. He’s always here when my writing group ends and I order a second drink and close my tab, and he makes a point of remembering my last name so he doesn’t have to ask. If I order food, he never gives me a number for my table because he knows where I’m sitting. Now I’ve made sure to sit where I can see him - I look up often to think when I’m writing, and he’s always in motion, always smiling, and just seems incredibly good natured and pleasant. I like looking at him. But we’ve never really talked. He doesn’t know me. No one here does. There are plenty of real regulars here -folks who walk in here like they own the place, amble up to the bar, greeting the bartenders by name.

My favorite is an old woman who’s always wearing a reflective highlighter yellow jacket that the men who work here greet uproariously, like they’re schoolchildren and she’s a beloved mom in the neighborhood. They tell her about their days and complain about life’s inconveniences to her, and sometimes she ducks behind the bar to give one of them a shoulder rub as they talk. It’s fucking weird and I love it - but to be honest, I’m a little jealous. I like to go places alone, to make my own plans, and the thought of going somewhere alone and finding a rotating cast of friends there is incredible. Do I have to wait until I’m a weird old lady to get there? What if I already feel like a weird old lady?

I try to be more positive with you normally, my love, but the fears and potentialities of the day have churned this all up. (Side note on “churned”: marketers are always trying to sell dairy products by telling me they are “triple churned” in commercials. I don’t know what it means! And I don’t think churning Coffee Mate could possibly matter that much! Stop telling me it’s triple churned!) I’m writing to you at the height of COVID-19 panic. We’re facing the possibility that very soon, we’ll all be confined to our homes for a couple of weeks, that community gathering places will cease to exist for awhile, and we’ll all have to talk to each other on the internet.

Honestly, the isolation is scaring me more than anything. I won’t be able to people watch. There won’t be strangers to smile at as I pass, or songs I haven’t heard in a long time playing over the speakers at the grocery store. There will be eye strain and a lot of pictures of desks and cats on instagram, I imagine. I will worry about Beulahland and other places like it, gathering spots that rely on people leaving their houses, being around strangers, choosing to have a meal or drink or conversation among the living.

I’ll take walks and try to see the sun as much as I can, but I already miss people. I’m already mourning my separation from them. I suppose this feeling makes the ways I keep others at a distance on a normal day all that much more painful. My distance from you is all the more unbearable. I want more than anything to reach across the breakfast table and hold your hand in mine while you sip your coffee, blinking the sleep out of your eyes. I want to trace my fingertips along the curve of your cheek as you tell me a story about your awkward youth. I know now that every moment I’ve spent otherwise engaged was wasted.

Think of me if you can, my love. I’ll be thinking of your smile, of the tone of your voice when you’re trying to tell a joke you’re already laughing at, of the way your hands move when you speak.

Stay safe, for me, until we meet again. I love you more than I can say here.

Yours,

Sammi