Missing

I stopped into a coffee shop today, a casual Saturday, and grabbed a quick latte.

While in line I glanced around at the cozy tables and chairs. There was even a soft, sink into kind of chair tucked in a corner behind a long hallway.

I miss lingering in coffee shops. Pulling out a notebook or a book and spending an hour or more settling into a flow of words.

Words of customers around me, words on the page, words tumbling from my pen clutched in my hand.

Two years. The last time I sank into a couch with a book was two years ago, on a Colorado mountain as the threat of Covid swirled but I tried to ignore it.

I knew it meant a great shift was on the horizon and because I knew I grabbed a few extra minutes beside the fire.

The crackling of the embers was comforting and the nervous laughter between the baristas bantering sounded like so many coffee shops from my past. It reminded me of the time I worked in a coffee shop myself and worried most about how I looked and how long to steam the milk – not too hot but just hot enough.

When I could push the time no more and my anxiety rose too high I gathered all my books and notebook. I shrugged into my winter coat, pulled on my hat and mittens then stood for an extra minute by the door.

I didn’t cry, because as much as I knew I didn’t really know. But I did take one last scan of the coffee shop.

Now I see the unmasked patrons on that long ago afternoon; the customers talking and laughing across from each other. A family snuggled up near another group of people beside the fire. I see what once was, who I once was.

If I had known what was to unfold I would have let the tears drop freely. Because that was the last time my tears would be uninterrupted by a mask.

Whenever I do finally find my way back to the cozy corner of the coffee shop, the part I will grieve the most is who I was on that day two years ago. That tiny, hopeful speck within me who believed a pandemic would never touch me.