Yesterday I noticed my reusable coffee cups on my kitchen counter. I haven’t touched them in weeks, and I realized all over again how strange this time is. Two months ago I had one of these with me almost all the time, because I had a long commute and I wanted to do my part for the environment. Now, I work from home and make coffee with my “pandemic pal”—a stovetop espresso maker I bought as the lockdown began. When I look at them, I remember the friends who gave them to me, who I don’t get to visit with in person anymore. I remember the events they commemorate, and think about all the events which have been canceled this year. I remember happily the foreign places where I bought some of them as souvenirs—and also remember that traveling is out of the question right now.
I look at them and I remember the last times I used them, and in my memories I feel the looming shadow of the pandemic inching closer. First, my reusable cup was refused at a Starbucks. A few days later, at a locally owned coffee shop, I knew to ask if they would accept my reusable cup, and they did. But a week later at the same shop they had switched entirely to disposable cups, and a few days later they were closed.
The utter absence of these cups from my life right now is a 12-ounce hole, siphoned away by COVID-19. Now that I see them again, I’m looking forward to the day when, with extraordinary normalcy, I carry one of these around with me.
But right now they’re just gathering dust.
Gretchen
Webster Groves, Missouri, USA
9 May 2020