I Miss Sharing a Bottle of Wine

It’s one of those days everyone says it’s ok to have. The ones when you’re supposed to “move through” the emotions and practice self-care, as if the steam of a hot bath will make the weight of these feelings dissipate. It’s days like these, almost mid-way through another month of quarantine in what feels like a never-ending pandemic, that I sit at my dining table and think about what came before. I glimpse a bottle of red wine and as I mull over my memories, I think of nights spent sitting on couches with groups of gabbing girlfriends. We wore red lipstick and gold earnings and nail polish that wasn’t chipped. I miss those friends. I miss those nights. I even miss the couches – I haven’t sat on a couch that wasn’t my own in months. But perhaps most of all, I miss the act of sharing a bottle of wine.

The concept of missing things didn’t set in until early May. When my birthday came in March and my celebration plans were cancelled, I reasoned that it was for the better. My small contribution to the greater good. Fear made it easy to lock the door and emerge only for fresh, uninfected air a few times a week. April felt more like a “keep your head down and push through” kind of month. Zoom was new and fun and for the first time since the dawn of Skype people were excited about video chatting. Yet, amid virtual game nights, I found myself unsatisfied, longing for times where those reunions had taken place around dinner tables, coffee tables, on blankets in grassy patches under trees. Reunions where chairs were circled around plates of food under dim lights at a neighborhood spot only locals knew, and all it took were five magic words to set the mood: “Should we order a bottle?” 

I don’t miss drinking wine. I’ve had my share of glasses in quarantine. My husband and I open a bottle here and there, for birthdays, on Easter, a Friday night while we try to recreate our favorite restaurant order from the confinement of our kitchen. It’s our attempt at making special occasions feel special. No, I don’t miss drinking wine. I miss drinking wine with large groups of loud, rambunctious people. People who are excited to see one another. People who laugh and shout across the table to other people they’ve been looking forward to seeing all month. People who hug when they enter the room and peck on the cheek when they leave. I miss the venting sessions that followed the popping of a cork at a friend’s house after a long week. I miss the clinking of glasses held in the air at a table for 12, as they sang out of tune and wished a friend a happy and healthy year. I miss the foolishness that came from one too many bottles, the jokes, the jest. I miss sitting back in my chair and gazing around the room, drinking in the scene and realizing how perfect it is, how perfectly happy I am. I miss everything a bottle of wine brought with it.

When this pandemic ends and we’ve won the invisible battle for mankind, we’ll gather free of caution. We’ll celebrate with the people we’ve missed most in the places we’ve avoided out of love. In the heat or frost of the season that marks our victory, we’ll gather around a table and relish the smiling eyes and faces we’ve spent months without. We’ll laugh, we’ll likely cry, and together, in a room filled with our favorite recipes and a warmth we couldn’t quite create alone in our homes, we’ll share a bottle of wine.