Where You Been?! 2


Where you been?  OK, I’ll correct my grammar for the grummerians out there (I know it’s grammarians).  Where have you been?


Who am I talking about?  I’m talking about you – those people who I don’t really know but who I feel I know because I read their blogs; those people who are my “friends” on certain social networking sites (like shelfari.com) those people whose faces are familiar from my commutes (including the bus drivers); those people who were clerks at my favorite lunch spot or pharmacy; people like my mail man.


Where have you been?  I miss you.  I miss your smile – in the case of the driver of the #202 bus who is young and efficient and courteous and a fine specimen of maleness (a little eye candy who made me smile whenever I saw him, besides, I was going to find out if he was single so I could try to introduce him to a lovely young woman I know). 


I miss your words – the poet whose inspiration has taken a hike, the photographer who seems to have stopped finding images to capture, and the deli-guy who knows just how I like the sub that I only have every two weeks or so these days in these days of frugality.


I miss y’all.  You are part of my world and when you disappear without a word I want to know where you’ve gone and what you’re been doing.  That’s nosy of me because in most cases, except for a few bloggers I don’t really know you that well.  What I really want to know is that wherever you’ve gone, you’re doing fine.


I miss my walking crew.  The weather has changed. It’s cold and dark in the morning which makes it easier to put off walking.  The fall season is a demanding one for women on a mission to do all the things we do – volunteer, agitate, participate, work and manage relationships.  I miss youse guys.


I miss places – Filene’s Basement.  The real, original basement.  Dot-2-Dot Café – are  you really closed?  So soon?  I supported you as much as I could and told a whole lot of people about you.  (I’ve walked by three times in the last two weeks, emailed and called and not found you open nor a note of explanation on the door.)


I miss tastes – what I wouldn’t give for a White Castle cheeseburger now.  (I don’t eat hamburgers but maybe once or twice, okay three times tops, a year – mostly turkey burgers are on the menu now – but this particular craving wants satisfaction.)  And the fried donuts from that place whose name I don’t remember in St. Louis.


Tastes and places, I can get over, replacing them with new tastes and different places.  But these unique people are sure hard to let go of because you  form the fabric of my life – a kind of security blanket.  Don’t go disappearing on me without leaving a note of some kind, something like “Gone fishing.  Be back soon.”  If I know you’re coming back, I can be more patient and feel less of a loss of the familiar.


 


About Candelaria Silva

Candelaria Silva-Collins is a marketing, community outreach and programming consultant; writer; and trainer/facilitator who lives in Boston, Massachusetts. She has designed and facilitated workshops on a wide variety of topics including communication, facilitation, job search skills, team building, and parenting issues. She currently coordinates the Community Membership Program of the Huntington Theatre Company. Her work as Director of ACT Roxbury was profiled in several publications, including The Creative Communities Builders Handbook. Candelaria’s children’s stories, short stories, essays and reviews have been published in local and national publications and she is an active blogger. Her publications include the booklets, Handling Rejection; Pushing through Shyness: Networking Tips when You’re Shy, Slow to Warm Up or Just don’t Feel you Belong; and Real Questions about Sex & Relationships for Teens: A Discussion Guide for Parents. She has served on the boards of Goddard College, Wheelock Family Theatre, Boston Foundation for Architecture, and Discover Roxbury. She is currently Chair, Designators of the Henderson Foundation.

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