Missing

In French the verb meaning "to miss" is a reflexive one. Instead of directly saying "I miss you", it translates as "you are missing from me" - "tu me manques". I have often thought how much more appropriate this seems. Missing someone is not an active state, but rather a lack, a continuous non-presence that triggers a sometimes near-physical emotional response.

There are people in my life who are missing from me. I don't dwell on this fact, because I have tried to develop a "well, that's just the way it is" attitude. There is no point, I know, spending my time and energy bemoaning things over which I have no control. I have plenty of other things with which to occupy my pony-addled brain.

There was one recent loss, however, that I felt really could not go un-lamented.

Instead of describing the details of this tragic affair I will just publish here the letter I sent on behalf of myself and my friend Harriet, to a well-known dubiously-researched free publication.

Dear Metro Paper,

As two young women with busy lifestyles and all sorts of pressures to deal with on a daily basis, we used to look forward to the cheery smile of our local Metro Man. He would stand outside Brixton tube station every morning, and as we would approach his eyes would light up and he would break into a huge grin. When he handed us our papers he would look at us as if each were the only woman in the world, and he was the only free paper distributor. Sometimes he would even shake his head in delight, sometimes compliment us on our outfits, sometimes comment on how beautiful we looked that particular morning. He put a spring in our step as we marched down the steps with the hoardes of our tube-bound compatriots. It made us happy: the commute less dull, the day less grey.

So you can imagine our dismay on that fateful morning when we walked to the station and realized that he and his fellow Metro Men had disappeared. What a shock to realize that no more could we look forward to a dazzling smile first thing in the morning, and that soon we would start having to rely on our friends and family to pay us compliments and boost our self-esteem!

Please let us know what has happened to him. Or at least tell us we're pretty.

Thank you in advance.

Léonie and Harriet

P.S. To avoid confusion: He has longish, dark hair and dark eyes. We never caught his name.

Sadly I have heard not a whisper in response to this plaintive missive. Nor have I seen distributor in question again (who was plain but endearing). Perhaps his potential was realized and he has been sent to work in youth projects, raising the self-esteem of disillusioned young people who otherwise might find themselves embroiled in a life of gun-crime, drugs or reality television! Perhaps my empassioned plea has changed the lives of thousands of people! Perhaps, just perhaps, I have made a difference.

Or perhaps the letter just makes me sound like a massive wanker and so they are ignoring me.

I am slowly getting over the disappointment and the urge to fill the void in my life by rushing up to strangers, shaking them by the shoulders and screaming "LOVE ME, LOVE ME!" into their terrified faces, before collapsing at their feet whimpering incoherently.

Sometimes life seems to just kick us in the shins without offering any reason, and we must just carry on breathing in and out, even without the hollow flattery of a slightly pervy newspaper man to buoy us through the days.

Anyway.

This weekend I am going along with Ben to a festival called Camp Bestival (at which he will perform), so I have started to write lists of what to take, what to wear, ways in which to look effortlessly cool etc. This is made trickier by the fact that my list-making abilities usually involve contemplating hard, then finally writing the word LIST at the top of a grubby bit of paper and underlining it twice before wandering off, only to come back and realize I have lost the bit of paper and must start all over again. I am hoping, though, that any packing I do for this weekend can be replicated exactly in a few weeks time, when I am going to visit Impish Sophie in Paris, from whence we will travel to La Route Du Rock festival in Brittany. I suspect that Sophie will manage to be very cool and bohemian and I will attempt copy her but fail a bit, like the try-hard big sister that I am.

In the meantime I will continue to live with the absences in my life, and only write letters when I feel that someone might listen. Someday they actually might.