The kid was good. Not outstanding, but good. The problem was that even though he looked like a young Chris on that stage playing a role that Chris would have been playing, he was not Chris. The kid didn’t quite have that magnetic ability that Chris seemed to have whenever he stepped out onto a stage. Chris always managed to draw your focus regardless of the role he was playing, lead role or bit part. And he did this without force or ego or intention. He was just the guy that when he stepped out on stage, you noticed him and you thought “Oh…this guy is going to do and say something important.” The kid on stage didn’t have that. He had to work for it, but there’s potential.

Maybe I’m wearing rose colored glasses.

On Sunday, the Cabbage made a request to go to the book store. They had a gift card burning a hole in their pocket. I’ve gotten into the habit of being a hermit on Sundays and not leaving the house, but I agreed to this request. I’m never going to say no to books. Or fruit. So, we all went to the book store, scattering in separate directions upon entry. I browsed the new paperbacks, picking up a couple of books I remembered reading reviews for in the New York Times. Then I sort of wandered aimlessly through the science section and eventually walking down the reference/education isle. I noticed a copy of Bird By Bird prominently displayed on the shelf. This was the thing, Chris’s writing bible, that forced me to sit down on the floor with my head in my hands. Ironically right next to a display of Crying in H Mart.

This book store is my H Mart.

Sitting on the floor in the bookstore, crying next to a stack of books about crying and grieving, reminded why I usually have to be bribed to come here. We used to spend countless hours in this book store. Often, we’d sit in the cafe area with an overly sweet hot beverage and flip through magazines or pretend to write in notebooks. Half of the time we were chatting and discussing whatever it was we were reading and the other half was spent in quiet, in our own little world bubbles. Often we were with friends. I realize now that I’ve avoided this place since Chris’s death. I have to be begged and cajoled, bribed with ice cream whenever Michael wants to go. It just got mentally added to the list of things I don’t do anymore, like movies and live theater. The last movie I saw in the theater, I sat partially alone, watching Everything Everywhere All at Once. This is probably how I will also see the new Wes Anderson film that is supposed to come out this summer.

I’ve seen more onstage productions this year than I have in eleven years. Michael has been having Alexa play show tunes and I sing a long until it’s a song from Les Miserables, Phantom, or Hamilton even though it came out after Chris died, and then my throat closes up because theater was a really important part of our lives. The first time I truly noticed Chris, he was on stage in Much Ado About Nothing. If it were not for the theater, we may have never spoken to each other. I would not have spent so many not wasted hours in a bookstore.

To the kid on stage: keep it up and it may all lead you to your best friend. It might lead you to the person you will want to spend hours with in bookstores and weekends in movie theaters. You will spend hours dissecting and discussing these movies and plays. You will have friends that go on to other things and other productions and you will be their biggest cheerleader. They will remember you forever for it. They will also remember you for your wit and comedic timing, but mostly for how much you supported them.

Keep it up and it could lead you to a really nice life.