I Swore I Saw Andrea in a Hotel Elevator

What if signs are how the dead write poetry?

Earlier this month, Ryan and I checked into a hotel in San Francisco. Two nights of Come See Me in the Good Light screenings were ahead. I’d just published a newsletter titled, Am I Being Ghosted? about not receiving signs from Andrea. How rejected I felt. Like a walking bruise.

My room was on the 23rd floor. A cluster of men crammed into the elevator with me, each traveling to a different level. Eight little moons lit up on the control panel. When the chrome doors opened to release the first man, something snagged in my line of vision. In the hallway, I swore I saw the back of Andrea’s head.

It was only two dimensional. A black and white photograph of an anonymous figure in silhouette. But it looked exactly like my Andrea.

I know it sounds ridiculous to claim the the back of a head with such specificity—but Andrea’s silhouette was oddly singular. Even in winter, with their most recognizable features obscured (iconic hair beneath a beanie, tattoos hidden by puffy sleeves, gorgeous smile covered by a KN95) people recognized Andrea constantly.

Theirs was a shape I’d know anywhere. I could trace it in my sleep.

The elevator doors began to close. My heart lurched. The image disappeared. It felt like losing my baby once more.

I made a plan. Once I reached my floor, I’d ride back down to nine. Just to confirm. Just to be sure I didn’t imagine it.

But when the elevator slid open at twelve, there was Andrea again. Same figure, same tilt at the neck, same unmistakable outline. Again at floor fifteen. And seventeen. And twenty. Andrea! Andrea! Andrea!

Each time, the doors would part and I’d see their curls, their collar, their familiar shadow—as if we were walking together again. As if I were just one simple step behind, and not lightyears apart.

When I reached my level, I got out and inspected the framed image. Generic hotel art repeating floor after floor. The greatest masterpiece I’d ever seen.

Andrea, is that you?

In my room, I popped open my laptop. I tried to reverse-image-search the piece. Nothing. No credit. No title. A random digital collage. Meaningless, one might say.

But I knew better. There are 253 hotels in San Francisco, and somehow I landed in the one where Andrea waited on every level for me to find them.

What if I had been looking at my phone, I wondered. Or my own reflection? My shoes? What if I’d been too wrapped up in my own thoughts to see what was right in front of me?

The idea sent a minor panic through my being. I thought about the dead letter branch of the postal service. The most poetic, heartbreaking office in the world. A room where mail that cannot be delivered and cannot be returned goes. A handwritten graveyard. A quiet archive of almost-connections. The wish you were here no one ever got to see. The loneliness of never knowing exactly how much you were loved.

Some days I worry I’m missing dozens of communications. That my eyes are trained on the wrong thing. Ears tuned to the wrong frequency. Sometimes I wish I could walk into a room where every sign Andrea has tried to send is waiting for me, and I could sprawl out on the floor and spend the day opening what was otherwise lost.

What if these signs are how Andrea writes poetry now? And it’s my job to be their translator? What a gorgeous burden. What an undeniable task. Forgive me if I miss anything—I’m still learning the language. But I want to be fluent. I want to reinvent my mother tongue.

It feels crucial to me to document these signs. To photograph them, write about them, to thank Andrea aloud upon their receipt. If I focus on the abundance instead of the lack, maybe the old saying is true: What you appreciate, appreciates.

Sometimes I feel I am crafting a new kind of scrapbook out of the almost-unseen and the barely-there. And you all are the guests I invite into my home. I place the scrapbook in your hands before you have even removed your coat. I want to share these little mementos of how our love has transformed. These one-way memories. These fleeting scraps I insist on making permanent.

So, with that in mind, here are some of the ways Andrea has found me lately. Here is my scrapbook:

Writing across shop windows in London, that says, “LIFE IS TOO SHORT, GIBSON”

At a department store in London, a Christmas tree with two seemingly mismatched ornaments: a basketball and a tube of red lipstick, hung beside each other.

A photograph by artist Jon Rafman at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen, of a woman praying beside a mailbox. (If you’ve seen Come See Me in the Good Light, you know exactly why this stopped me cold.)

A bronzed statue of a thumb (by César Frankrig) at that same Danish museum. (Another nod to the film—maybe my favorite one. And if you haven’t watched it yet, consider this your sign from beyond that you’re ready—it’s streaming now on AppleTV.)

Thanksgiving is just a couple of days away. To be honest, I am nervous for the whole holiday season. Andrea and I were holiday people. We did everything big. For four years, I perfected no-carb stuffing for them. Sugar-free, gluten-free apple pies. Mashed cauliflower instead of potatoes. They were so committed to eating well through cancer that they were still refusing sugar during the last week of their life. A fact that breaks my heart as I think about it now.

I would give anything to wake up on Thanksgiving morning, wrap my arms around their sleep-warm body, and whisper my gratitude for their existence one more time. But that is not the world I get anymore.

So now I say thank you to what remains. The silhouette. The shadow. The ashes. The memory. Their face on the silver screen. The laughter I am fortunate enough to have captured in so many videos. The love letters they keep dropping onto my path. And the impossible, outrageous luck of having been loved like that at all.

So tell me, what are you thankful for? Have you received any signs?

Love

Meg [+ Andrea Forever.]

PS. I had the immense privilege of being able to talk about Andrea for a few podcasts/interviews lately, including Anderson Cooper’s “All There Is”, the New York Times “Modern Love”, Glennon Doyle’s “We Can Do Hard Things”, and “You’re Going to Die”, the podcast.

PPS. Here is a great video of Andrea laughing through a game of Heads Up with me and my mom two Thanksgivings ago: