It’s the time of year for bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils and a visit to the Shop Around the Corner. In other words, time to watch You’ve Got Mail—for (approximately) the thirty-seventh time. Eye-rolls will not deter me. It’s a feel-good movie worth watching for so many reasons: for sweet, melancholy songs, for online communication as a novelty, for a less-than-perfect happy ending. All that … and a bookstore.
As always, writer/director Nora Ephron infuses her feel-goodiness with meaning. Reminders that despite our best efforts, our plans will not always work out the way we wish; that we may have to let go of what was—even if it was beautiful—to take hold of what is. That the people we love may not be easy to love, but we can love them anyway. And there’s nothing like being stuck in an elevator to give you a closer look at yourself and your life—as experienced by Joe Fox and portrayed by Tom Hanks.
For the past few months, like Joe Fox, we have been stuck in an elevator of sorts. A long time ago, or so it seems, we had big plans for 2020. We thought it was the perfect year for seeing clearly. We thought we were on our way up or at least out. It turns out we’re going nowhere—stuck between the sixth and seventh floors, wondering how long before we’ll be free again. In this in-between time, we’re learning a few things about ourselves, our lives, and our world.
Cut to the scene, just in time to hear Charlie, the elevator operator, say, “I hope this thing doesn’t plummet to the basement.” A nervous passenger responds, “Can it do that?”
We’ve been wondering the same thing while watching COVID numbers climb, knowing each upward tick is a family’s worry or loss—wondering if our family is next. We’ve realized the inequities in our country revealed by this and other crises, and we’re all hoping to avoid a precipitous fall.
Meanwhile, back in the elevator: “Hi, this is Joe Fox,” our hero says into the emergency phone, asking Juan to call 911. Well, Joe, your name and your charm may open doors in some situations, but it probably won’t get you out of this elevator any sooner. Then again, Patricia, neither will screaming threats at potential rescuers, but maybe it made you feel better for second or two. Calm and kindness are usually better tactics. Even if they don’t open the doors, they make close quarters a bit more bearable.
We’ve seen our share of useless ranting and crazy ideas, like this one from Charlie: “Everyone should jump in the air.” More evidence that the guy in charge of the elevator means well, but he has no idea how to get this thing started again. Finally, the elevator occupants resign themselves to wait out their captivity, and introspection begins (for some) as they take turns finishing the sentence, “If I ever get out of here …”
It goes like something like this:
“I’m going to start speaking to my mama. I wonder what she’s doing right this very minute.”
“I’m marrying Oreet. I love her … I don’t know what’s been stopping me.”
“I’m having my eyes lasered.”
“If I ever get out of here …”
Joe is prevented from finishing his sentence by Patricia’s next angry outburst while searching for her very important Tic Tacs; and Joe’s vision clears without benefit of lasered vision. He knows what to do—or at least where to start.
Where will we start when our doors open and we are free again? What have we learned we can do without or that we need more of? Certainly, we have been short on more than toilet paper—or Tic Tacs. What intangibles should we have stored up in our hearts and minds to sustain us when the world narrowed down to strictly defined horizons? What essentials had we been neglecting in our rush to get wherever we were going before the world stopped?
It’s important to take stock of what I’ve learned and would do differently next time, because next time is coming. Maybe it won’t be a pandemic that grips the whole world, but there will be something. Life is like that. It might be a situation that grips only me—or you. Narrow days will come again, and before they do I want to fill up on what I need to see me through—and waste less time and space on what I don’t need.
In unexpected ways, 2020 has been the year of seeing more clearly. This narrow time and space has been contradictory—freeing me by confining me to face myself, my life, with fewer distractions. This simplicity is refreshing, but when life opens up again, I’ll return to wider horizons. I won’t stay in the elevator just because life is simpler in here. I want to go out to a wider life and take simplicity with me.
Terri Barnes is a writer, book editor, and book lover. She is the author of Spouse Calls: Messages from a Military Life.
Get stuck in an elevator with Tom Hanks in this scene from You’ve Got Mail .