Freedom that makes me wonder if I’m being greedy. I walk for hours, smile at strangers, read my books, and rearrange the art on my walls. I kiss my friends, drink too much, push searching hands off my waist, and lie to drunk men for entertainment. Watermelon juice runs creepily down the sides of my mouth like a hose trickling on a sidewalk. There is the jingle of an ice cream truck approaching like an alarm clock, coaxing me awake from a dream. Someone’s in town this weekend. Remember when we used to all sit in the grass, braiding each other’s hair? Now we are the salt from the shaker I let drop onto a thick tablecloth at an Italian restaurant last week. The breadsticks are stale, and the napkins are folded in thirds. The waitress is wearing glasses around her neck, and she’s a little mean to me, just how I like it. It’s more interesting that way, and I want to be challenged.
Ariana’s a few blocks away. She walks to me with my half of a sandwich we’re splitting. We talk about love and lust and laugh about how dumb it all is. It takes two to tango. We’ll get it right someday, but only because that’s just something people say.
Wine on Jess’s balcony, rolling my eyes, and I can’t remember the last time I felt lonely.
Reading by the pool, I come across a word I don’t know. It always shocks me when this happens, not because I take pride in my lexicon and consider it above average, but because I find it odd that my native language is often unfamiliar to me. What else do I not know? There’s no time to waste. I turn to my father, my personal dictionary, and ask him to define it for me.
Dinner at Pastis, Gjelina, Ama, Foul Witch. Drinks at Casetta, Time Again, Parcelle’s, Tile. I sit across from faces I hope I never forget.
My skin is baking and my body is changing. I catch glimpses of it in reflections of storefronts, and it reminds me that my mind lives in a transient, impermanent form. My thoughts could be housed in any stranger I walk by on the street, and so too, theirs within me. This fragility disturbs me, as it often does. I keep walking. I seldom feel like stopping, and if it weren’t for the restriction of time, I would go until I reach enlightenment. Or, when I have all the answers. Whichever one comes first.
When women gossip, they are problem-solving. My friends and I sit in each other’s apartments, white wine from a box in our blood, and ask how we can limit their access to our minds until the time is right. How to ensure they don’t steal a piece of us? How to make it all feel safe? There isn’t much left of us to go around, and time is money at this age. We mull these things over, becoming increasingly drunk, and are unable to conclude much other than that little is within our control, and we’ll always have each other. Sometimes the answers are as simple as that, but it doesn’t hurt to see if there’s a fresh take every now and again, like a new gene discovered by biologists.
Tonight we are performers, acting for a disengaged crowd. I’m a recent divorcee, and this is my husband’s mistress. She had no idea. Yes, I know — but I’m completely fine. There was no prenup, and he didn’t get her pregnant. Now he’s in jail for insider trading. Ten years will go by fast. I just thought he was doing well at work!
“No wayyyyyy.”
I relish in how they never question our wild fables and conclude that humans are born to trust.
My arm is around my father’s shoulders as we walk around town. I hold back tears for reasons I have yet to resolve.
I wake up at 2 am, the moon like a bloody spotlight, an S.O.S. Then again, at 5, the sun beckoning me like nectar. I walk to the water, close my eyes, and practice some gratitude. It’s not difficult. I have an easy life. I decide I need to make it harder, but I get stuck on the how. I am merely a charlatan like the rest of us. I am uncomplicated in the things I desire.
I begin to fantasize about what could be. Not this again. I’m smarter than that, so I dip my toe in, force novel distractions, and keep my mouth shut. Summer sunsets often make me delusional—something about the impossible being my reality.
Everyone seems kinder, and their warmth rubs off on me. Apparently, this is actually bad. “No more nice Alden,” my friends tell me.
I spend a lot of time wondering if I’m still funny. It feels harder to be funny these days because I find people are more difficult to impress for reasons unbeknownst to me. I am not interested in not being able to make people laugh, so I need to figure this out, stat.
I tell my friends I love them, then scream at them when they don’t say it back fast enough. "We need to unpack that,” they say, but I have complete clarity.
I act with impunity, for once. It feels like heaven to say and do the things I want. It’s possible I embarrass myself a couple of times in texts I send without thought, half-assed jokes that likely should have remained in my head. I remember who I am, which is someone who is not necessarily cautious but overly concerned about causing harm. I reel myself back in and focus.
Despite all the good, I can’t sleep. I go throughout my day delirious, nearly feeling high, my head detached from its neck. I think long and hard about what my perfect day would look like (someone asked me this once), and I only get as far as waking up next to someone I love before I’m stumped. I revisit this first point, finding it trite, and get nowhere. Frustrated, I drag myself outside for coffee and continue stomping on, the sun roasting my back, sweat clinging to my chest like a feather on a balloon, and decide when all is said and done, this must be it.
HAGS <3
this was cinematic
Love this