Thứ Năm, 9 tháng 7, 2015
Days and nights away
It takes a few days to adjust to the rhythm, I don't sleep as much as I usually do and the colors are brighter somehow. Opening the blinds to the ocean in the morning is like coming to life again after an eternity of sleepwalking in the dark.
Henry stays in bed while I make us breakfast (if you can call a glass of rosé wine with freshly baked pains au chocolat breakfast). He puts on his bone white linen shirt and joins me in the balcony but we don't talk before the alcohol starts to kick in. Being drunk in broad daylight feels just like falling through endless skies in a beautiful dream.
I try not to think or plan too far ahead, these few weeks by the sea are much too precious. Eventually it will all start over again, another summer will have passed us by and left us with nothing but the memories and an idea of what living should always be like.
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Henry stays in bed while I make us breakfast (if you can call a glass of rosé wine with freshly baked pains au chocolat breakfast). He puts on his bone white linen shirt and joins me in the balcony but we don't talk before the alcohol starts to kick in. Being drunk in broad daylight feels just like falling through endless skies in a beautiful dream.
I try not to think or plan too far ahead, these few weeks by the sea are much too precious. Eventually it will all start over again, another summer will have passed us by and left us with nothing but the memories and an idea of what living should always be like.
Thứ Bảy, 4 tháng 7, 2015
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose
A few of my earliest memories are from 4th of July celebrations, pre-11/9. Neither of my parents were born American, like so many others, but equally proud and grateful. They had both escaped
their respective backgrounds and found a sanctuary by the sea where the seasons never changed.
They met in New York but lived their lives in Los Angeles, as did I before Henry and everything else that happened a few years back. I followed him to Europe more than a year ago, images are slowly starting to fade like they always do with time.
We spend the weekend in Monte Carlo, in and around the casino. Him in his tailored tuxedo from Zegna, me in my most extravagant velvet and the jewels he got me for my birthday. He's surprisingly gracious in defeat, probably because he can afford it. We don't talk about money but something tells me it came from his father. Part of me wants to know more.
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their respective backgrounds and found a sanctuary by the sea where the seasons never changed.
They met in New York but lived their lives in Los Angeles, as did I before Henry and everything else that happened a few years back. I followed him to Europe more than a year ago, images are slowly starting to fade like they always do with time.
We spend the weekend in Monte Carlo, in and around the casino. Him in his tailored tuxedo from Zegna, me in my most extravagant velvet and the jewels he got me for my birthday. He's surprisingly gracious in defeat, probably because he can afford it. We don't talk about money but something tells me it came from his father. Part of me wants to know more.
Thứ Hai, 29 tháng 6, 2015
J'y suis jamais allé
We leave early but still get stuck in traffic at the Place de la Concorde. He swears in French and Italian, making resigned gestures with his hand stretched out through the open window. We drive along the river banks, through the tunnels, Paris disappears in the rear view mirror and I pretend I'm never coming back.
At our street, cafés and shops will open without us, tourists will get lost on their way to the Jardin des Plantes. The downstairs neighbor will scream at his wife and she will threaten to leave him, only we won't be there to hear it.
The A6 takes us south and changes names just after Lyon, a while later we're outside Avignon and slowly start heading east. Provence is an open field of flowers and insects, the landscape keeps changing over undulated spaces in yellow and green and then, suddenly, the ocean. It's as blue as I remember it and we step out of the car for the first time in hours and the fresh air hits my face with salt and sand and microscopic drops of water.
►
At our street, cafés and shops will open without us, tourists will get lost on their way to the Jardin des Plantes. The downstairs neighbor will scream at his wife and she will threaten to leave him, only we won't be there to hear it.
The A6 takes us south and changes names just after Lyon, a while later we're outside Avignon and slowly start heading east. Provence is an open field of flowers and insects, the landscape keeps changing over undulated spaces in yellow and green and then, suddenly, the ocean. It's as blue as I remember it and we step out of the car for the first time in hours and the fresh air hits my face with salt and sand and microscopic drops of water.
Thứ Hai, 22 tháng 6, 2015
Kathy, I'm lost
It's the first day of our last week in Paris, at least until sometime in August. My body aches as if I had been working this entire spring and I keep wondering what the ocean will smell like when we get there.
My first job was selling 100 flavors of ice cream in Silver Like, it was either that or asking mother to pay for my therapist. Chloe brought me sparkling white wine in brown paper bags, we were 14 and drank behind the counter until the manager found out and fired us both. Therapy went downhill from there.
The restless part of me looks forward to getting away from the city and the noise, but I know it's unlikely to last. Maybe we'll see Antibes this time, like with so many places I haven't been back there after that summer with my father. It's not the pain that scares me, my only fear in life is to forget what they felt like, those rosy fairy tale moments we shared.
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My first job was selling 100 flavors of ice cream in Silver Like, it was either that or asking mother to pay for my therapist. Chloe brought me sparkling white wine in brown paper bags, we were 14 and drank behind the counter until the manager found out and fired us both. Therapy went downhill from there.
The restless part of me looks forward to getting away from the city and the noise, but I know it's unlikely to last. Maybe we'll see Antibes this time, like with so many places I haven't been back there after that summer with my father. It's not the pain that scares me, my only fear in life is to forget what they felt like, those rosy fairy tale moments we shared.
Thứ Bảy, 13 tháng 6, 2015
Nothing scares me anymore
June has a certain smell, but I guess all months do. It's less apparent in the city of course, after his final exams he wants to go south to the ocean and the flowers and the sand (he changed his mind: no cities). "Just the two of us" he says but I have a feeling we won't be alone for long.
My father took me to Antibes one summer, I remember it in much the same way it is now but the colors are different, tinted in subdued shades of yellow and brown: him, dashing in light linen suits in the crowds along the boardwalks, ethereal and free.
When I walked behind him he would turn around and look at me with his invisible smile, I was always the only one who saw it. Mother called him heartless so many times that I almost started to think it was true. When he died I was no longer afraid of the bad things that could happen because everything already had.
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My father took me to Antibes one summer, I remember it in much the same way it is now but the colors are different, tinted in subdued shades of yellow and brown: him, dashing in light linen suits in the crowds along the boardwalks, ethereal and free.
When I walked behind him he would turn around and look at me with his invisible smile, I was always the only one who saw it. Mother called him heartless so many times that I almost started to think it was true. When he died I was no longer afraid of the bad things that could happen because everything already had.
Chủ Nhật, 7 tháng 6, 2015
Tell me you need me
It's Stephanie's birthday, Henry reminds me on his way out. "Have you called her yet" he asks, I lie and tell him I did. It's getting late now, I picture her sad and alone in bed, wondering if I remembered.
I always had friends growing up, Stephanie didn't. On her twelfth birthday her father invited me to their house, I was the only one there from outside the family. We spent the afternoon in her room, trying on Italian designer clothes in her little walk-in closet. "Dad would kill me if I wore something French" she said, "even Chanel".
I promised him I'd take care of her, maybe she still needs me to. If I call her I'll find out but I'm afraid of the answer so instead I keep watching the hours passing me by.
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I always had friends growing up, Stephanie didn't. On her twelfth birthday her father invited me to their house, I was the only one there from outside the family. We spent the afternoon in her room, trying on Italian designer clothes in her little walk-in closet. "Dad would kill me if I wore something French" she said, "even Chanel".
I promised him I'd take care of her, maybe she still needs me to. If I call her I'll find out but I'm afraid of the answer so instead I keep watching the hours passing me by.
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