things have changed
life is a dream, and love is here.
Ciao my beautiful, beautiful friends.
I don’t know how I want to start this letter. I don’t know if I should just write it as a Saturday night story, or if I should just speak from my heart, and see where it takes me. Maybe I’ll just do both.
It’s Sunday morning. A rainy, Sunday morning in the beginning of June. The one pro about the Roman summer rain is that the smell of jasmine is more prominent. I have the windows open, just so the scent can hopefully travel through and linger in my apartment.
Beside me, is the usual. A bottle of water. A tiny espresso in a white cup. A blueberry yogurt. I’m wearing my favourite white lounge set, and Midnight Rain is playing through my iPhone speakers. Minestrone is simmering on the stove. I’m already planning on when to prepare my second coffee.
Something has changed, my friends. Something has changed.
And I can’t put my finger on what exactly it is. But I think it might be me.
-
“You’re so happy here. Why leave?” The Manager asked me a few weeks ago. We had been going back and forth on the same cycle of different European cities: Barcelona, London, Barcelona, Rome (lol), London.
The only way I could describe “why” was this.
Do you remember those last few months of high school? Where you felt like something bigger was around the corner, or something bigger was supposed to be around the corner? This was your time to enter the next phase. This was your time to enter a new chapter.
And in those final months, something inside you shifted. And maybe you didn’t realize this at the time - but the relationships around you started to change. You start to realize that the people who surrounded you in the past four years helped to shape you. You start to realize the importance of all of the messes, the fights, the tears, the making up. The mistakes you thought you made, but you were, in reality, just living.
And you get dressed up on graduation day. You slide into that white gown. Your hair is perfect, your skin is glowing. You’re not scared anymore. You’re not even sad. You look at that diploma, and you’re proud. It’s yours, and you’re here.
Life is a dream, and love is here.
-
There are certain moments where I’ve felt something in the universe switch.
It was January of 2018. I was in Our First Muse’s apartment. I had spent the night, and maybe, if he’s reading this - he can remind me what we were doing the night before. Were we on an accidental double date, or a triple date? I vaguely remember what we were doing or who was there. But I do remember the morning after.
I remember standing in his washroom, and thinking to myself - how strange it was that I was beginning to remember the smallest details of his apartment. The hand soap from Home Sense. The mirrored closet doors. The small wooden table in the foyer where I’d always place my purse. The Hudson’s Bay blanket that lay at the edge of his bed.
“Em! Your coffee’s ready.”
I could never describe the way I felt to anyone, when I heard his voice through the bathroom door.
Your coffee’s ready.
I still remember it, six years later.
I walked in to the kitchen. And it was the way the sun hit the kitchen counter. The table. The chairs. Those early winter mornings in January when the glare of the sun is so misleading.
I fold my arms across my chest and lean up against the wall. Messy pony still in tact. Eye make-up - questionable, and most likely not intact. I take the mug from his hands and smile. It was a glimpse of something.
Life is a dream, and love is here.
-
It’s about to be my last Saturday night in Rome for a while. I haven’t seen Franco, my favourite waiter, from my favourite neighbourhood pizza place in months. Six months to be exact. The last time I saw him, I was getting ready to leave Rome for Toronto in November.
“Ah! Emilia! Welcome back!”
And after 6 months, he still remembers.
He points to an empty table.
“Let me guess. A glass of house white.” Franco knows.
“And two supplì.” I add.
“Two? Are you sure?”
I want to tell Franco that I know he gives me a very generous pour. Sometimes two. And then sometimes Limoncello. And that then, I have to make my way over to my favourite bar down the road for my two final Saturday evening dirty martinis.
“I promise I’ll eat them.” Franco doesn’t understand that I’ve only had one mortadella panino today. I’m hungry. “And whatever pizza you think. I trust you.”
Sidenote: Tell any Italian waiter or bartender that you trust them (when it comes to their food and drink choices), and you will be their favourite customer for life.
“Porcini. They’re good right now, we had a wet season. We can add sausage on it, too.”
“You’re the best, Franco.” And I mean it.
I’m emotional when I take my first bite of supplì. Supplì reminds me of pastina, which reminds me of being a little girl. And when I think about being a little girl, I think of my Nonna. And I think about how her and my Nonno raised me in that tiny bungalow in suburban Toronto. I think of the time that passes us by, and I think about the distance that separates us all. I think about how she printed out “Have You Seen Nonno’s Tomatoes?” And I think about how she keeps a copy in a drawer with my Nonno’s old sweaters.
I think about how he was right. That love is something that follows you, wherever you are, and wherever you go. That it doesn’t just stop when you’re in a different place. You still carry that feeling with you. Maybe it changes shape or takes on a different form. But it’s still there.
Life is a dream, and love is here.
-
Walking up that tree lined road, I squint to see if the Man at the Front is working. I can spot his 6’5 frame from a mile away, and I am instantly at home again. He pulls me in for a side hug.
Life is a dream, and love is here.
“You smell good.” I tell him.
“I always smell good.”
“You should be throwing me a goodbye party.”
“Well, we can’t without PN, and The Manager is in Naples until Monday.”
I start to laugh. He uses their real names of course.
“He drove me home last Saturday.” I’m referring to The Manager. “And nothing happened.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Nothing? Really?”
I tell him how I lingered in his car for a few minutes after he pulled up to my apartment. And how I started rambling about something because I was nervous. Then how I got out and stood at my gate for a few minutes, debating on whether or not I should invite him in.
And I think he was wondering the same thing, because he didn’t drive off for a while.
“Maybe he’s not that into me.”
“No, it’s not that.” He shakes his head. “He’s a polite guy. I think he’s trying to figure out if you’re into him.”
“You don’t think he thinks that?”
“I’ve told you this. You’re a bit hard to read. It’s always, “I don’t know, I don’t know”, and then you start to cry.”
I can’t help but laugh. It’s true.
“How many times have I cried with you? I’ve lost count.”
He shrugs and passes me his cigarette.
“But that’s when I think you’re the most beautiful. Because it’s when you’re being the most honest.”
Life is a dream, and love is here.
-
I slide into one of the velvet barstools.
“Emily! Look at you, all in white.” One of the girls at the front comes to give me a hug. I’ve been living in my little white dresses since the beginning of May.
“I know. It’s like I’m getting married.”
“Oh my god. Please don’t say that. Don’t do it to yourself.” We start to laugh.
I take out my phone. My old routine. My notes app, pieces of a newsletter, and -
“Dirty? With vodka?” The young bartender smiles at me. She’s quickly become a favourite. Remember the one who was witness to PN’s outburst? That was one of her first shifts. And I will never forget the sympathetic smiles that followed each shift after.
But to watch her now, almost a year later. Her confidence and comfortability. I don’t even know her - but I feel proud.
“Wait. You made me something last week. It was…strawberry and -”
“Ah! Our take on an Americano.”
“It was amazing. I loved it.”
She makes me one, and I open my phone and start to write.
Maybe Rome represented an idea. A what could be, and a what could have been. It gave me a glimpse, a preview, of a parallel life. A different life in a different universe. One that we might have been saved from. But one that we had to dip our toes into.
What would have happened if it ended here?
Someone squeezes my shoulder. I turn around. It’s the Man at the Front.
“I think I miss you already.” I tell him.
He winks and walks back outside.
Run.
I continue to type.
Run into the things that you love. And run into the things that love you. Run into them head first. And if they call you crazy, good. In fact, I hope they do. That means you’re scaring people. And it means that you’re doing something right.
I lift my head and pause. I eye those glass bottles. The dark, glossy, wooden countertop. The way the bartenders weave in and out and around each other.
But you know that one thing that scares you the most?
“What’s your name?”
“Emily.”
He reaches his hand out from across the counter to shake mine.
You have to do it. You have to.
The only case in which you lose something is when you don’t say anything at all.
The way our eyes meet. Have I met this man before?
So. Tell him that you’re leaving.
“Well Emily, if you ever need anything. I’m here.”
I want you to tell him.
And I know that you want to, too.
Life is a dream, and love is here.