to the simple things

spilled espresso, cigarettes, and freedom

My loves, my friends, my famiglia, my lovers (lol),

It’s 9:30 on a Wednesday evening in Roma. We have a cup of ginger tea beside us, and we are listening to Miley Cyrus’ Fade Into You cover. Like, yes, I love Flowers, but I love her ballads so much more (see also: Giving You Up - I think the only version is on YouTube, so we have to pretend we’re in grade 10). 

I had this moment tonight. And I was scared to write about it, because it wasn’t my usual melancholic moment where I was trying to put pieces together of an unfinished love story, or reflecting on those who’ve left us. 

It was an, “I don’t want this to end” moment. Have you had one of those recently? It’s when something is just so good and so fun and so beautiful, and you’re eyeing the clocks and calendars to see how much you have exactly left of that moment. It’s like when you’re about to reach the end of a vacation, or when you’ve had a really good date and he takes the long route home. We’re trying to prolong and save that feeling for as long as we can.

I’ll be honest with you. It’s never the big moments that I don’t want to end. It’s never the birthdays or the celebrations or the milestones. I rarely (if ever), stare at the clock on New Year’s Eve - and think to myself - tonight is going to be one of those nights that I will never want to forget. Isn’t that interesting? How quickly those “celebratory” moments in our life can become so forgettable. 

So, why are the most simple moments the ones to bring us (maybe I should stop using “us” and “we” because I shouldn’t be putting words in people’s mouths) the most joy?

Someone once said to me that sex, cigarettes, and wine were all they needed to be happy.

“And money” I added. I had to remind him that he needed to be able to buy his wine and cigarettes, and to afford his life of leisure.

Can I tell you something? I’d like every day to feel like a Sunday morning. Espresso on the stove, a book half open in bed beside you. On those Sunday mornings, someone is bringing you fresh figs with ricotta and honey on a chipped toile platter. And maybe that someone lights a cigarette, and he’ll know better than to offer you one because you went on a tangent about how they age you. But then you’ll roll out of bed and sit on his lap and ask for one anyways. 

There’s always too much coffee and too many cigarettes, but never enough figs. You’ll tell him this too.

I might make an argument against the object of our summer’s newsletters belief that time is the most important thing in the world.  

I believe that freedom is. And do you want to know why? Because you could give someone all the time in the world, and they still wouldn’t know what to do with it. Running to milestone to milestone, convincing themselves out of a million reasons to stop, and coming up with a million reasons as to why they don’t deserve to live the life they want to live.

Freedom is both a privilege and a power. And freedom is, unfortunately, something that we have to work for. We have to work to undo narratives that our brain and society and our parents have told us.

We deserve to be who we want.

I want to continuously celebrate those moments of freedom. To go to sleep at 2 and wake up past noon. The cold showers after a summer’s walk, and the hot showers right before falling asleep. Cleaning up the espresso that spills on my stove every morning. Getting the last table outside at my favorite cafe. Red nails, cappuccinos past 11, white wine at 2, the afternoon nap with that book half open beside you. Sex and cigarettes, cigarettes after sex, and breaking some promises while keeping one: 

Here’s to freedom baby, and I’ll love you forever. 

xo,

Emily