to writing by the sea
Good morning my friends,
It’s the first week of August. And I wish time would slow down. I’m sitting in front of my AC, an espresso beside us. There’s apricot jam in the fridge and a fresh baguette on the counter from my favourite bakery, waiting for me for this afternoon.
Our body tells us things, I’ve always believed. I want time to slow down because sometimes I really, really, wish that I didn’t have to leave my apartment in a month. I love it here. I really, really grew into this space and into this community and into this routine. I feel like I’m both grasping at something and grieving at the same time.
Grasping at every moment I have, waking up in my bedroom with the blackout blinds and perfume bottles that are scattered across my bedside table. I grasp at each moment I make roasting tomatoes and making my second pot of espresso on the stove. I grasp at each late morning walk I have, up and down the winding hills of my neighbourhood.
But you know what I find interesting? How the spaces in which we live can be catalysts for change. Think about it. 6 months ago - who were you? What was happening for you? Which life were you living? 6 months is a very specific time frame. It’s half of a year. It’s spring and it’s summer. And I don’t think we often realize how much we’ve grown until we look back.
-
“Emily Mais! Emily in Rome!”
I give the girls at the bakery a hug every time I see them, even though it’s everyday at this point. Seeing them feels like home. The loaves of different of bread that line the walls. The cases of paninis and pizzas and focaccias and pastries. The cute pink mugs that are neatly stacked beside the coffee maker. It’s more than familiarity. It’s comfort. It’s my routine. It all means something.
Our friend with the bodycon dress lifts my hand to examine my fluorescent orange nails. “They’re perfect.”
“I knew you would like them.” I start to laugh. “I’m so hungover. It’s 3 PM and I haven’t eaten a single thing.”
I sit myself down at an empty table. Our friend with the bodycon dress brings over a quiche and our usual iced latte. She sits down across from me. “Tell me. Tell me everything.”
-
“I’m nervous.” I text my best friend.
“Your body always knows when it’s going to be a good night.”
“I know. It’s like it knows something that we don’t.”
“Outfit?”
“The long black strapless with the sweetheart neckline. A new one for them.”
“Perfect.”
-
I give the hostess a wave. “Why is it so busy on a Monday?” I laugh.
“Ugh. I know.” She rolls her eyes. “Don’t worry - I have a spot for you.”
The bar is connected to two different rooms. One, the main room, is usually the centre of it all. Packed with bar stools and table tops, people weaving in and out and around each other.
But the other room is quiet. My friend calls it The First Date Room. It’s more formal, it’s more intimate.
There are only 4 seats at this bar. She sits me down in the corner, right across from Past Newsletters.
No Peter Pan. No man at the front door. Just me, my corner seat, and him.
And just like old times.
“Dirty? With vodka?”
“That, and I need your life advice.”
“Ah. Tell me.”
“Do you remember I told you a while ago, I always had this vision of me writing by the sea?”
“Yes.”
“So my lease is up soon. And I’m debating between looking to stay in Rome, or finding a place to be by the water and just write for a month.”
He looks at me and smiles. “Emily, you already know what my answer is going to be. I’m always going to tell you to go.”
I start to laugh. “No I know. But my problem is this - I always feel like I’m being uprooted. Like I don’t have that one spot to always come back to. That one place to call home.”
“But don’t you think this could be why? So you can do more things like this. To go live in a different place for a few weeks. For a month. For two months. To experience something and to write something new.”
I hate when he’s potentially right. “Ok. Maybe.”
“You know why I always tell you to go? Because I know you. And I know that your regret of not going to look for an apartment by the water, or not doing exactly what you want to do, is always going to be stronger than anything else.”
“I mean, you did tell me that I should go to Australia. And then I ended up being really bored.”
He laughs. “Yes, and I knew you were going to be bored. But it was an experience. And I didn’t know what you wanted back then.”
To be fair, I didn’t know what I wanted either. Change. An escape, mainly. But I don’t tell him this.
I have what he wants, I’ve realized. The freedom. The freedom to travel. The freedom to be creative. The freedom to pursue my creativity to no end. The independence, the not needing to ever answer to anyone. The freedom to have experiences.
But it’s the way he looks at me, when we have these conversations. It’s never been with envy or jealousy. It’s through eyes of encouragement. Through eyes of admiration and hope.
Home.
There’s something different about the energy between us tonight. Maybe it’s the full moon, the culmination of a 6 month period, or maybe it could just be growth.
He serves a few other guests but comes back to me.
“So. Where by the sea?”
We start to talk for hours. And in those hours, it feels like it’s just us again. The ease and the familiarity of us talking about everything, anything, and the whole wide world.
There’s a beauty to it, isn’t there? Someone who has seen you, and someone who still sees you. Feeling understood.
“You know…maybe this showed you that yes - the flings were great. But maybe nothing compares to just talking to him, and just being one hundred percent you.” My best friend texts me.
And that’s all I wanted to feel. Like myself. Nothing more, nothing less.
Just us, under that full moon on a Monday night in August.
“Hey - you know what else I was thinking about?”
The martinis and the moon are making me sentimental.
“When I came here last year. And how I sat in that corner and how I told you that there was a publication that wouldn’t publish my piece because it was too emotional.”
Can you believe it? Me, Emily Mais. Too emotional.
“And do you remember what I told you to tell them?”
“To go fuck themselves. And I did. Not exactly in those words - but the meaning was there.”
I am not going to change my voice in order to fit someone else’s. The line in the email reads.
“It was personal, and it was your experience. And we need that. The world needs that. It’s like when we hear the chorus of a song, or when we read something - and it’s that feeling of “Ah. Someone gets it. Someone gets us.” We’re all made up of experiences. And I know that the right people will always appreciate that, and the right people are always going to appreciate you. And you know what I have to say to the people who don’t?”
I start to laugh.
He holds up his middle finger.
“So. You keep doing what you’re doing, Emily.”
-
I’m watching him pace from my living room to the kitchen. It’s the morning after the night we first met.
He won’t stop talking. I text my best friend.
Sometimes, he’d take a break from talking and light his cigarette out the kitchen window.
“I’m sorry. I don’t normally talk this much.”
“Really?” I ask him. “Because you’ve been talking for the past hour.”
He looks down and smiles. “Well, that’s because you don’t speak at all.”
“But I ask questions.”
“Tell me something, Emily. Tell me anything.”
“Ok. I built this life for myself. And I worked so hard on building it and creating it to be exactly the way I always wanted it to be. And I’m very careful to who I let in. Because once I do, I think that will give them the power to destroy me.”
He looks at me for a long time and shakes his head. “That’s not really living though, is it?”
-
“Another?” He points to my glass.
“I’ve had already three, and I’m already drunk.” We both laugh.
And from my corner spot, I look up at him. “Listen. I’m sorry. For everything.”
For the games. For my actions that were derived from pain. For the Peter Pan of it all.
I never regret not waiting around for something that wasn’t going to happen.
And I never regret choosing my own freedom.
But I was sorry for the pain that I had caused him. And that’s what apologies are for: a recognition of pain.
“You know what though? It says more about two people on how they deal with it and about how they move forward. I think we handled it well. Don’t you? We talked about it. We’re here. And we’re happy.”
“Well, I mean - I handled it well. I don’t know about you.”
He starts to laugh and looks down at the floor.
“Hey - you want to do a shot with me before you leave?”
But this time, it feels different.
“Of course I do.”
He smiles, takes out a bottle of chilled vodka and places two glasses in front of us.
“To writing by the sea.”
“And to us being friends again.” I add.
We cheers. The eye contact. The twinkle in his eye.
Go. Do all of the things that I wasn’t able to do.
“Thank you.” I tell him. “For everything. I mean it.”
He tilts his head to the side and puts his hand over his heart.
“Always, Emmy. Always.”
It was genuine. It was endearing. It was real.
It was all, so real.
I grab my straw bag with my beloved Fendi scarf and give him a wave.
“Emmy?”
I look over my shoulder. The tattooed forearms and furrowed brow. Arms crossed, leaned up against those dark, grey walls. Watching me as I go. The veneer is off. The mask is off. And I finally recognize the eyes I let myself sink into last spring.
Home.
With a big smile on his face, he blows me a kiss goodbye.
Go. Do all of the things that I wasn’t able to do.