There has always been something magical about sunsets in Toronto. In Rome, golden hour is literally that. Golden. You will go outside and be blinded at the way the sun reflects each statue and monument and apartment building. It’s beautiful and it’s grand, and it almost feels as though you are walking through the gates of heaven. Or at least, that’s what I’d imagine them to feel like.
Sunsets in Toronto are softer. There’s a gradience to the way the blues and yellows and pinks all come together as the backdrop to bare trees. Cotton candy skies. I must have countless photos of those swirling pink skies from the evening pandemic walks that I used to love to take.
The streetlight turns on and the heat starts to kick in.
Changes. The feeling of home feels different this time. When I came back in November - I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay with my friends as much as possible and hold on to every memory we created for as long as we could.
The fall air was a reprieve from Rome’s unbearable heatwaves. Changes.
I have to admit. I have been getting annoyed at friends who say, “I just want you to come home.” Home isn’t here, I tell them. Home isn’t here. And it hasn’t been, for a long, long time.
“Home is a feeling”. Many people tell me this, including the man from the hotel lobby bar from last week’s newsletter. He too, carries a notebook everywhere he goes. He proudly shows me the phrases he’s written down in Italian.
I show him mine - a brand new notebook that has a few half finished newsletters and a sentence that says:
“Home is just that. A feeling.”
-
“I like the way you write.”
The object of my past newsletters texts me this last spring.
“Not just a pretty face.” I smile when I type this.
“I know. I never thought you were just that.”
A few nights later, I sit at the bar on a busy Friday night alone. I pass him my phone to help me edit an article. He types in a few phrases and hands my phone back to me.
“Fuck. You’re good.” I tell him.
“Not just a pretty face.” He winks.
-
The man from the lobby bar asks if I’d like to join him for dinner. I say yes. A good time is a good time, and a free dinner is a free dinner. A good time and a free dinner always go hand in hand.
We exit the hotel and walk down one of the busiest streets in Rome. It’s golden hour. The sun reflects off the buildings and monuments. Restaurants are opening, stores are closing. We dodge through the teenagers who are kissing on the sidewalk, the children running circles around their parents, and tourists who will abruptly stop to take a photo of the sky.
I reserve judgement for those tourists, since I am usually the one trying to find the right combination of building and golden.
“I thought you were Italian when I first saw you. You were the cool girl who was sitting alone at bar.”
I start to laugh. I realize that’s how every good story starts, but I won’t tell him that.
“Nope. Not Italian.”
“So, what will you write about tonight?”
We’re getting closer to the restaurant. It is presumptuous of him to think that he will be featured in a letter - but, he’s already given me a lot to work with.
“Who knows.”
“Oh, Emily in Rome.” He shakes his head and laughs.
-
Whenever I see someone that I haven’t seen for a while, and have had too many glasses of whatever we’re drinking - I will show them What Isn’t Ours. Because when somebody asks, “How’s Italy?” it, in my opinion, is the perfect piece that describes the past year in a four minute read.
So, the man in the baseball hat from the hotel lobby bar now has the drunken privilege of reading it.
“I ask to be sent angels in the form of strangers.”
He goes silent for a few minutes.
“Fuck. You’re good.”
-
I am back at the bar on a Friday night in the spring.
“I love my life, and I know it looks completely different to everyone else’s. And because of that, somewhere inside me feels like I’m not - “
He interrupts me.
“Emily, you can’t live your life based on what other people think of you. Or what other people think you should do. No one’s opinion matters. If I had listened … ” He trails off.
I want to know whose opinion it was that he ignored, but something tells me that it was his own.
His eyes are tired and I don’t push further.
“I know. You’re right.”
He smiles. “I usually am.”
-
An hour into dinner, I order a glass of white with my rigatoni all'amatriciana.
He doesn’t order himself another glass, instead, he lets me choose his pasta.
Cacio e pepe. It is my least favourite type on the menu, which means I won’t ask him for a bite, which means he won’t think we’re sharing.
This is a trick for those who hate sharing their food.
“Can I sit next to you for a minute?”
I already know what’s coming.
The man from the hotel lobby with the baseball hat takes off his baseball hat, and now he is just him.
He kisses me in the middle of a crowded trattoria on a Saturday night. He kisses me for a long time, and I let him.
-
My jet lag wakes me up early on a chilly Tuesday in Toronto. I pop a Nespresso pod in the machine and watch as my mug is filled with hazelnut coffee.
Outside, a woman walks her dog with a travel mug in hand. The street is quiet.
For a moment, I wonder what my life would be like if I stayed in Toronto and never left.
“What Isn’t Ours.” I say aloud to no one.
And on that same chilly Tuesday with those cotton candy skies, I send a text to my dad before falling asleep.
“Can you drop me off at the airport next week? I’m ready to go home now.”
I hang the silk on the back of my bedroom door and climb into bed alone.
I’m starting to believe in something.
omg wooooow
need to re-read what isn’t ours tho