what makes you happy
on what’s next, and what’s yet to come
My Morning Gratitude List:
The boats, how they line the sparkling sea.
The taste of saltwater.
The colours of the buildings. Dusty yellows, burnt oranges and mint greens.
The smell of the irises. The smell of fresh laundry.
2 cappuccinos, 2 peaches, 2 tomatoes. 1 brioche.
Winding roads, hidden gardens. Slow living.
I don’t want the days to end.
“Should we manifest a boat for next weekend?” A text from my Roman friend reads.
“Absolutely.”
A few splashes of rosé. Water in an old wine bottle. A pack of cigarettes that I won’t light, but they’re there just in case. And my own red lighter this time.
I set up the blanket on the rocky beach and spray sunscreen on the parts that my black bikini doesn’t cover.
“Why that area?”
He points to the cursive on my collarbone. The delicate outline of the rose on the left side of my rib, and the cursive script on the other.
“I’ve always had this vision of myself, on a beach in a black bikini. And with the black bikini, I get to chose which tattoos to show, which ones to partially show, and which ones I want completely hidden.”
Choices.
There are three strollers beside me. Moms watch their kids play in the water. Babies wearing head scarves to protect the tops of their heads from the afternoon sun.
“La Domenica.” A nonna says to her friend.
I’m smiling. And I don’t realize it until after.
We’re almost done our bottle of white.
“When you read about it…you know. There’s a connection…but there’s something. There’s something stopping it.” My friend says to me.
The striped white and green umbrellas. The ones who are tanning on the rocks. The teenagers kicking the soccer ball back and forth to each other.
I adjust the straps and admire the lines. There’s something about being tanned, isn’t there? It’s like summer’s rewarding you. Or it’s visible proof that you’ve had a good time somewhere.
He looks at me from across the kitchen. “Our best decisions never come from thinking.”
Kids jump off the rocks and into the blue sea. Dads take out toy trucks. Dads read to their sons who sit on their lap. “Papa! Aqua naturale!” A son calls out to his dad.
“He was never going to leave her.”
This isn’t a story about romance, but it is a story about love.
The back of my book reads.
“Well, knowing you for the short time that I have, you seem…very aware.”
It’s a survival mechanism, I tell her. For years, I knew who I was getting into bed with. Short, fun, easy. Granted, some lasted longer. And I loved them for what they were: those brief somethings. Enough to make you feel, but never enough to make you want to stay.
Romance, not love.
Happiness is: being protected from what can hurt you. And protecting yourself from those who can.
I had lost so much in such a short period of time. A ripple effect. The death, the connections with family members, with friends. The idea of the life ahead. The trust in the world: gone.
“You are a fantasy. And for some reason, they never leave.” My dad tells me in the summer of last year.
But I walk through the morning streets of this small town. It’s 8:56, and the sun shines down on me.
My skin is golden. My stomach, flatter. My shoulders have more form from the daily swims. Strands and strands of my blonde hair have become even lighter.
A fantasy.
“Would you ever move back?”
I ask him one night.
“Home? I’d love to. But now, when I go back - it’s the small town mentality, it’s my family. They drag me in. Why don’t you call more? Why don’t you tell us that you love us more? I get 5 days off. Once a year. And I spend it there. “I’m here.” I tell them. “Isn’t that enough to show you?”
On a micro scale, and on a macro scale. There are things that can be measured, and things that can’t be quantified in this grand picture of life.
The first of October. 5 days of vacation. 9 months to carry a child. 9 hour shifts.
6 pm - 3 am.
2 years that we’ve know each other. 730 days.
The lessons learned. The feelings.
6 years since she’s passed. 2,190 days.
Love. Infinite.
30 years. 10,950 days.
2, 190, without. 730, without. Measured.
The blocks of colour as the sun sets. Orange, pink, blue. The indigo sea.
2,190 with. 730, with.
“Love. With nowhere to go. It’s funny, isn’t it? Sometimes it’s just…there. And then it shoots up to the sky, to the stars.” My spiritual friend tells me.
To the sunsets. To the blocks of orange, of pink, and of blue.
That’s where it lives now.
If we don’t have memories, what do we have?
The lull of the hospital monitor. My arm through hers. We slowly stroll through the hallways of the hospital. Step by step. Tubes. Monitors. Masks. Those who have it worse, those who have it easier.
My heart swells up every time I think about her. But the pain- it’s love.
It’s love, it’s love, it’s love. It’s all so much love.
Two stuffed animals. I sleep underneath a fuzzy blanket, on top of a leather recliner. The monitor beeps. A soft glow from the hallway illuminates from underneath the green door. A nurse comes in every hour. She checks her vitals, and smiles at me.
It existed. It existed, we existed.
I let the October sun dry what’s left of the saltwater on my skin.
Freckles I’ve never seen before start to appear.
Love and death. Two things we can’t prepare for. Two things we have no control over.
Our gratitude lists. The sea, our coffee, our fruit stands. Our morning routines. We gravitate towards that. We know what to do to set ourselves up for a good day.
But then, love comes around, doesn’t it? Love. And that kind of love, the unexpected. It knocks us over. And if we’re lucky. It changes our world.
“I’ll never forget the morning after you called. We cried. And we cried because we knew. We knew we’d never be the same again.”
May 19, 2017. Her picture on the mantle. Flowers, flowers, flowers, everywhere.
Her best friend reads: “When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.”
I lay on white sheets. The smell of aloe and coconut surrounds me. The sky is blue, the sun rises and it’s golden.
Do what makes you happy. I’m meditating on what’s next, and what’s yet to come.