when my sister and i say the same thing, in the same tone, to the grocery store cashier. as if we haven’t been living apart from each other for the past four years.
when she goes outside to call a friend on the phone, first thing in the morning. she comes back to tell me about their conversation with rabid enthusiasm although i have no context for her relationship to the person on the other end of the line.
watching movies together in bed, my computer anchored against blankets in the gulf of sheets between us. licorice hanging from our mouths as i pour glasses of wine from a shared bottle. the creeping realization that it’s been a year of watching movies alone in my own bed. trying to ignore the ache of wishing there was always another pair of legs.
when my best friend and i can roll around on the floor laughing for hours for all kinds of reasons. waking to a text message the next morning: we laughed so hard; i don’t even remember why.
putting my headphones on and walking to the grocery to buy dinner ingredients: a baguette, a pound of brussels sprouts, a bottle of wine. a woman my age sings to me and i walk slowly down a slight hill. we cook together with a movie projected onto the wall, the volume low. expressions in french mix with the smell of garlic, a car alarm echoes in the dark.
the caress of familiar city sounds—the 49 bus as it breaks on broadway, insistent drums across the sidewalk from dick’s, skateboards clapping the pavement by cal anderson park on a walk to the bookstore.
a night of anxiety and sitting in the same spot on the couch for hours, trying to read. making a pot of soup at 11 pm and taking a shower as it simmers. my sister makes us tea to drink in bed and whispers to me. we fall asleep, the backs of our hands touching.
glimpsing my old apartment from the freeway and trying to not collapse under the weight of my nostalgia. having only lived there for two years feels obscene—i think about that time and become swollen with self-consciousness. my embarrassing will to be defined by such a blink.
waking early for a work assignment on a saturday and taking a long walk after, stepping on the tiled pattern that lines the sidewalk, my city tightrope. the comfort and rhythm of walking. the reassurance of the sun.
feeling the weight of a near stranger, even after a year. knowing that we’ve been to the same coffee shop, the same restaurants, but never simultaneously. remembering walking home in january, buzzed on three whiskeys, sending him a picture. carrying my phone like a talisman that week, listening to the songs he sent, laughing to myself when he joked about my cold feet from a thousand miles away.
remembering when i lived there and friends would visit, striking gold by landing on a particularly rainless week. they would joke that the weather was a lie, a trick to keep outsiders away. i turn a corner and laugh at the irony of being met with water that gleams in between skyscrapers and mountains that seem to stand beyond the sea.
seeing the topography of my former life lying underneath my current one—being transported back four, five, or six years, just by the way the sun is glinting off an apartment window.
a familiar feeling of betrayal when i realize another thing i loved is gone—the cafe on 12th. memories of sitting in the corner by the window and reading about movies, drips of coffee and tea wrinkling pages of textbooks. how can i ask a place not to change? i’ll never be the same person i was five years ago, distilled, and neither will that city. an agreement; a coming to terms.
i go back to remember myself and look to other people who knew me then. i beg—am i still the same? do you remember me that way? in what ways am i new? a small hope that if my past self is somehow familiar to them, she’ll become a little more familiar to me.
tiny morsels
MUSIC: hard to pull myself away from this over the past few weeks. i’ve been listening to this while i read. heard this on the radio and it moved me in a new way, and a song that feels like an old dream.
BOOKS: a well-written but somewhat unsatisfying critique of capitalism, class, and creative work and a collection that changed my mind about being alone.
MOVIES: when bette davis’s eyes break your heart on a sunday night. the best christmas special, no contest. and i’m looking forward to this.
INTERNET: film meets philosophy, a good question, and a laugh.