If You Would Have Been The 1 – Part One

If you had been the one, we would be living near San Francisco and surrounded by academics. Your colleagues are Stanford professors and when we entertain them at our place, they give me forced smiles and comment incessantly on what a talented artist I am as they scan the walls of our living room with Tom Ford tortoiseshell glasses propped on their noses. You never liked going out to eat, so I’ve never been to Foreign Cinema or to Sotto Mare in North Beach. Instead, we do weekends out immersed in the Redwoods because it’s where you’re happiest, with a backpack and hiking shoes on your feet. Being with you makes me feel outdoorsy, even though I’m really quite the opposite. You don’t like makeup. I remember that time we saw Eva Green on the big screen and James Bond looks at her as she’s getting ready and you looked at me and said – see how beautiful she is without anything on her face? I wanted to tell you that the most makeup goes into making her look like she’s wearing none, a fact that all women know and no man does but instead I just throw out a lifetime of Sephora and keep a clear lip gloss and some mascara for special occasions. My wardrobe is simpler too, just every day basics because that’s what you wear. Jeans and a T-shirt is somehow acceptable if you’re a brilliant member of faculty. I’ve only ever seen you in a dress shirt at graduations and you always looked ready to disappear. You hate attention, I love it. And so I think, if you had been the one, mine would be a life with a little more order and a lot less passion. It is perhaps a life better suited to one of us than the other and I am the other. One day, I find myself strolling Pier 39 amongst the tourists and the sea lions and maybe, just by chance, I hear the soft strokes of a language half a world away. It’s Italian. I’ve never studied it in my life but for the quickest second- like a flame erupting and burning to black all at once- it ignites a yearning in me, a twisting, needing, wanting sensation. Like when you know your soul mate just walked by on the street, hands nearly grazing and for a brief moment, you are where you were meant to be. In that moment, I see a different version of myself in a vintage tee, a brand new phone in hand, walking confidently in high heels on cobblestone, somewhere in Rome.

This piece was inspired by the songs The 1 and Cardigan by Taylor Swift. And if you loved this, you'll love my book Wander(lust) and all the stories in my Creative Writing here.