“It has to be the best feeling in the world when you fall in love with someone when they’re in front of a wide-open space, like a skyline or vast ocean or a mossy green forest. When you’re on the beach their naked feet are sunken into the millions of grains of sand shifting through their toes. They’re just one grain of sand, and your whole world sits in the crook of their smile. The beauty that surrounds them gets tangled up in the salty wind of their hair and nothing else exists except for that moment and that frame of existence, a raw negative exposed positive. There are so many places to travel but your country and your language is spoken in the rhythm of their body against the sea waves.”
Unsurprisingly, I've been writing a lot about love.
Here are a few pieces from December.
You’re sitting at the living room table with work papers eating up most of the wood. I open the door, you quickly stand and run to grab my elbow, the back of my neck. We dance. Rocking back and forth; left foot, right foot, left foot; we try to keep balance, barely breathing. You only let your face leave mine to stare at my lips. Your eyes look as if they have never seen the color pink before. I taste you and we continue our dance. Sometimes this goes on for twenty minutes. Sometimes I bring you down on the floor and get rug burn on my knees. Sometimes I shake away too quickly.
Most times, I do our dance until the day melts off of me. Whatever I bring in from that day, you embrace. Sometimes I curse and talk loudly and get red in the face. You don’t say much. I used to feel alone in your silence, deserted in my state of uncontrollable emotions. I learned to embrace that your mind works differently than mine. You listen deeply, speak slowly, work delicately. You never raise your voice or abuse my love for you. You say the words I need to hear now that I’m willing to listen. They are few but perfect. You own a perspective so unique and rational. I’ve never experienced anything like it.
When we go out, I hold both your hands under the table. If you go to the bar, I look for you from wherever I am in the room. When we sit at a restaurant, you quietly squeeze my thigh and run your fingers up too high. When friends come over, we create distance between us, making sure everyone is comfortable. In all these moments, I’m thinking about your fingers, your tongue, everything that is only mine. I share photos of you on Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook, but is that really sharing you, sharing us? To me, we are so private. Who sees how you make me cry of happiness when you have me pressed against the shower wall? Who sees my face in the empty bed when you leave at 4 am to go to work? Who sees us fall asleep in the sunlight on Sunday after a long morning of nothing? Who sees us rocking back and forth in our silent dance when I come home late from work?
Who knows that when I am with you
I forget anything else exists outside the room
?
I left New York feeling black and wanting to teleport. While I sat at the gate, Rob sang a song about us he made up on the spot. Then I felt grey. I sat in 12A and tried not to throw up. Airports make it hard to breathe now. Running on 5 hours of sleep, I put down my tray table and slept in the worst variation of the fetal position. The grey lasted until I saw Robby’s Jeep pull up to LAX.
Then I felt blue. Every time we hit a red light, we would make out so hard, I fell into his seat. We got home and I was pink. Friends invited us here and there, but I wanted to be nothing but alone and naked. He had already made me homemade pizza and cookies and brought wine and a cat toy his mom bought me. I gave him his Christmas presents. The book of us. He said they surpassed anything he has ever gotten.
We showered and he kissed so many parts of my body, I no longer felt self-conscious after the week apart. We drank wine and ate cookies under the covers. I tickled him until he pinned me down and I couldn’t move. We slept on a broken bed.
My cats forgot how to behave when humans are under the sheets. It was 8:02 and the sun was kissing the white walls like they were also reuniting. I had dry eyes and a sore throat but I was warm. He asked if he could get me breakfast. I felt alive, how could I stay in bed?
I left in my PJ shirt. My hair was a white mop, and I didn’t have a lick of makeup on my skin. I put on Willow Smith and took the top off the mini cooper. I never felt more beautiful. We drove and the sun and the shadows made patterns I had never seen before.
I sat in the car and took pictures of the succulents lining the sidewalk while he went into Flake. Soon he was handing me the iced latte I didn’t have to ask for. “What do you want to do, baby?” “Look, no one is out this morning,” I said, “Let’s drive.” I sung along to WHATISLIFE? and stared at the clouds. The coffee melted on my tongue.
I had him take a left on Pico so we could face the sand. We drove staring at the water until we saw the Pier. I didn’t bring a hair tie or my wallet. He paid for all day beach parking in a half-empty parking lot. At 9:15, Santa Monica was our private beach. I exhaled and watched my feet and his walk in the sand. We sat close to the water, the waves were so gentle they barely crept up toward our toes. I didn’t mind that they messed up my order, but he let me eat half of his instead. He found a rock and showed me where the creatures used to live in it. He said we could turn into a necklace for me and put it in his pocket.
By 10:14, we were dancing in the Pier Arcade. I was drunk off of sunlight and love. We held hands and got $6 of quarters. I beat him at Mario Cart. He beat me at Jurassic Park. I made us play Feed Big Bertha and I gave the tickets to a little kid whose Dad had a sweet smile and didn’t speak English. Soon we went through the $6 and moved on.
Below the right side of the pier were many rows of red and white crosses. I thought it was some anti-abortion protest and my heart started beating fast. I walked closer to read the signs. “Number of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan last week.” I stared at the hundreds of crosses in the sand and burst into tears. He held me in silence and wiped the tears off my cheeks. We didn’t move for 2 minutes. I thought about the families. My problems are nothing. My people are alive.
I watched our shoes move over the strips of wood while the water got darker on either side of us. We walked til there was no more pier to support us. A violinist was playing Jordin Sparks’ No Air. “Who knew this song could be beautiful,” I thought. I didn’t know the time. The morning felt like a lifetime and like a second.
“Let’s go on the ferris wheel, babe.” I nodded, seeing that the rides were finally open. It was $16 for the two of us. He didn’t care. We sat for the pictures they wanted to sell us and I was reminded I was in my PJ shirt and looked like a muppet. I didn’t care.
I tasted him the whole time and took so many pictures I made myself motion sick. Every time we would go back down, the people in line invaded our world with their stares. I wanted to live in the sky where no one else could be a part of our universe.
We slowly walked back to the car. At home, I barely noticed that he took our clothes off. My usual disposition would be to nap and sleep until 3. But I wanted more of everything. He put on his nice pants, I put on all black. My hair was wet, but my makeup looked better today on a face of love.
I opened the sunroof. He forgot his sunglasses, so he wore the ones I had just bought at Patricia Fields in Greenwich Village. I sang along to The Bird and The Bee. “Los Angeles Los Angeles, don’t ever let them change you.” He liked the part about “touching yourself.” It got stuck in our heads.
Salt was closed, and we went to Ox &Son. It was 3:08. I drank pink champagne. He drank a beer so dark and thick, I’m sure it was a milkshake. He ordered a burger with parmesan fries, I ordered a quinoa salad with goat cheese. The restaurant, full when we got there, was empty by the time I had his last fry. I told him about the disappointment and anger I brought back from New York. He held me under the table and told me things I needed to hear. I wiped tears off of my cheeks. I felt lighter.
I showed him the Polaroid snap camera Santa brought me. “I want to stop being a slave to everything,” I said. “I will use this camera and my DSLR to capture our moments, to document everything. I will be better with my phone. I want to ignore it all next year.” He smiled. He hates phones and social media. “I love your presence. I want you consciously aware with me always,” he’s said before.
We said we would work out today, but I am 2 glasses of champagne in and in my leather Prada skate shoes. We agree to go back to the beach, we paid for all day parking after all. I play Willow Smith on Soundcloud. It is 4:11 and we have forty minutes until the sun will set.
The once empty beach is covered in bare feet and towels. There are gymnasts on the sand. I kiss him too much, but he knows exactly how tightly to hold my hand. We go to see how the length of the ferris wheel line. It is too long. Our violinist friend is playing that Avicii country/electro song I hate, but it’s pretty because of his sounds and the people who are laughing and dancing.
There are magic shows and psychics and musicians and too many people to walk very fast. We stand in the end corner of the pier and kiss and watch til the sun melts into the blue water. People applaud and yell out for the sun. I ask for ice cream. I have two bites of the banana split. It is awful. He eats the whole thing as we run back to the car before we get a ticket. He’s skinny and adorable and I’m often impressed by his eating. He’s gained 10 pounds being with me. Probably because I ask for ice cream and champagne instead of working out. I take pictures of the Bernie Sanders bumper stickers in the parking lot. He cleans his sticky face.
I won’t go home. I need more moments alive with him. We go to The Doughroom. I drink pink wine, he drinks another milkshake beer. We share warm olives and dance in the booth to The Kooks and MGMT. Our waiter wears a pink flannel that matches his pink hair. We contemplate going to see Duke Dumont in Hollywood, but it is expensive, and I am getting tired.
He is asleep by 9:32 and I am watching AntMan alone. He holds me so perfectly no matter how deeply he is dreaming. Tom is asleep at our feet. I don’t know which one of them is cuter. I smile looking through the photos from earlier. I take deep breaths and turn on Bob’s Burgers. Babe opens his eyes to tell me he loves me while he is still dreaming.
Sunday, December 27th. I am back in Los Angeles and feeling like yellow, red, lavender.
I am gold.