24 [F4R] I try to keep my life small.

Sometimes I think about all the different lives I could have lived. It comes to me especially on days like this. When I’m home alone, strategically avoiding the elegantly stacked dirty dishes in my sink, and the sun is warm and I can hear the birds outside my window. I think about terraces in piazzas in countries I’ll probably never go to, I think about wearing light cotton dresses and woven espadrilles and reading books next to a great fountain, the smell of warm chlorine and metal, the feel of smooth marble under my toes. I don’t think about the thesis on Grecian and Italian Art I’m writing, or the potential for fellowship at the local university. I think about the hot underbellies of nightclubs, and the sad songs the older women sing in the cafes I like to frequent after, searching for pastas and breads and a magic cure to the hangover I’m sure t have induced.

I imagine that I, now a polyglot, can speak casually, effortlessly, Italian, French, German, and better Spanish than my brief stint in college has left me. I’d order coffees, baguettes, cheeses and fruits. Talk about the weather with the local fisherman or women in the market, complain that lemons this season are harder and smaller than last, and secretly enjoy the drip of perspiration at the back of my neck.

I think about sitting on Parisian balconies, drinking wine from small cups, smoking cigarettes, which I don’t do, or haven’t ever done, while a record plays from the kitchen. I’d watch the street scenes below, people on bikes, those tiny European cars honking, filling the air with tin and brass. I imagine how the curtains would breathe, billowing out, translucent and lung-like in the dusk. In this life I work with film, go to rock concerts regularly, and take long walks to public gardens.

In reality I am just a grocery grocery store clerk in a small town in the middle of no where America. Where my days consisted of arranging the 79cent bottles of red, blue, pink, opal and gold nail polish. Or restocking the cool, milk scented dairy fridges. Making small talk with the locals who have known me since I was born. In a town where nothing changes, and times moves in a loop. My only respite being those 15 minute breaks, where I sit on the picnic table put back, take my keds off and break into a bag of clementines. Tonya Harding is just a day dream.

Submitted October 21, 2018 at 12:10AM by IHaveTheCookies https://ift.tt/2S5cSoU