There is a photo, out there in the universe, of three women on rectangular floaties, somewhere in the Mediterranean sea, eating spaghetti. One of the women holds her fork high above her mouth, her elbow making a triangle, the spaghetti long and loose. A bottle of wine lays on the floaty. The other woman dons a round straw hat. They laugh. I imagine they talk of Twiggy, and the Beatles, and Civil Rights. But I imagine they also talk of their partners, or the new dress they just bought or the new recipe they just tried. Sixty years later and I am not so different from them. In the distance, rugged mountains rise from the depths of the water, stately, but intrigued by the scene. As if they, too, would like to join the conversation over a bite of spaghetti. It must be Summer, or perhaps Spring.
I will become like these women, I decide on a cold Monday evening, far away from the Mediterranean sea and far away from the 1960s.
Lately, I have found myself somewhere between “okay” and “not okay", somewhere between breathing and not breathing. I’ve become too good at sitting in sadness, too versed in dark emotions, too sensitive to the catastrophe of being human. I am an expert at harvesting beauty from tragedy.
What would the women say to me, I wonder?
Dance
Bake the brownies
Visit the museum
Host the dinner
Drink the champagne
Take the scenic route
Jump in the water
Hold the door for a stranger
Slow down
Take the ear phones out
Eat your broccoli
Call the man
Buy the shoes.
Do not forget to live