Some names you write down because you want to remember. Others because you're trying to figure out if they were real.
That visit — and the phone call — reminded me of the first summer I spent on the coast. Not that one summer, and not the one before that, but the summer that changed the pitch of everything. Before I had decided. Before I understood that the bravest thing a woman can do is want something without apology.
The year, and I say it with reverence, the Impossible Idea came knocking. And I answered. And it never changed- my world became crystallised around the possibilities.
Not in a dream. But in a moment..
It was all intertwined with meeting...well, you remember. They had a boat that was older than my confidence and a kitchen that smelled of lemon and something I've never been able to replicate in my own home, no matter how many times I've tried. We met at a market where I was buying peaches with recklessness and precision that probably alarmed the vendor. Later, as we luxuriated wrapped in linen sheets, they shared that my intention picking those peaches was the single most provocative thing they'd ever witnessed.
I still believe fruit - like lovers - must be chosen perfectly. It's a quirk of mine. I demand delicious. Yes Darling, in all things.
That is the story I think about when people ask me... and they do ask, Darlings, they always ask...whether I regret never settling down.
No. Not once. Not for a single hour.
But I digress. Or maybe I don't. Maybe everything is connected if you follow the silky threads back far enough.
Tonight I had dinner with two of my Sirens. One recently divorced, one recently in love, both completely honest over a bottle of something Italian that cost more than it should. We talked the way women talk when no one is performing - fast and slow at once, looping back to things we said three sentences ago, finishing each other's thoughts and then immediately changing direction.
The one newly in love said: "I want what you have. I want to feel like myself in a room." Her sparkly outfit said it all.
Of course that is what she was wearing. Our outfit is a mirror and she was wearing confidence reflected and built from her current life; her current and I’m sure, forever love.
And her confidence radiated.
I thought about that for a long time after I got home. I changed into my softest somethings and pondered. Wearing something lovely when no one is watching is the ultimate in quiet luxury. That is why, as I reflected on my evening I wanted something soft and deliberate. No one should ever be surprised by what we pick Darlings – most especially not our true selves.
What I have isn't mystery. It isn't luck. It isn't a particular beauty or a particular past. It's this: I stopped waiting for a room to give me permission. I’d wear the lace dress to dinner when I was the only one who would see it. I’ll order the better wine sitting alone at the table with a book whose cover I don’t hide. I’ll take the table by the window. I decided, somewhere on a deck while my lover laughed at something I couldn't translate, that my life was worth living loudly.
None of the women in my tribe arrived ready-made… They were built together. We built each other. Over years of late-night calls and terrible decisions and the specific loyalty of women who have seen each other at their least composed and loved each other more for it.
Women being their own best support, heart-warmer, and joy-maker. This story was supposed to be about romance. And oh, it is.
But I'm starting to think the deepest love story I have is the one I've been writing with my Darlings.
Outside, the ocean is working the shoreline the way it always does — patient, persistent, unconcerned with the hour. It can be very... distracting, in a passionate, rhythmic manner. I have the doors open and a glass of something cold and the music on loud because it's my house and I can. I feel queen in my own rooms. Because I am.
A text just before eleven. Three words.
Just three. The kind that could mean anything or everything depending on what you already believe.
I read them twice.
Then I put the phone face-down on the cushion beside me and went back to the ocean.
Some things are better savoured, Ladies. Like peaches from the market.
Like the moment before you decide.
Three words.
Reply now, or wait? I’d known my answer since the knock.
Was that only this morning?
