Coffee cups, dozens. Writers sipping on morning hellos.

All of us, every single one, waiting for trade secrets.

Edge of our seats. Scribbling into notebooks. The presentation begins.

⧫

I clutch a beer bigger than my own face. I promise to drink slowly. Won’t get carried away.

A pair of hazel eyes watch me, considering. The plastic cup in my hand breaks into a cold sweat.

“What do you do? For fun?” he asks.

I laugh. This is the part I hate. The pleasantries. The prerequisites. The lines we must speak to match the way our fingers suddenly tremble.

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It’s been a whirlwind of a week.

Demanding customers, unforeseeable slip-ups, and a splash of family tension make for what you might call utter insanity.

Add to that a heaping dose of postgraduate uncertainty and a pinch of ever-present doubt that I think lingers in the minds of most twenty-somethings, and I was in the thick of it.

Saying things I shouldn’t. Thinking things that are entirely untrue. Letting myself wander down the rabbit hole of negativity that the world can create so very easily.

And yet.

This morning happened.

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Today I watched the trees rustle in the glow of an April sunset, and memories came to me like lapping waves. I could do nothing but smile at the privilege of remembering.

What a lovely burden it is. Perhaps that is the blissful curse of humanity, of living this life on earth, and of writing. That even as something happens, you’re assigning it to memory. Every last aching breath of it. You’re bottling it up and saving the sweetness and sadness and gut-wrenching beauty of it for later.

Sometimes, much later.

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I’ve been wearing red sunglasses for five years now. Off and on. Others have come and gone, brown and black and square and round, but somehow I always come back to red.

There have been two pairs. Two lovely pairs.

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Weeks ago, sitting in a coffee shop, spinning words for a deadline as if I were back in college, I paused and looked up from my screen.

And a man was staring at me.

In the space between breaths, he looked away and back again. I sipped my coffee and pretended our eyes hadn’t met, the ever familiar flush of pink coloring my skin. Minutes later, his order was ready at the counter and he disappeared through the door.

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I lose mud
from my boots
in upscale bars.
Forget to change
shoes in transit,
rural to urban,
farm to market
and back again.
Parallel park
with eyes closed but
open my screen door
and gravel spills
into city streets where
pine needles trail me
through pastel boutiques.

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I want to marry you.
Tomorrow, if I could.

I don’t know
if you can
keep up
with me.

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I was kneeling.

Singing.

Offering something up.

What that was, I’m not quite sure.

Uncertainty, perhaps. Doubt, always.

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Today is full of him.

Days pass where the memories are distant, fleeting, almost gone.

But today there is rain and it splashes into my mug and my skin and my shoes, and I remember it all.

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Music has never been my forte. Both the making of it and the appreciation.

I love it. I do. Love.

The discovery of it, too. Indie folk music is, like, my jam.

Somehow, though, I’ve always fallen for men with an absolute, unquestionable passion for music. The structure, the lyrics, the creation, even. They know the story behind the obscure band and have (of course) been to the concerts and shows and own all the albums and recognize every guitar riff and you know this new artist, right, Kristen? You know the band I’m talking about? Don’t you? Kristen?

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