sometimes

Sometimes on long drives I like to imagine I’m another person. In another state. In another country. Another time.


Today I’d close my eyes and pretend the person sitting next to me is my husband. We’re headed to Napa for the weekend. But the destination doesn’t really matter. I’d go anywhere with him. I pretend to sleep (as I usually do on these trips). He knows this but plays along. In this moment my thoughts wander to the first time we met.


It was January. I was in my black jacket and suede brown boots that hugged my blue jeans. My chipped black nail polish had been stuck on my fingernails for weeks now. But I didn’t mind, somehow it made me feel more interesting. I was “much too busy to bother with such little things like nail polish,” I’d tell myself.


Grabbing my sunglasses and keys I headed to Nook where I always went to read on Wednesdays . Black coffee, cream and two splendas. Fumbling through my purse I clutched my book, The Death and Life of Sylvia Plath, and sat down in my usual brown leather chair. The chair was made for me. The tears and tattered cushions made me want to love it more to make up for the lack of care it had been given over the years. The familiarity of that spot comforted me like listening to City and Colour on a rainy day.


He walked in just about the same time I did. We knew the same people, ran in the same circles. But we had never really known each other. Today he innocently joked with me and I shyly laughed. I tried to look much more confident than I was. But my flushed cheeks gave me away.


He liked that I laughed at him. He likes to make people laugh. I liked that about him. We spoke the rest of the day discussing our favorite books, music, and films. I drank two cups of coffee that afternoon. His blue eyes were bright, full of life. He was older than me and yet his enthusiasm made him appear much younger. It started so simply, but in that moment I knew I was already falling for him.


That was ten years ago. In all this time I never stopped loving him. I never stopped laughing at his jokes that only I truly understood. His brown hair swept over his eyebrows and framed his face over the small wrinkles near his eyes. Looking up at him he sweeps his hand across my cheek and I pull my knees in closer to my chest. We’re almost to Napa now.


........


When I open my eyes again, I look beside me and realize we’re almost home. Not to Napa but to San Francisco where I live, alone, in my studio. I zip up my worn out sweatshirt and pull back my hair as I gather my things. We pull up to my apartment and I shut the door behind me as I leave the blue Honda. A small smile forms as I unlock my apartment; I enjoy my daydreams.


Sometimes on long drives I like to imagine I’m another person. In another state. In another country. Another time.