In April, the local Farmers’ Market reopens and as usual I’ll’ splurge on vegetables and herbs and most likely not be able to use them before they go bad in my refrigerator or die from neglect. But I can’t resist ,and I already have a small pot of basil on my kitchen counter, less for cooking and more for the perfume of it. When I crush a leaf and inhale, I’m breathing in summer to come. Silky gazpacho, big smiley-face sunflowers, dusty feet, screen doors, sweet tea, a burst of concentrated sunshine in a cherry tomato, cold Prosecco, peaches eaten over the sink so the juice can run down my fingers. “Sumer is icumen in…” and I can’t wait.

For the last year I’ve been pissing and moaning about moving, getting away, running away. I’ve felt as if  I was through with this city, bored, boring and chafing at the bit. Never mind that I didn’t have any other place I wanted to be, no other place to call “home.” I mentally rehearsed living in Hawaii (too expensive), London (too expensive), going back home to Kentucky (too emotionally expensive), anywhere but here. I can’t say that it’s been a bad year in the sense that so many people are having a bad year by losing jobs and homes and hope, but it’s been a bad year in the sense of being lost, wandering, wondering, wishing I could get out of my skin and be someone better, fiercer, happier, less invested in loss. I’ve been working hard at understanding why I feel this way, so flat and foreign. I went through years when I lost my inner ear for music; I just didn’t feel it or hear it or want it. I was like those people who  suddenly lose their ability to taste because of some sort of illness, and when my craving for music returned, I realized what a big hole its absence had left in my life. Now I can’t get through the day without a soundtrack. Rock anthems on the way to work, jazz to rock me to sleep. Just as recently I’ve been able to see again, really see the beauty that I swim in daily. The moon riding high and pale in a blue morning sky, the russet autumn marsh grass, the ruffled water of the harbor, a hidden pond on my drive to work where an egret lives, the in-your-face sunsets that winter bring. Leaving work as the days grow shorter, I suddenly notice the neon theater sign that has always been just across the street, clouds stained candy-cotton pink at twilight, ordinary buildings made mysterious by the coming night, the small but intense satisfaction of plugging in my strings of porch lights when I come home. I’m not ready to say I’ve made peace with where I am, that I’ll never leave, that I don’t long for some nameless More, but like my ability to hear music again, my eyes are opening to what is exquisite all around me. And that is enough for now.

I probably have every piece of cheap jewelry I’ve ever bought, every objet de junk I’ve dragged into my house over the years (that plastic Buddha, the Day of the Dead skeletons, the squeaky tin bird), every impulse buy I quickly hated–but the things I treasure I always lose. The silver ring that matched the gold one above that I bought from a jeweler off Portobello Road in London, the expensive bracelet made of porcelain beads painted with Chinese characters that I wore for luck, the leather envelope purse from Il Bisonte that no other bag can replace and that I didn’t appreciate until it was gone. I have searched frantically through my house for the missing items and  through the universe for people I’ve lost.  I can’t wear the gold ring without its mate, and I can’t replace the man I loved with another one, but losing things and people is a lesson in letting go, one I need to learn before I leave this Sweet Old World. Why? Because some day I will have to let go of life, let go of sunsets, Champagne, foot massages, Chopin, Bach and Lucinda Williams, bookclub dinners, skinny dipping, dolphins feeding at dusk,  Fedoras, ballet slippers, salt, twinkle lights, cruise control, dishwashers, sand in my shoes, 411, down jackets, lucky charms, the color red, my friends, my family, my  biker jacket, pears and cheese, clean sheets, hot showers, gardenias, glue sticks, homemade pasta sauce, pomegranate seeds, morning glories and so much more. But facing that encourages to me to open myself to color and sensation and compassion and sadness and embraces before it’s too late. It makes me want to be honest with the people I love. It makes me feel urgent about having conversations that are real and revealing.  It makes me realize, when I’m able, of  the beauty that the world offers, like a woman opening herself to a lover with nothing withheld, nothing calculated, everything free and priceless.

At dusk, the setting sun bathed us in an opalescent light, like the lining of an abalone shell. For a breath-holding moment, the sky and wavelets along the beach turned pink, and the ocean-bound container ship took on the glamour of a tramp steamer in the mist. Maybe headed to China or Fiji or Easter Island or back in time. I wanted to be on it, going anywhere but here, being anyone but me, feeling anything but sad. I wanted to lean on the railing and watch the land disappear and not know my destination but be deep-down sure it was going to be life-changing. For just a minute. Then the light changed, and night began to move in on our picnic and Prosecco and my soul fell back into my body. But for a beautiful brief moment I was between Here and There, just dreaming.

What is it about red lipstick? I never wear it. I always thought it was for women with more self-confidence or bigger lips than I have, but today I bought a tube on a whim. And I love it. With this stuff on, I think I could run a company (oops I’ve already done that), get the best table in a restaurant, wear a nipped-in-the-waist suit, write a country western song, not fall down in high heels, be seductive instead of stupidly shy, have a secret and dangerous lust affair, drink port and smoke cigarillos after dinner, lead a revolution, write a erotica or a bodice ripper, not give a fuck, host  a sunday salon of intellectuals, move to Paris, understand Foucault, fall in love with a bullfighter, write a poem like “Howl,”  stride down a street like I own it, live by myself on a houseboat or in the desert, learn to fly a plane (wearing a shearling/leather aviator jacket of course), talk back, be a hermit, be a rock star, be the me that lives under my skin.