What Should I Write About?
love, running without music, eggs (why is it always eggs with me?) & sunset from the shower
It’s Thursday evening, and I have nothing ready for you.
This morning I ran into my sister Kathryn on my way to work, and I asked her what I should write about. She said I should write about Isabelle’s wedding. Isabelle is my other sister. Isabelle and her husband Grayson went to Italy on their honeymoon—spent a lovely couple of days in Sienna, arrived in Florence, came down with a case of traveler’s bacteria (whatever the hell that is), and in her own words “didn’t get to see or eat anything.” Their wedding was beautiful.
When, after work and still directionless, I stopped by Maddie’s, she said I should write about her, and then more specifically about watching her fall in love. I asked her if she really wanted me to write about that for my thousand odd subscribers and she said maybe not, but here we are (or rather here I am, writing)—I guess you can’t really put the toothpaste back in the tube. Maddie is off to Paris tonight with the man she’s recently fallen in love with (a process that has been dizzyingly joyful to watch). That’s two votes for love.
I decided to go on a run and maybe think about love and see if I could come up with something coherent. I’ve fallen into the habit of running without music, which makes it easy to think—so easy, in fact that I don’t even have to be an active participant in the thinking. I ran three miles and don’t remember a single thought except for when I saw a single tree blooming with pink flowers and considered stopping to tear off and carry home one of its branches.
I called my cousin Grace and asked her what I should write about. She said I could write about my breakfast dilemma or about David.
My breakfast dilemma is this: at my old job, I used to eat two eggs for breakfast everyday which (and I know this is insane) I would cook in the office kitchen. Yes—I, Eve, was the girl who cooked eggs at work. What can I say? Though I never saw anyone else do this, there was an induction stovetop, frying pans in the cabinet, and anywhere from 1-3 dozen eggs in the fridge at all times, so someone else must have done it sometime. At my new job, they don’t have any of that stuff. They have a catered breakfast, which includes fruit (usually an assortment of melon, which doesn’t interest me), fixings for avocado toast (the mashed avocado always looks so oily, I just can’t bear it), a platter of bagels, and a pyramid of hard boiled eggs in little plastic cups. I don’t want to eat a peeled hard boiled egg out of a cup, so I end up eating anywhere from 1/4 to 3/4 of a bagel with cream cheese, and that’s just not a breakfast that’s going to serve me well. In fact, I find that I’m starving by 11am, and then even after I’ve eaten lunch, I’m hungry again 2 hours later, probably because I’m bored, but also definitely because I didn’t get enough protein for breakfast. David is Grace’s perfect baby.
Grace also said, and I quote: “You can write about anything I guess. I love all your posts. I always enjoy them. The only time I’m sad is when you just do a poem, and I’m sad that there’s not more; I want more. But I really liked the poem you posted about last week. I love your posts, all of them, and I agree, I wouldn’t want to eat a hard boiled egg—I don’t want to eat a hard boiled egg anyway, but if I did eat eggs—from someone else. I want to boil my own eggs, thanks.”
I got home from my run then and got in the shower. The stupid LED boob light in my bathroom is burnt out for the second time in the 2.5 years I’ve lived in this apartment even though they’re supposed to last for 5-20 years. Because it was dark-ish in the bathroom, I didn’t miss the change in the light outside that occurred at 7:46pm. I could see it happen through the fogged glass window in my shower.
My windows face east, so there shouldn’t really be a change in the light at 7:46pm; however, the large windows on several buildings on 7th Avenue catch the sunset and reflect it back at me. I saw the light change and flung open the window, set my elbows on the sill and leaned down and out in such a way so as not to flash any neighbors. All the tall buildings were glowing practically red, and a cool wind was blowing each leaf on the big backyard tree—also bathed in warm light—in tempting undulations. The steam from my shower drifted out into the evening, and I could almost imagine that the sound of falling water (unremarkable water pressure) was that of a babbling brook. The sunset in the east only ever lasts for six or seven minutes, and tonight I didn’t miss it.
