It was extra humid on the rooftop of a bar called The Hurricane. I know this because when it’s humid, my hair takes on a separate identity. There was nowhere to sit; none of the stools had been wiped down since the rain. The sky was otherworldly. Giant clouds that looked make-believe sat unmoved over the Gulf, painted in a palette none of us could possibly recreate.
I’m a sucker for a rooftop and a 360 view of something. This one’s on top of a three-story building with a winding staircase I always run up, no matter what I’m wearing. The exterior is seafoam green and nineties turquoise blue. It was built in the 1970s, and somehow stayed there. If you closed your eyes and opened them again, everyone would look like they did back then.
The second floor is always empty and quiet, and you have to return to it if you need the bathroom. It feels like a place you’d stumble into as a kid, or an abandoned post-apocalyptic room that somehow remained untouched. I love how still it is, with only the fans gently going. When I’m tipsy after two margaritas, I linger and stare at my frizzy-haired reflection in a wicker framed mirror. I wonder (as I reapply cherry lip gloss), if it were the apocalypse, would I find something useful?
I open my eyes to find you staring back at me. Your overgrown beard. Your “Taylor’s Version” hat that isn’t mine anymore. You move me away from the drops falling from the strung-up lights. You tell me about a world you’re building. You make me laugh. You make me feel like… is this a first date? Or one of a thousand?
I notice an older woman, elegantly out of place, sipping a Stella at the only wiped-down stool and table. Had she been here the whole time, through the rain? When she left, she said goodbye to the bartender like they were old friends. The next time I saw her, she seemed to belong to a different world below. She was shrunken against the sidewalk as she paused at the corner, turned toward the Gulf, and looked either at the sunset or at a family laughing wildly in the water. I remember wondering: is she thinking of her past?
On Shell Island, I take a picture of you. Your back is to me, staring at the water. And I wonder what you’re thinking.
Afterward, when I swim in the Gulf, I let the current take over and laugh at my lack of control. A little afraid, a little relieved. When I find you, I’m so happy that you’re happy, laughing back at me.
(Daily Writing 060)
Thoughts?