august tastes bittersweet

Just a few days ago we watched the sun set, lying down on our warm terrace floor, feet up, soaking up the last drops of golden sunlight under the tall evergreen tree

We watched and counted the birds flying by, how many of them we could see at a time.

We drank cold coffee and talked.

I got distracted by how the gold light framed your body, by the green and blue and white that created just the right color combination and by how I had arrived here alone, three years ago and was standing up in this same terrace, under the same august sun, just terrified that we had made the wrong decision.

It was august, everything was closed and I spent days trying to figure out the documents. Nothing worked and I was stuck in a bureaucratic loop. The rest of my time was spent on the phone with anyone who would talk to me, awake through the late nights or early mornings and able to keep me company even though we were separated by the ocean and a few hours of time zone difference.

It all ended up being so much harder and scarier and complicated in person than in our well-organized to-do lists and plans.

It’s august again. A couple of summers later. We are lying in our bed, the air is warm and sticky, windows open. The loud and constant sound of cicadas humming through the warm night blankets everything with a grainy layer of sound. Our warm bodies, side by side, touching just enough not to overheat. We ended up finding a video you had recorded a few years back. A 24-minute video of yourself talking to the camera, to the future you and future me. You talked about everything you could remember, all the things you thought could be of interest to the future you. College and work, our sad-looking plants, family, our cats and the pandemic. You hoped our plants would be looking better by the time we rewatched the video.

We ended up watching both of the videos you made throughout the years. For 48 minutes we listened as our young selves talked about our old lives.

You fell asleep. The steady hum of your breathing joined the sound of the cicadas coming from outside. Our plants are scattered across a few houses now. Our cats have a new home and we talk to our families through long video calls. The seasons are the opposite here.

You now drink coffee, my hair is different, we speak another language and we have a home all the way across the world. We met amazing people, swam in sparkling waters, and watched the sun set behind the mountains and the sea. We photographed places we did not think we would ever visit. We have plants that look happy. I did not get to say goodbye to loved ones.

The august air smells just like it did when I arrived, like the sea and the jasmine tree outside our door. Like the perfume I brought with me from Brazil, tucked between socks and sweaters and the surprise gift my dad sent me, carefully rolled between paper towels, a letter written on the dotted paper.

August now tastes like sweet ripe peaches, eaten under the hot Sicilian sun. August also has a bittersweet hint to it now.