No. 31

Priceless.

[No. 31]

SOLD?

“Lying on our backs, your head on my chest…”
Model/Actriz

Your question could have taken us in many compelling directions, Alien. What have I sold to get here? Have I sold the project and turned it into a New York Times bestselling book and tarot card deck? [NOT YET.] Then, I wondered if you meant to say something else, and the divine stepped in with a cheeky typo.

Eventually, the place my mind confidently landed was a list, at first tiny, then growing longer like pea tendrils, a list of things I feel in my bones, that I am SOLD on.

Image by Hailley Howard

When I find myself in the riptide of life [new schools, long drives, tender hearts, etc.], I am anchored by the simple things that are known and clear. A record of the people, places and things that delight me, tapping me on the shoulder to say, “There is so much life to live.” 

Here it is.

• Splitting open and eating a ripe, juicy fig off of my tree that I have cultivated and moved around with me to new homes in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles over the last 15 years [!]

• The excitement of opening a handwritten letter from a friend 

• Being in a flowy writing state [lighting candles, waking up early, staying up late]

• Freshly folded laundry [especially socks]

• A book that makes you forget all else [Ti Amo, Hanne Ørstavik; My Meteorite, Harry Dodge; All of This, Rebecca Woolf; Pageboy, Elliot Page; The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett to name a few favorites of recent times]

• Art [in all its glorious forms]

• A lunch that seamlessly bleeds into a dinner under Ella’s apricot tree in Umbria or in Scott’s frescoed dining room in Florence or at Terroni’s with Verônika or with loved ones on my back patio 

• An “I love you” when I wasn’t expecting it 

• Listening to a favorite song…over and over again

• Dancing in my lover’s t-shirt with morning tea in hand, the supermarket, an outdoor discoteca

• Endorphins 

• A first kiss

• Holding hands

• A fresh haircut

• Walking past someone on the street and sharing a moment of mutual style recognition

• Enuma Okoro’s column in the weekend Financial Times 

• Speaking Italian 

• The Bear

• Salt water

• This

Remember, you cannot be bought or sold. You are the subject, not the object. So, what will you place in the great farmer’s market basket of your desires? How do you feed your soul?

WHAT ARE YOU [SOLD] ON THESE DAYS?