treatswords

I walk to local park near my apartment. I settle in, sinking into the grass, feeling enough distance from others that I peel my mask off. I inhale the sweet smell of daisy weeds scattered beside my blanket. The earthy, homey smell of soil beneath my bones.

Doesn’t the smell of the seasons transport you places?

That’s what it does for me.

The fresh winds of spring teleport me back to March 2020. When the winter rains stopped, and lockdown started. Cody and I in his studio apartment, wearing baggy clothes and rarely showering for days. Working from a laptop for the first time, a gray loveseat becoming my workstation.

Our love still new, we worried the lack of space may cause space between us. But it didn’t.

We bloomed with the cherry red tulips in April.

We spent our slow afternoons walking down to the beach, curling up together on a blanket, tiny tequila bottles in our bags to make drinks we could no longer order from bars.

We did some filming. I tip-toed out of my comfort zone, leaving the version of myself I thought I knew behind.

Shy, hated being the center of attention.

But his attention I loved, reeling it in like clear fishing line.

I danced around in a red-polka-dotted dress behind a camera lens. My legs covered in blonde peach fuzz, my bleached hair growing out long enough that my ash roots were covering my scalp. His dark hair bursting from his head in thick ringlets, brown coils that seemed to stand on their tippy toes. His beard becoming unruly, thick tufts of hair drifting out from both sides, soon enough there would be no skin left, just a man clipping the hair around his eyes so that he could still see.

But we didn’t mind.

We were unkempt and uncut together.

The day we drove down to the ocean side in the rain. My jeep groaning onto the rocky shore.

We collected green stones all afternoon. Giggling into the sun that kept trying to peak out. Both causing the growing wrinkles on our faces.

Each selecting one we felt reminded us of the other.

Him a rough rock with a deep blue spot in it’s center.

“A sapphire heart.” I said.

Me a sage green rock.

“It brings me peace. I feel calm holding it.” He said, shifting his thumb back and forth over the stone.

Ending the night brainstorming story ideas for our next film on his comforter, our heads at the end of his bed. A time when most everything was unknown, everything besides us. I keep my spring memories safe, only peaking at them with a flashlight under the comforter.

I haven’t always loved spring, but thanks to Cody, it’s been growing on me.