Amy Whitesides and the European Union

 

I don’t want to tell you what this is about. I don’t even really want to write about it, to be honest. Instead, I’ll write about Amy Whitesides. 

Can I tell you about Amy? I love her, and she wanted me to write about her, and I’m jazzed, because who better to write about than Amy Whitesides? She’s stunning. I’m not kidding. She likes Cheetos and over-achieving. She’s a cheetah. She’s Roxane, and she’s been kissed a lot.  

I love Amy. I’m not just saying that because she asked me to write about her. I’m being real with you. She’s suddenly, over the last three and a half weeks or so, become a part of my life that I don’t know how I lived without for sixteen and a half years. She’s a beast to costume, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. And when she gets speaking Spanish, I think it is so amazing. The words fit so comfortably in her mouth -- it was her first language, but you’d never know that. Her family's from Columbia, ergo the Spanish. Like they speak in Spain. Spain -- in Europe. Spain, west of Italy.

And I guess that's what this is about: Italy.

Amy is easier to write about, though. I'd rather tell you about my friend Amy and the way she is so funny than discuss Italy, but that's what's really going on: Italy.

I wish I could say, "Hey, stop being real life, Italy," to Italy. I wish I could say, "Hold your horses, Italy," or "Wait two more months, yeah, Italy?" But Italy, of course, wouldn't listen to me. Italy is a country, my friends, it's a member of the EU, and I'm still in high school. So I just scream a lot of things like, "HEY, ITALY! JUST BE CAREFUL, OKAY?!" When I left on Thursday, Kasey said, "Be safe, okay?" Okay. Tell everyone to be safe in Italy, too.

And it matters too much sometimes. And then it matters too little.

And this isn't about anything except for the way time moves too fast. This isn't really about what you think it's about. It's about the way the sand doesn't stay between my fingers for long enough and how Amy cried when she said she loved Benjamin on Saturday, so please don't over-think or over-analyze this.

It's just about how everything -- everything -- happens so quickly. Time flies when time happens, and then you're left with nothing but a party hat and a few bruises.

The Universe will save us with red sneakers.

All my love,

Addy

Cyrano?

It's hard to explain. Basically, this is about noses.


I like how people smell. I like how houses smell. To be honest, I sometimes even like them when they smell a little bit bad (key words: a little bit). It's human; it's home. And I always wonder what my house smells like to other people.


Sometimes, I will walk through the smell of Avery. Other times, it's Kaitlyn. Or one of the Matts or Kyle or Morgan or Daniel or Madeline. Sometimes it's my parents or my sisters. And I don't really realize what they smell like until I am just walking along and I will smell something like... I can't even describe it.


Avery smells like hair and words and poetry and owning three pairs of the same jeans. Kaitlyn smells like freckles and Ibsen and rice, Matt Davis like climbing and chai and knives, Kyle like record players and equations, Morgan like country music and vanilla bean, Daniel like statistics and purple pants, Madeline like her sister. My mom, for lack of any other way to describe it, smells like perfect energy, my dad like dancing and fatherliness, and my sisters smell like violins and puzzle pieces and crayons, and all of that together smells like home.


I think I smell like songs and like I have too many words for anyone to handle, and like falling in love easily, and I think I smell like falling in love easily isn't always a bad thing.


I mean that in the most metaphorical way possible --  no one smells like owning three pairs of the same jeans. I mean that in the most literal way possible -- people really smell like equations and country music. But how can I describe a smell? It just smells. Like an old folks home and a grape jolly rancher and lighting design.


And it's January now, and things smell like January. Things smell new and old and oak-y. Things smell like learning to shop for wood and learning to appreciate differences of opinions. Things smell human, and they smell like the renaissance. Mostly, things smell different, and things smell like they're changing, but I think that's misleading, because I keep walking through the scent of you.


Goodnight, folks.
All my love,
Addy