I wrote this a few years ago for a department store, just when I was coming out of my winter SADS. It was a terrible stretch! I became obsessed with truffle hunting and wanting to go to Florence to go on a truffle expedition…Strange times.
It’s always funny when brands or companies ask you to write things for them..Where does it go? It’s basically unsearchable on their websites and/or google. Odd business it all is, but I don’t mind writing for the brands and the companies because they pay better than pubs and pay on time… And then! I can republish eventually if I’m not completely embarrassed about whatever I wrote. It’s a win-win for all of us!
I hope you enjoy… Reading this back makes me want to go on holiday.
The winter days passed without distinction, morphing from one grey sky to another. Somehow, books kept arriving on my doorstep and I never got around to reading them. They sat in piles around my apartment untouched. I have been desperately preoccupied thinking of the near future, which is always more glamorous and enticing. Spring is for dreamers, and that’s what I’ve been doing for much of the last eight weeks—dreaming of sun, pleasure, change. A new season is good for your mind to set off in all kinds of directions. I scroll through apartment listings, tropical vacations, and last-minute flights with a kind of frenzied excitement.
My friends often laugh that once I fixate on an idea, I always see it to fruition (and with haste). There’s no time like the present to see something through. I will force transformation, shed the dull skin of winter, and go forth into the warm spring air. The list of what I imagine I will need for the upcoming season expands, with an eye for curating a new destiny. The possibilities are endless—Who will I meet? Where will I go? What will I wear? The latter being of utmost importance because besides charisma, clothes really do set the tone and I like things spirited. When I get this way, my friends look at each other and remark, “She’s got that dangerous look.”
Whether they are dreams or small delusions, I do not mind. It’s important to dip your toe just to see how it feels. Being a novelist requires you to follow that one thread of child-like imagination and bring it into the world. I imagine myself on the beach in Quintana Roo drinking a Campari soda in a Pucci kaftan1. I’d get those tan lines that make the best summer accessory: the forty-five-degree shadow of a bikini strap around the neck. I’ll go to a dear friend’s wedding where I am guaranteed to cry, dabbing my face with a handkerchief discreetly stashed in my purse. I’ve always wanted to walk the gardens of Medici villas and drink wine in Montepulciano, so maybe I’m out in Tuscany dining al fresco after a day of hiking wearing the most sensible boots. Perhaps Italy is where I’ll fall for a handsome man in head-to-toe Loro Piana drinking an espresso standing up—but I must be careful. As Barbara Pym2 writes, “Surely many a romance must have been nipped in the bud by sitting opposite somebody eating spaghetti.”
I have a natural desire to live life like a Florine Stettheimer painting, whether this is a good thing is still up for debate. Have you ever seen one? They’re rhapsodic; all colour and dancing and cocktails. My favourite Stettheimer is called
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