Sleep

I can’t sleep.

It all comes flooding back—the hair salon in the basement, the perfume samples in the vanity, the statue lights in the living room.

At first, smell by smell—the peroxide and soap lingering after years, the faint traces of Chanel and Guerlain that ran out years ago, the smoke from the fireplace that hasn’t been lit in ages.

Then colours; the green chairs against the sepia walls, the white wood and the gold inlays, the chipped orange glaze.

At last, the details. The chunky green chairs from the 70s, saved from a hair salon and then serving in another. The elegant curves and flecked silver mirror of the vanity. The ancient statues, rebuilt into lights.

Still, I can’t sleep. I am tired, unable to form a thought, but unwilling to fall into the abyss of sleep.

You breathe in and feel your chest expand. The air is cool and calming. You breathe out, the warm and moist air leaving your lungs. Before you, there is a flight of stairs leading down. You walk down, with every step feeling more relaxed. At the bottom of the stairs, there is a door. You open it and step through it onto a Greek island. The summer breeze rustles your hair and you take a deep breath of the sea air. You feel the sand between your toes, warm and coarse, …

I don’t. That’s the problem. I can try as much as I want, I never see that island.

I’ve tried everything short of going to Greece.

I bought Un Jardin à Cythère and sprayed it on my sheets for the suggestions of a secret Greek island. But this is not an island of summer breezes and sand, it’s an island of hard earth and shrivelled olive trees and it brought me to Tuscany.

The smell of pine trees wafts through the stale summer air. The sun hangs low in the sky, but the smell of it lingers. A faint trace of the tar from the road beyond the fence. Dry earth and yellow grass.

Crickets are singing in the distance and the family is cooking inside, chattering, wineglasses clinking.