Studio Renee

2/2/24


You were so mad on Friday night! 

You picked me up from the subway stop and we grumbled pleasantries but you were so grumpy. So, I picked up on your anger and I was like, where are we going to get dinner? To get you in a different headspace, right? 

And you were like, I thought we agreed on the sushi spot up the road? But you said it like that conversation we had this morning in passing was a binding contract and I’m just checking in. 

So we dropped my bags off in the front door and started to walk towards the sushi spot you took me for my birthday last year when I was the one in a weird headspace (and that night we came home to lit-er-al gunshots that hit our front door) so it was fitting, I guess. 

Then the rain just started pouring down on us, no more than two minutes into our four minute walk, but we were already up that first hill and turning around meant we’d have to walk uphill twice and that was just not happening, even though we left the umbrella at home. 

So the rain is drenching us, right? Soaking wet, and we both wear glasses and they’re covered in raindrops and our breath is fogging them up because we’re breathing so hard so we can’t see a damn thing. The sushi spot is only three blocks away but those three blocks are uphill. 

We’re shivering at the crosswalk, hoping the buses passing by won’t splash water all over us and we stopped talking because we’re now completely out of breath. And your face is scrunched up from the rain and probably because you’re even more mad now. 

We pass by all these warmly lit establishments like the ballet studio and the hair salon and use their awning to dodge the rain in quick little bursts until we reach the restaurant. 

You order us hot tea and I am so loving, which is funny to me because you’re so upset and I’m just giggling under my foggy lens. 

I tell you to tell me everything that is happening in your mind right now, just get it and lay it all out next to the sushi and the gyoza on the table. And you do, because you love talking about your feelings, you just hate having them. I see the tea starting to warm you up and your face relaxes a little more.

And I’m like, so what can I do to help, and you tell me, I need you to be the one to take on the dog trainer communications and I agree, not because I want to exactly, but I know it’ll help you since you do most of the things around the house anyways. 

And now that I didn’t put up a fight this time, you put down your fight a little bit and we start to talk about other things that I can’t quite recall now, but I know you’re feeling better because you ordered dessert on our shoestring budget.