Describe Your Perfect Day
Shalinee in Sevilla
I have long been fascinated by the 36 questions to fall in love, and one of the questions that always stuck out to me is ‘Describe your perfect day.’ It’s a classic getting to know you question, a question I have asked and answered many times. Usually, when I answered it in the past, I described a fantasy. For some reason, perfect seemed to mean complete. I would concoct elaborate plans to imbue the day with all of the things and people I love, rendering the day totally infeasible in real life. I would talk about how all my friends would have to be in one place, how the day would go on for hours, how we’d be at a party and the DJ would play every song I wanted to hear. Though the day could never exist, the thought exercise was worth it. Answering the question got me thinking about what makes a day in my life feel like I am living it to the fullest, what makes me happy or fulfilled. And somewhere along the way, something happened. I started thinking about my life in terms of perfect days—whenever I had a great day, I logged it in my mind as a “perfect day” in the sense of the question, and I realized that it didn’t take much for a day to be perfect. Once you realize that the only criteria for a day to be perfect is that you feel satisfied at the end of it, that you feel moved and content and like you did something meaningful, you will notice that it is not so difficult to have a perfect day. A perfect day does not need to be “complete,” it simply needs to be good enough that it would not occur to you to improve upon it.
I have been lucky to have many perfect days in my life. For April’s edition of my newsletter, I’d like to share two recent perfect days that stand out.
The Thursday before last, I was in Sevilla. It was a gorgeous day, just about 70 degrees, with clear blue skies and an abundance of sunshine. I spent the whole day with my friend Grace (who coined the phrase azahar mindset, see issue #4). We began the day at Café Piola for breakfast. I got to have my favorite desayuno—a tostada with tomato, olive oil, garlic and salt, a cafe con leche, and a cup of fresh squeezed orange juice. It’s the most basic a Spanish desayuno can be, and yet it is my absolute favorite. I could eat pan con tomate every day, I think. And then, we spent the entire day together just walking and talking. We had absolutely no obligations, no plans, no where we had to be. We wandered through a flea market on my favorite street in Sevilla, Calle Feria, where I bought 4 euro earrings and we looked at all kinds of random ephemera, old Semana Santa memorabilia, art, magazines, random old metal keys. We stopped in at the supermarket for water and oranges, and then we kept walking. Near lunch time, we found ourselves in a plaza filled with tables of tourists and locals alike enjoying their meals. We sat on a wrought-iron bench under an orange tree, inhaling the intoxicating scent of the azahar, eating oranges and talking about anything and everything. A man began walking around playing ‘La Vida es un Carnaval’ on guitar. On this perfect day, it was a profoundly perfect moment.
The best part of the day was its aimlessness. We had the vague idea that we were making our way to Triana, but somewhere along the way, we decided we could go to Triana another day. It truly felt like we could do whatever we wanted, and even though I spent a year living in Sevilla where I had very few obligations, it was a rare feeling. We continued on from that plaza, finding new streets we’d never seen and retracing our favorite spots. At golden hour, we sat beneath the Setas, the giant mushroom-like structure in Plaza de la Encarnación. As I lamented to Grace that falling in love was this one common human experience I had yet to experience, a busker began to sing “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for,” which felt like a funny coincidence, though not really apt: far from feeling like something was missing, that whole day I felt like I had everything I had ever wanted. I felt so contented and lucky to be alive.
After getting chicharrones at one of our favorite spots, we ended the day with tapas at one of the first tapas bars I went to when I got to Sevilla. Eating there, I remembered how that first time, over a year and a half ago, I had felt so anxious and out of place. I could feel everybody staring, and I didn’t know how or what to order. This time, though, I felt no anxiety or confusion. I knew exactly what I wanted, and how to ask for it. I felt at home.
The second perfect day in recent memory was today. I woke up around 9, which is a glorious feeling for me because I am not accustomed to waking up that early on the weekend and feeling refreshed. I had my tea and caught up on the phone with another friend I met in Spain that I hadn’t talked to in a bit. I went to the farmers market down the street from me and bought a baguette and some fruit. And then, I had a picnic with my cohort. We spent the whole afternoon sitting in the grass and snacking on an assortment of yummy food: tea sandwiches, brie, fruit, caesar salad, hummus, cream cheese brownies, strawberry lemonade. We lay in the sun and listened to the music. We watched a hummingbird flit around, dogs run to and fro. We looked at the hazy daytime moon against the stark blue sky, and at clouds so wispy they looked like they’d been painted with a sponge. There was no other word for it but perfect. I thought of the hours I had spent in Alamillo last spring, the last time I had picnicked. And even the slight melancholy of missing those endless days felt worth it, because I contemplated those beautiful days with a depth I hadn’t in some time, and realized they were not merely a thing of the past.
Afterwards, I went to the gym even though I really didn’t want to. Of course, I felt better once I started working out, and I felt proud of myself for going. Then, I came home energized and I cleaned my room and did laundry, setting myself up properly for the week for once. I had leftovers to make a black bean quesadilla, and now, I’m here, writing this. Things just happened today, they unfolded easily, and I got to spend most of it with my friends out in the sun. And it was perfect. How could it not be?
Thank you for reading. I’m wishing you all some perfect days this April.