Rene Matić:
One For My Baby
(And One More
for the Road)

How to articulate such love? For ours is out of language, that’s what she often says. OUT OF LANGUAGE… how much weight something must have to be beyond. Beyond beyond and to infinity I am absolutely sure of. I was sure when I left her at London Bridge that first day when she was all 23 years old and in between all the places she needed to be, and I was all 18 and microwavable meals. Isn’t that the real honey? The beginning of a love [story] is: existing together in places no one else can reach and sharing awful food and music that somehow makes the temperature just right.

I wonder how many times we have parted ways at train stations. The first time was like that 3 AM Christmas morning restlessness, you know? I got on the tube after saying goodbye and I tapped my foot the whole way home as if to say, god damn everyone, REAL MAGIC IS HAPPENING INSIDE ME! I had been making work about loss. Loss of loving and being loved. Loss of care and loss of me. When I walked away from her for the first time I bumped right back into myself like an old friend that still has the same smell. I love you, me.

When I think about the beginning, I think of all the trains. It was 2016, the year Rihanna brought out her Anti album and baby, best believe we made the most of that gold. Everytime I’m in the club and Work comes on I get transported back to the 8:30pm London Euston train to Liverpool Lime Street to see my long-haired lover and I feel my blood warm up. Such safety.

We went to and from London and Liverpool every two weeks, for 2-3 nights at a time, for eight months. I can play each journey in my head like they were shot on a super 8. The opening scene would be that first trip to Liverpool. The song is Esme by Joanna Newsom. Maggie’s favourite (and now mine). ‘In this hour of our lives/Hour of effortless plenty/How do we know which parts of our hearts want what’. I look so small in those movies. She looks so small in those movies. Determined to love. Deserving of a soft landing. You kids did that.

Girl, I really became somebody spending time with my Maggie on those trips, and we are really becoming somebodies still/always. Grateful for the stillness of our marriage. Grateful to never have to take a train alone again.

If I listen to Marc Bolan’s Suneye or Buddy Holly’s Dearest I can still feel the tightness of my throat every time I had to leave her at the platform. My body wouldn’t work without hers. The journey from Liverpool back to London was Nina Simone’s Everytime We Say Goodbye (Remastered 2003) but with uncontrollable breathing and tight skin. When we would be half, until next time.

I told you music makes the temperature just right. I don’t remember what was playing in the Uber on the way to our wedding. Whatever was on, our little heart beats would have surpassed the music.

Listen to Rene's playlist on Fred Perry Subculture:

Watching Liverpool ice skate around our car as we headed for the registry office in our little white clothes with our little white roses was just another one of our journeys. Each one just as important as the next. We were all peach haired and absolutely in the right place.

Love is: being absolutely in the right place. Where you both deserve, where you both can laze.

For Maggie and all our journeys, past, present and future. I got you Girl.