Wednesday, 07:15, London
With a bit more determination this morning, and time.
Where have I been, away from the page? Letting go to summer, on holiday, prioritising sleep and recovery since returning. All the things that could fall onto the page – ideas, imaginings, notions, reveries, memories, feelings, stories, anxieties and ambitions – they either get lost, or they don’t. It’s not possible to try and contain it all.
An inevitable sense of boredom already in moments of repetition. The freedom to act on need and whim within the hour, no longer in hand. But happiness to be home.
The weather’s been stable. I’ve been trying to learn about it. Trying to map cause and effect onto what we experience in the grand sweeps above and through us.
It’s been summer weather. What’s there to write about? Stable warmth fluctuating around mid-to-low twenties. Mild nights. Sporadic rain. Heat and humidity, a comforting blanket. A season to flow into.
Enough people have said to me that ‘it doesn’t feel like we’ve had a proper summer this year’, to make me question how much I’ve enjoyed it. I posit whether we’ll look back on summers like this one, 2024, and be grateful.
What is it that quenches a thirst for summer? A heatwave clocking thirty? A hot breeze on stepping outside? Sleeping under sheets? Or is it the frequency of the sun’s intensity, hanging short shadows on hot pavements, resonating high-pitch; the way you feel people ease, drenched in orange glow, slow-moving, melting onto benches and the grass?
Summer’s a time to live what you’ve learnt in the winter without thinking too much about it. Feel, and save reflecting for longer nights.