It's that time of day again where feelings morph from freshness into morose blandness. I suppose it's the perfect time to think. The perfect time to listen or to wait or to breathe or do that thing they call meditation which is really just an acid trip through the brain. The laundry hangs and drifts in the wind, under the sun like its meant to be painted. 10 whole vases of wildflowers. me, mum, and tara, all sitting in the garden, in different states of undress, trying to tan just our legs, besides me: trying to tan everything but the one burnt strip across my lower back. Everything's been written and sent in and planned and the responses have been noted or else they haven't come back yet and there's a deep lack of anything to do but wait till it's appropriate to drink. Suppose it's the summer breeze and all that.
Mums cleaned out the freezer and left its door open to defrost the chunks of ice. It ticks and slicks and drips. Its insides are cool but being slowly opened by the raw heat of the 1st day of July. If you are quiet you can hear kids laughing down at the field or it may be screaming, they both sound the same. I haven't left the gates of our house and wonder what it might be like to wander through town. With everybody out under the sun. The sky is textureless. Spiderwebs dance between light fixtures like waves on rocks. I'm reminded of the passage of time, reading through old journal entries, and being reintroduced to all the feelings that were conjured this year. Deep hope and crushing sadness and reminiscing about smiling and crying about love because there aren't words to do so. All you can do is smile and wet your eyes and hope the person across from you understands exactly what you mean when you say "god I just love…". If they are the right person they will nod or hum and smile back with wet eyes and you will understand that they have understood you. Without words.
There is an ungraspable yet unmistakable weight in knowing you've found the people you were meant to find. In knowing you've become a version of the person you hoped you'd be. Or perhaps even better than what you'd hoped you'd be. It's about the size of a peach pit. There is a gleaming calm in knowing you are the type of person to pick out the perfect shade of ceramic vase to place your flowers in. The type of person that brings a warmth into the room. A warmth that you once mistook for awkward eccentricity but it's clear now that it's more so charming originality.
Like a summer night surrounded by darkness but sitting around a table lit up with candles and smiling faces warm from red wine, and remnants of cheese and chicken on the table that everyone picks at despite saying they were too full to have seconds. A night where the mosquitoes drive you inside, into the arms of the person you've been harmlessly flirting with the whole day. who you tapped toes with under the table. A person who now is not so harmless and instead an open vessel of vulnerability. Perhaps because you've stayed up too late. Perhaps because you're dehydrated or perhaps because the summer drives together the people who will make you feel good. In the morning everyone will cuddle onto one bed until you really can't handle the burden of an empty stomach so you either slop together a meal or walk to one. Either way, the day will be slow and perfect. Your skin will look luminously tan paired with any colour. Your shoulder blades will be the welcome spot for loving lingering touches. You'll smell like sweat and suntan lotion and salt and if you mix that with tequila it becomes the perfect cocktail called hot skin on a blue beach towel.
You'll go to bed lethargic (which is my favorite word) and you'll wake up soft and warm and you'll only have to worry about if you left any of the popsicles and beer out, and even then you can always run out and get some more.
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