Leather Polish & Infinite Summer
Short disconnected thoughts from a foggy-brained haze.
The last two weeks have been a bit of a slow, monotonous doggy paddle. I’ve found myself horizontal more often than usual, watching the distant trains pass through my third story window under the pink evening sky. It’s the beginning of summer; it stretches out before me, three infinite months, looming like the summer clouds high up in the breezeless, polluted city air. I love summer. I love the way it ignites friendships through scorched skin and sandy shoes, sunrises on night buses home, conversations in smoking areas that continue longer than usual, the cold not biting at your skin the way it does at every other time of year. I love the way time feels different; late nights somehow feel less exhausting, long days feel full of endless possibilities. For an autumn baby, I have a surprising enjoyment of the season ahead.
My dad taught me how to take care of my leather boots last weekend. Arriving home from a festival, Dr Martens chelsea boots (secondhand from Vinted, obviously) caked to the ankle in thick, drying mud, I asked him for a tutorial on how to make sure they last as long as possible.
“Your granddad’s shoes would last him a good ten…fifteen years sometimes, with good care,” he explained energetically, retrieving his leather boot polish case from under the sink, pulling out a tin of black Guardsman Gloss and a yellow cloth. With a twist he popped the lid open, the smell is nostalgic, memories of my dad sitting on the stairs, rushing to shine his shoes before an event of some kind. Under his careful instruction, I rubbed the black polish into the boot, especially the creases across the front where it bends. My dad explained he had been doing this since he was a child taking care of his school shoes, hand-me-downs from his brothers. We chatted loosely about his family, interspersed with lessons about polishing and buffing off the excess with a brush.
I couldn’t help but enjoy the irony that leather, boots and polish have such a deep connection with queerness for me, and yet I was learning the craft for the first time from my cisgender, heterosexual dad, who learnt it from his. There was something so humorous, and yet deeply special, about the fact that there is always something material, tangible, to bring us together despite having such different experiences of the world - something so handed down within our family, but utilised with a different purpose in my case.
Today, the rain is coming in intermittent, heavy spurts, bursts of hail broken up by bright and warm sunshine and clear blue skies. Low hanging, pregnant clouds move slowly overhead as I write, proving that perhaps this summer really is going to be the wettest one since 1912. My head is a little foggy, writers block clammy across my finger tips, but I feel inspired somewhat by the pestilent weather. A white and ginger cat slinks it’s way through my garden; a woodpecker vibrates from somewhere hidden. The world keeps turning.
Until next time, which should be very soon,
Eerie
