The Eternal Sunday
The end of summer is a goblin that sits on my chest as the night draws in.
There’s this specific feeling I sometimes get at the end of summer, in those long, endless evenings that drag on through hours spent sprawled, listening to the sounds of neighbours kids playing in the garden on their final nights of freedom. There’s always one night where the air starts to feel heavy, my body gently but firmly crushed by its weight. As if there’s less oxygen than usual, I find myself noticing my breath, trying to expand my lungs further to gasp for air without drawing attention to my rising panic. My mouth dries and I convince myself my throat is closing. My limbs feel like bags of sand, full of blood and heavy as if I’ve just run a marathon, small movements feel like full swings and dizziness teases at the periphery of my vision. Unease settles on my chest, feet flat on my ribs, weight bearing on its goblin-esque haunches, long arms tightening hands around my neck.
The end of summer feels like one eternal Sunday night; brooding and teenaged, I skulk about the house looking for any distraction of the coming school week. September still looms over the end of the warmer months like a stern reminder of reality, a grounding, time to get back to work, tend to the fields after enjoying the fruits of spring’s harvest all August long. There’s always pangs of sorrow about it, an ache for those long and bright evenings, apprehension at the coming darkness creeping in at the tail-ends of the day.
The feeling feels somewhat more justified this year than usual. I recently had to move house at quite short notice, the house I’d lived in longest since my childhood home, and it’s been a period of upheaval and changed plans. I fortunately haven’t found myself back in my teenage bedroom (I saved that experience for my best friend and his dog) but I am currently in my parent’s attic with my own tiny dog, Ghost. It’s incredibly lucky to have a place to stay, however is definitely not how I expected life to be at 26-almost-27, struggling through freelancing and sleeping on fold-out sofa bed.
I’ve been a little here there and everywhere lately, largely because life has been hitting me with wave after wave of change, breaking in frothy, foamy chaos upon my unstable sandy shores. The threat of being imminently washed away has been hanging around me for some time now, however the duration of this concern has certainly made me feel somewhat at home, relaxed despite it’s lingering danger. I’ve learnt in this time of heightened stress that there is something I need quite intensely in order to cope - time spent alone. In this busy month of admin and upheaval, I have been around people more frequently than normal, my routine of waking up before the rest of the house no longer the case, the sanctuary of my room behind a closed door no longer an option. In many ways, the exposure therapy is good, forcing myself out of the urge to hide away and hermit - however, I have noticed how irritable I get when I don’t get the balance right.
I cherish small moments unobserved; waking up before everyone else, making coffee and drinking it in silence, my brain able to work through each motion at a time and begin working on the day’s agenda before I have to process human interaction. It’s my perfect morning. Even with my partners, who I could happily spend every second with, there is still a second of bliss I feel in the privacy of an empty kitchen at night: making a round of tea in silence, pacing unseen while the kettle bubbles and steams. Even loving eyes still watch, and as much as I adore feeling them rest on me I do have an innate need for fragments of time entirely unchecked.
I love being alone in public: striding through crowded streets, surrounded by people who I’ll most likely never see again. I might meet a thousand eyes but none linger for too long, especially in this city. The rule in London is that no one talks to each other, and so it’s easy to blend in through undulating throngs of bodies, in such close contact but also could not be more further apart. I forgot how much I loved this sensation until last week, whilst waiting for my mum to be seen in hospital, I found myself alone in busy central London. With no choice but to walk, enjoying the mild, bright weather I strode with intent through wide-set London streets, big beige paving slabs, grand houses tall and erect either side, decorated with various blue plaques commemorating previous inhabitants. I love the rhythmic thud of foot landing after foot; tapping out into muscle memory auto-pilot I let thoughts come and go at will, weaving in amongst the crowds of busy shoppers like a fish amongst it’s shoal.
I noticed the tall tower block of the hospital looming in the skyline, and remembered reading somewhere that they put terminally ill patients in the higher floors, with windows looking out over the city. I felt conflicted, this chaos of traffic and new build flats, electric bikes and rushing men in suits, a city supposed to be somewhere that fulfils dreams, where anything is possible, is also the image of an inescapable end. The city will eat you alive, if you let it.
An ambulance siren startled me out of my daydream. Grounded, I noticed a bookstore that was still open on the corner of the street and took refuge in it’s grand book-lined bowels, exploring deep into the buildings innards, slipping through smaller passageways until I found a selection of the strangest and most grotesque books I possibly could. I bought three, my lucky number, and thought to myself - when people die, they never say they regret reading books. Maybe not ones as diabolical as these, but still. The cashier seemed to approve of my selection, despite my inability to meet his gaze.
It’s now been over a month since I’ve been back at home. September is in full swing, and the triple chaos full moon that happened a couple of days ago has been felt in full effect. Everything feels on edge, but I can’t tell whether it’s the edge of something great or the edge of a really steep fall. I’m determined to manifest that it’s the former, and so am putting in as much work I can to all of my various projects in the hope one of them is suddenly going to take hold. My body feels a little mechanical at the moment, a vessel I use for transport rather than something I’m entirely at one with.
The sun continues to creep through the clouds, surprising me with summer-warm rays even after hours of gloom. Perhaps it’s not over yet, not entirely. As it forces it’s way through stormy skies, I grasp the concrete of this city with both hands, polluted dirt thick under my nails. It’s not going to eat me alive - not if I get to it first.