It’s 8:25pm on a Friday night.
I think I’ve been so busy I forgot how beautiful the sky was.
How peaceful the world looks when most people are either sleeping or balancing on a bar-stool somewhere, with a tangerine or murky black drink in their hands.
I remember dating this 23 year old banker who said he and all his flatmates would drink scotch while watching David Attenborough’s National Geo.
It makes me smile to think that perhaps he’s doing that right now. Or that in this big wide world of billions of people, there has to be atleast one or two also engaging in the same activity on a Friday.
After I’ve indulged in the sky enough, my eyes rest on the block of apartment buildings. Like a beehive of boxes all glued together, with some lit up. Signs of life everywhere. Some more golden than others. One is purple like a club.
During Covid, every box had a light on. I remember never feeling so connected to everyone just by knowing where everyone was. Humanity was scared and yet all together. Hiding.
After a while the furry loves of my life stop sniffing and standing in muddy pools and come to sit with me.
I use to want to live in one of those boxes. It seemed so clean, so efficient. Almost like the people who live in them must share the same organised shapes in their own lives.
Up high and out of reach. Safer than the rest of us, house-people.
The sound of Loui walking through the lengthy pool of mud, his fluffy poodle-poof-paws look like a dirty makeup brush, owned by an experimental 3-year-old. The smokey eye we’ve all had and regretted. (Can’t wait to take that to bed).
And it also doesn’t help the minute you place him in the shower he turns into a cat and starts clawing his escape; I look up and the sky has changed again. This time it looks mysterious. Seductive. A grey cloud powders it’s once clear cheeks, with twinkling freckles slowly evaporating from sight.
Both people I was suppose to call tonight were at dinner, so I’m just waiting here.
The wind sounds more and more vocal as it passionately plays with the hair of trees. Whisking it around, curling it, straightening it, trying to make it into something wondrous and free. Yet it stays the same, just a tree.
I can’t help but think of escapism. How as humans we always want things. We think it will bring us joy, happiness. And then when we get them we are happy if for a moment.
And then we want more, something else. Someone else. We are all but truffle dogs for happiness. It’s not the purpose of life but it’s what we’re addicted to needing. Feeling. Or it’s all not worth it. Or we end up on the edge of a bridge.
Escapism. It’s a human desire like sugar. Everything is lovely until it’s not. Until it feels like a cage and not a question, an option, a choice. Maybe I’m thinking too much….
But I’m craving a life outside of what I’ve wanted. When I close my eyes I see green open pastures. No phone calls. A stubborn Shetland pony called Boris, Loui and endless hours where it’s just me. Existing in a small pocket of the world. Nowhere to go and no reason to spend money. No people to see and no answers to give. No more questions.
But even this escape will feel wrong after a while.
Every night it’s getting colder. Like we’re taking baby steps towards winter, but at the moment we’re scared of the ice-bath that awaits. We’re not ready. Jumpers haven’t come out yet. Coats still bagged up in the bottoms of our closets, sleeping soundly like a bear in hibernation.
I love winter but I hate the cold.
Beyond-curious 