late summer, murmur of starlings overhead
It's not just me. It seems like everyone I know is getting blown by the winds of change, like the newly brown leaves in the park. I've been really taken by the park, lately. The way the grass is dense with clover, but only when you stop to look. The squirrels, the birds, the bugs, the boys, the girls. Couples and students and lunch breaks and bike rides. Sunbathers and readers. I keep thinking about how this is likely to be the last nice week of the year - the sky has been this most brilliant blue backdrop for the trees and the buildings of the city. You could almost forget what a cloud is. The sun has been gorgeously hot, and I've been making a concerted effort to take it in. The last nice week.
I moved, recently, and have found myself with a strange lack of any particular feeling about it. On a functional level, I am happy about it, excited to have a fresh start. I have expressed this feeling to those who have asked. But when I introspect, when I really try to identify the physicality of my feelings, the presence inside of my body, I come up empty. Here is no different to anywhere else. I feel no different here than anywhere else. I felt similarly earlier in the year on a trip I took across Europe with my boyfriend, a trip I very much enjoyed and look forward to similar experiences, but I was constantly unsettled by a lack of something in myself. I'm not sure what it is. I've been having this trouble since around New Year's. I believe I know what triggered it but I don't really know how to fix it.
Moving, studying. New things, old things, oldnew things, newold things. I'm happy, I think - but something's caught in my throat. As I write this, the sky is dark and beautiful with light pollution. I can see cranes outside of my window. The city is undergoing a period of regeneration. They tore down the old shopping district to make way for a new one, nestled between the historic walls, built and rebuilt again and again for centuries. Gone are the urban explorers and their forays into the long dead SEGA arcade, here are the luxury handbag stores and their patrons. Oldnew, newold. I have fallen in love with the city, again, over the past week or so. I really have. Maybe it's a girlish crush.
I was sat by a window on the top floor of one of the university buildings earlier today, taking in the *things I wasn't supposed to see* and the *things I was*. I have a thing for rooftops, unfinished ones. It feels voyeuristic to see insulation cladding flapping in the wind, ventilation pipes shining in the sun. The spinning of block fans. Architectural flourishes. Noticing an interesting outcropping on a building, the colours of the brickwork, a strange roof. Cars moving like toys. Distant masts of yachts and sailboats. I was sitting there, looking and loving the oldnew city. And I was thought: I could feel this way about anywhere. And I thought about how three different people have mentioned the anti-suicide windows in my apartment.
