love songs and rainy nights @lovesongsandrainynights - Tumblr Blog

Summer

June

Today, it was 30 degrees in London.

The heat of my third summer feels different from Melbourne or Barcelona - it was more possessive, more claustrophobic. London’s summer heat wanted to stifle and smother. It didn’t care for any romantic notions of slow afternoons spent wandering around narrow alleys.

Every morning I wake up to the sun searing its way across my narrow bed. The bed is too soft, and the sheets are a grotesque grey. I have rarely loathed anything more than these grey sheets.

I think back to Melbourne summer, and it seemed like eons ago. How can it still be so hot?

My time here in London has taken a slow routine. During the day, I make my way to the nearest cafe. There, I sit down with my laptop and spend many hours scouring the web for pieces of my new life. I’d often catch the eye of a stranger who I’d like the look of – it might be their wild, unruly hair or the buttons of their linen dress – whatever it was, I imagined a parallel world where we were friends.

Sometimes, I’ll go to an interview. While trying to ignore the niggling feeling that I had visible sweat patches somewhere terribly embarrassing, I sit in an unfamiliar office and talk about the type of designer I am.

Occasionally my response would illicit a chuckle - and my heart would jump. Perhaps these moments were all the validation I needed in my life right now, I’d think.

I spend the evenings of my third summer, walking along the muggy streets between Shoreditch and Regent’s canal, feeling self conscious in the same white sun dress.

I refused to wear anything else, as it was far too hot. Strange old men outside corner shops and white vans will just have to become a part of my daily soundtrack.

hey.

I miss you.

Not necessarily in an electric-cremorne-nights kinda way.

More in a morning coffee kinda way.

In a coming down the stairs to you with your hands-in-pockets kinda way.

I miss you in an awkward lean against the kitchen counter. When you do that it’s always with arms crossed and a semi-abashed smirk, looking at me as I make milk.

I miss the way we talked about the night before and the day ahead. About lunch plans and how today is a Thai kinda day.

I miss seeing you at my desk after a meeting, ready to dissect. Ready to talk about how everyone felt and how it really went.

I miss having dumplings. I miss your generosity when we argued about design. Or about anything really (I can’t believe I said that either).

I guess what I miss, however unfathomable, is you. Not as a friend, not as a colleague, not even as Wren. Just as you. Whoever you were, and whoever you are now.

I miss you.

I met Alessandro on an unlikely night.

Admist the thundering latin music and sweaty bodies thrusting to Despacito, I sipped my drink and watched the girls from my hostel get hit on by different American college boys.

To be honest, I don’t really remember how we met. I don’t really remember much about Alessandro in that club at all. He was a blur of a grey t-shirt and strong arms. All I knew was there was chemistry - oh, was there.

Afterwards, as we lay in bed, I got to look at him properly.

He had curious, kind-looking eyes and a good natured grin. The view from his open window was a patchwork of apartment buildings and Catalonian flags. The moon was only half full.

The next time we met was in the middle of Placa de Catalunya. We hurried through the crowded streets of El Gotic to make a reservation at a Tapas place. We talked a lot about food - it turns out most of his family works in the food industry. He was half Italian, and there was something attractive about the earnest way he described his family and his childhood encounters with great Italian food.

That night, we somehow ended up at his place again.

At 6am, the room was awash with a ruby red tint of the sunrise glowing through his open window.

Bleary-eyed, I accidentally stumbled through the wrong door in search of the bathroom. As I flicked on the light switch, a surprised scream and a bare figure scrambling in black sheets greeted me. It turns out he was the housemate Sandro had mentioned - a French dude who kept to himself, but was unapologetically messy.

The next time I saw Sandro, his strange smelling housemate had gone and the living room was clean. Perhaps I’d done him a favour with my confused bathroom adventure.

Something changed that day we went to Palo Alto - everything became more personal.

He told me about why he left Stockholm. I told him about why I left NZ. He told me about his brothers and how his parents were scared of flying. Every summer, he had to drive them down from Sweden to Italy with his micro-managing dad in the front seat.

I told him about growing up with my grandma’s cooking and how my parents liked to hike along the trail behind our house. They would send me photos of the same view every week. I watched the seasons change from far away.

Then he asked about my tattoo. I told him the story and he said it was a charming story, he liked it. The next time we almost kissed, the thought crossed my mind that perhaps I’d started using my tattoo as a line.

He told me he liked to listen more than to talk. A lifetime of listening and observing made him feel like he could read people based on the involuntary twitches of their faces and their eyes. I asked him to read me, and he smiled.

I told him about my idea for the book I’d always wanted to write. He told me about his idea for the startup he’d always wanted to do.

As we stared at each other, our faces millimetres apart, we both agreed to sign a non-verbal NDA.

Alessandro was always strangely clean shaven, aside from the last morning. It just felt cleaner to him, he said. I ran my hand back and forth across the prickle of his morning after stubble and disagreed.

As we lay there, there was rain again outside. Most unusual for Barcelona.

What I liked about sex, I started saying, was finding out what someone finds hot. It’s very personal.

Yeah, he replied. You really get to know someone more intimately when you’re lying next to them like this.

1.43AM

There have been times when I pause momentarily in a packed night club, when the whole world is a spinning, blurry mess of alcohol and sweat and bodies, and I miss us. The world feels like a different place, and so do I. The pink's faded from my hair, my skin is darker and there's sand that hides in the gaps between my fingernails. I've seen new people and places and looked through so many more windows than when you last saw me. The sun has set almost 35 times, and I've watched the moon wax and wane from a different corner of the world. After all of this change, sometimes it feels like a dream. It's easy to forget. Another city, another drink, another pair of lips. I've almost managed to convince myself that it wasn't real. That it was as ephemeral as any other fleeting encounter of lonely souls seeking warm bodies and eager minds. And yet still, it was all real wasn't it? It's all too real and I don't know what else I can change to make it not. Maybe now I don't want to forget. I want to remember, and cherish, and move on.

Hey

I'm writing this to you on an unfamiliar train. The houses don't look the same, and neither does the sky.

I’m wondering what you’re doing. I’m wondering why I should care.

Already time feels distant. Like all those days out in the sun were just a series of vivid, colourful dreams that had been a part of someone else’s life.

I’ve been sitting here in this dimly lit hostel bar the entire day, writing words about design. They’re playing a playlist that sounds like a chillhop playlist.

Occasionally I would still see things that make me excited. Geeky design things, wanky poignant things. Did you know that the London Underground is not actually a geographic map? The real train tracks are all squiggly and higgledy piggledy of course. It was built all those years ago. But this guy, Harry Beck - absolute legend as Angus would put it - he realised that as a diagram, it was much easier for people to read if everything was linear and evenly distributed like circuit maps.

It always takes me a second to realise that there is no slack and there is no you anymore. Only a second though. Soon I suspect I’ll forget all together and will go back to having that yearning feeling of someday, I’ll meet someone who’ll be excited by all these silly facts.

I hope you still look at the moon sometimes and think of me.

But I guess, it’s okay if you don’t.

We’ll be okay.

Love,

A story from last summer

Of six things I know

One. I do not like your face It's a funny face with a funny smirk I do not like your prickly cheeks and messy hair I do not like the way your eyes look at me, when you're standing there watching me come down the stairs I did not like it when I was so close I could see your eyelashes, those thin fluttery things I did not like that the most

Two. You're terribly non-handy and impractical What use would you be in an emergency? I wouldn't be able to use you to open jars or change light bulbs You would probably look at bad people and muse with hands in pockets, 'Good for you'

Three. I'm not sure I like the way you see the world When you talk about how to build a really old clock that lasts for 10,000 years, I don't find you attractive at all In fact I can't think of anything less sexy than embracing the imperfection of tan lines

Four. You care about things way too much Why does everything need to have a meaning? Why does A word matter? It’s a lot of effort Wren The sound you make before you kiss away my tears is particularly terrible too And sometimes when I see you typing, I picture those hands holding a sprig of rosemary Or tying a carefully placed red ribbon

Five. It's incredibly rude when you say nice things Remember that time you said I taste like the cherry tree? I will never be able to eat cherries again Remember when you promised me a scoop of ice cream? Now I'll always be waiting for that Sheesh.

Six (and this one I’m the most certain on). I will not miss you one bit I will not look at trees or chips or tomatoes and think of your funny face I will not walk down long alleyways at night to stare at the moon Most importantly, I will not drink whisky or gin or vodka in a bottle Definitely not.

What is accounting?

A mole on an ear Freshly shaved cheeks Chest hair that ran out of energy Bandaids around feet

If you ask me what accounting is I’ll never know A scar on my foot That’s all I’ll have to show

Scenes from a cafe on Flinders lane

I’m sitting at a cafe with a ceiling fan and dark oak tables.

There’s an old man across from me in a grey linen suit. He’s doing the crossword puzzle. Mostly he ponders on the next clue, but occasionally he’ll pause for a sip of his coffee.

There’s a younger man to my left. He has a mop of silver streaked hair flopping gently over horn rimmed spectacles. The late afternoon sunlight grazes his hand as he writes. What’s that? A necklace peeking out: two intertwined locks.

I wonder, who gave him that necklace? I wonder if it was someone special, if he thought of them today.

The old man turns to look out the window.

I wonder how many cafes that grey linen suit has seen? I wonder where he first fell in love? Where he spent his 21st year?

I wonder in his lifetime, how many times has he said ‘I love you’?

5:34PM

How I wish I could spend an entire summer writing on trains, drinking coffee at corner shops and waking up in the bed of strangers.

Sonder

When I was 8 years old, a policeman came to my primary school to teach us about road safety. He told us that “good boys and girls should always sit in the back seat. It’s safer there.” Leave the front seat to mums and dads, he said. That way they can protect us if anything bad happens.

From that day onward I would always sit in the backseat of cars. My childhood was spent gazing out the car window from the left-hand side, as we drove through grey and wind-swept suburbs. The houses we drove past were often bland in flavour, all plain white weatherboards and flax bushes. Sometimes there would be lily-of-the-niles instead - wild, unruly and a shock of violet. These were my favourite houses.

One strange game I played as a kid on these car rides was to try and picture myself standing behind the window of every passing house. What would it be like to look out at the road from there? What sort of life would I lead if I lived in that house, what sort of person would I be?

On the occasional car ride, I would even catch a peek of paisley wallpaper or the silhouette of an old arm chair. These glimpses into someone else’s life would drive my imagination wild. Who were these people and what were their stories? Who did they love and hate and dream of? What did they think about first thing in the morning and last thing at night?

I still get this feeling when I drive past worn-out houses. The view from the front seat is not so different - although I can no longer rely on my parents to take me to where I need to go. Perhaps what I look for has changed too - my favourites now are the dog-eared kind. The houses that look like they’ve been homes to many a soul, where you can tell the bricks and the doors and the rusted roofs have settled comfortably into the idea of humans living inside.

I still like to imagine what sort of stories have passed through those walls - how many lovers has the window seen? How many meals accompanied by the clatter of knives and forks, how many quiet moments of sadness and loss?

These thoughts are calming to me because they say: in a way, we’re never alone. Sometimes I keep my curtains open just a crack in the hopes that if another little girl in the back seat of a car is driving past, she can catch a peek of a story or the silhouette of a life. This way, she can grow up knowing that even if her parents won’t always be there to take her where to go, in a way she’ll never be alone.

#sarahkay8daychallenge #thingsfrommychildhood #badwriting

I’ll remember it as a beautiful summer in Cremorne

Time always felt slow and lethargic. Like we were stuck in a surreal bubble of hazy amber lights and copper coloured skies.

Remember how the heat beat down on those narrow, cracked footpaths along winding streets?

Remember that tree in the playground at dusk?

Remember how often we stood framed by the light of a passing train, surrounded by meek houses, peeking out from rickety fences? Remember the one on the corner? The red awnings?

I think I might recall the smell of whisky and crisp white sheets. Basking in that lurid fuchsia late night glow.

Maybe I’ll remember it as a summer of glances and hand grazes. Of quiet tension and a peculiar scent of musk. Walking and talking about favourite books, about the small things in life.

I’ll probably recall the condensation on a fifth glass of gin and tonic, the clink of ice cubes and the texture of a warm cotton shirt.

I’ll remember it as a summer when we laughed about life and dreams and family members. Of old friends and new places, of telling stories that had to be told.

There was pattering of rain on the drain pipes once, tinkering scenes of people in the candle-lit glow of that worn out, mellow old pub.

It was a summer when the days were long, the nights were longer. When the streets were quiet, our gazes forgiving. When we were young, drunk and desperately in denial.

I’ll remember it as a summer when I looked into your eyes, it all eventually became soaked in a tender sadness. Of nostalgia for what we could never be, and melancholia of what we could never do.

#triggers

Faces

I like it when you can see someone's personality in the demeanour of their features. Twinkling eyes, or graduated laugh lines. Weathered skin from a life of enjoying the sun too much.

2017

Listening to Ed Sheeran's Castle on the Hill and thinking, what a beautiful song. And undoubtedly it'll be played over and over in 2017, until by the end it becomes an old friend that you've spent many an adventure with. And the sharp realisation that by the end of 2017, when this song is an old friend, I'll have travelled with it to London and new jobs and new friends and new countries and farewells and hellos. And firsts. And fears and dreams. And there is so much hope for 2017. And I can't wait for it to begin.

Youth is beautiful hey

Have you ever paused to look around at a packed nightclub? It’s kind of beautiful. The thudding bass, the moving limbs, and the writhing bodies that form some sort of strange collective indulgence in music, in sex, in the night that is so forgiving of whatever you do.

It’s a special moment. The stench of alcohol, your shoes stepping across sticky floors. Sweat running down your back, and there's a moment when a stranger's phermones will assult your own.

It's a beautiful, disgusting, sinful mess of entangled limbs and sticky perspiration.

I love Melbourne so much it hurts a little

I love that you can be anyone here. There's so many lives you could lead and discover. Pick a suburb, any suburb. Wear daggy thrifted jumpers in Fitzroy, drink at 9am on a beaten up sofa in the backyard. Climb up on the roof to play bad guitar and watch the city skyline twinkle. Dance all night in sneakers and pink hair. So many tucked away streets to discover, worn out houses to love, crazy people to encounter. I love Melbourne so much I can't wait to leave, just so I can love it even more when I come back.

Life is full of such beautiful possibilities

I want to go on a road trip with no destination

I want to eat berries in the back seat of a car smoke on the balcony of a dingy motel drink vodka in the cotton sheets of a stranger

I want to see neon signs tired looking couches worn out tables blemished with coffee cup rings

I want to feel the sunlight filtering through foreign blinds the lips of a musky night the nostalgia of coming back to familiar streets

I want to walk along the Thames at dusk Kiss in the cobbled alleys of Le Quartier Latin Dance in Central Park under the stars

I want all these possibilities for always

#badwriting

I hate night-time

I dread the sun setting, the apartment going dark.

I dread the feeling of helplessness that washes over me.

I dread the thought of being alone.

What did I do with my nights before?

What did I fill it with that made it less terrifying, less bleak?

Oh, that’s right. Didn’t I used to love the night?

Didn’t I used to love the glittering city lights?

I’ve never feared anything more than I fear night-time now.

The thought of no salvation, no end to my thoughts.

No company but me.

Is it normal to hurt this much? Is it still human?

If so, I kinda don’t want to be human anymore.

Take away my heart, take away my emotions.

Take away the silly reasons I love things, my naivety, my romanticism, my expectations.

And hopefully, you can take away this pain with it.

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