#113
Neither too hot or cold. The days now are free from the noise of the air conditioner or heater running. The doors are open, the air moves through the house. Cleaning out smells of cooking and cleaning easily. The back patio heats up in the afternoon sun, to a warm, almost bath water temperature - the sun heals my sore neck.
It’s the best time of year for weather. And I often think about living someplace with few seasons, or, less harsh ones. San Diego comes to mind. Where when pushed, you don’t really need heat on a winter’s night, maybe just a heavy blanket. Tea. A warm fire. That’s good enough. It has to be somewhere with low humidity, though. The damp, that’s what is so unpleasant.
When I lived in London, the winter’s were surprisingly not that difficult to get through. The days were short, yes, but the balance were the very long summer days where at nine in the evening you’d realized you forgot to have dinner because it never felt like evening. The summers were, at times, challenging because I never felt like they got hot enough. Seems absurd now to think that, given that when I was in the city last summer it was pushing some of the hottest days they’ve had on record.
Our flat didn’t have air conditioning. We had large windows, and because we lived on the top floor, above the post office in Wimbledon Park, we didn’t have any curtains or blinds. We let in all the light we could. Our sleeping and waking hours would adjust with the seasons. We rarely used an alarm, a practice that I’ve managed to keep for years now, and our friends would show up surprised that we never felt exposed. The truth is, that no one could see into our bedroom or bathroom directly, and our living room and kitchen faced the small high street. Across the road, there were similar flats, but we never saw them, and I’d like to think they never saw us. At least not much. Our windows were full of plants, ones that we gave away when we moved to Italy - and sadly, most of them didn’t make it. No one has the grace and patience with them like I do. And even now I think of those plants sometimes, existing now only as images on my phone. The ads I used to entice someone to take them into their home.
In that flat we also didn’t use much heat. Although it did get cold and damp, we’d turn it on in one room of the three we had, and that was usually sufficient. Or, we’d bake something and leave the oven door open at the end while it was cooling off. Being on the top floor of a three floor walk up meant that we carried everything up stairs. Groceries included. I remember one time getting a call from V that she was on her way home from the gym, stopped at Waitrose and bought more than she intended. She was now half way home, having missed the bus, can I please come and help. Around the corner I went and found her burdened with sack after sack of marked down fruit and vegetables, which we knew Waitrose liked to do towards closing time. We got home and put everything on the table, eyeing which ones needed cooked first, planning meals for the next days while the early summer sun was causing the sky to turn towards a milky pink.
The views from that flat were incredible. In the summer, with windows open, we’d hear the cheers from the Wimbledon tennis stadium. I could spy planes landing from east to west at Heathrow. If we squinted, we’d see Clapham Common on a good day. The best were the storms, or storm clouds. Their colors. The way the sky in England gives off shadows, blues, tinges of fringes of the patterns that move in from the Atlantic. The colors, impossible to explain, and then, once in Italy, seeing a painting or a fresco somewhere that managed to capture my sky in London.
Here, now, in the desert, I remember that flat fondly. And I think about this house, the dog asleep this afternoon on the sofa, the breeze coming in the front door and out the back. The birds that interrupt a work meeting so much that I need to mute myself. The last of the grapefruit hanging like yellow lamps on the tree of green while it simultaneously pushes out blossoms for next year’s crop. My neighbor this morning telling me that they will survive, get sweeter and more sugary as the summer creeps in. Don’t pick them all now, she says, they last. I tell her ok, and to take as many as she wants, since half the tree falls into her yard anyway. We agree that the grass at the neighbors across the street needs trimmed, and then retreat back inside to start our day, drink coffee, work, clean. The chores of life. And I think about the London flat, the windows open to the skies, the feeling of possibility that came living on a third floor walk up, open to the outside as I slide the blinds closed in the living room to keep the dog from barking at the postman when he comes by later.