Unknown people and things that I am sure of
Three men are sitting one behind the other, in a line, on the bleacher-style seating. The man at the top has his back against the hot wooden wall, and the one in the middle has one hand on his knee, one hand on the shoulder of the man in front. None of them speak but the middle man is rubbing circles into the shoulder of the front man with his thumb. Front man has his eyes closed, lips slightly apart. You are transfixed.
Soon after, the heat - and the sense that you are witnessing something private - chases you out of the sauna and into the cold air outside. The sun is setting and you wonder what time it might be as you lower your body into one of the frigid cold plunges. Counting 30 seconds in your head. Breathing in, breathing out.
As you walk home, you notice the weird orb of light is back in the sky again. You’ve always noticed these. Used to stare at one out of your velux window when you lived in a loft room a couple of years back. That one was green, this one is red. Or mauve. No, red.
A man is walking ahead of you, holding onto the arm of his elderly mother. His hair is brown, hers is white and fluffy, like soft serve ice cream or candyfloss. He is towering over her, an inversion of their roles 40, 50 years ago. It’s funny how life does that. Repeats patterns, reflects things back at you. Did you know the leaves of trees often mimic the shape of the tree itself?
Your hair is wet and growing crunchy hard in the cold air, but your skin is soft and your gait is light. The grinding of joints momentarily availed by the hot hot blood still running in you from the sauna. You stop to look at the cars passing by you on the A12. Remarkable that in every car is a life, a world. Sentimental? Yes. But also - true.
You lick your top lip as you turn your key in the lock (right, not left, which feels wrong). It tastes of salt, your salt, and when you look in the mirror you see crystals of it in your eyebrows. Must have forgotten to wash your face. You rub them off with the back of your hand and try not to think about all the unknown things happening inside your body at that precise moment. The mechanisms that allow your blood to get hot, your body to sweat, and produce minerals that can dry in crystals on your face.
You Google search the Gousto recipe you’re cooking tonight. Laughing to yourself as you notice that the recipe card says ‘Spanish style cod’, whereas the website says ‘Tapas style’. You wonder what conversations took place to lead up to that change. If a customer phoned to complain about incorrect usage of the word ‘tapas’, or if someone decided it might make you believe the dish would come too small, in a terracotta pot.
Here is a list of all the things I am sure of:
The sauna tonight was hot
I won’t go unless I feel I have to
Working in marketing has made my brain go weird
HBO Girls is art, a masterpiece
Nature repeats itself, history echoes
Jess x