Yellow

The grass is all yellow. It crunches under my feet. I look up into the indifferent blue void. It’s summer, and I am … I am, under the black t-shirt and blue jean shorts, all yellow.

It’s strange, but in a way I cherish this feeling. It is, paradoxically, comforting. That’s because I know it well: it’s a catalyst for creativity; under its influence I perceive the world anew. It’s the physical and mental condition of the 1990s as they were for me: irrevocably close to tears; everything poignant and loaded with a meaning I couldn’t grasp; a sensation between butterflies and a deadly ache in my gut. Mourning people I used to know; mourning the passing of time for those I love.

The grass is dead. The planet is burning. I should never have seen 35 degrees on my car dashboard. There is no wind, and the heat presses on my exposed skin, an insidious weighted blanket. Yet we’ve all yearned for the sun: mums in the schoolyard on the last day of term, hoping for sunshine so the kids can muck around outside at least, we could get the paddling pool out, have a water fight, go to the beach as if we were in a picture book. But change is coming, and I think we all know it.

The next morning, here I am in bed, journalling. I think this sensation’s a kind of bodily sixth sense in play, trying to tell me that a big change is coming (or is in process, to be more accurate) and that some things I will let go, and that things will never be the same again. It’s the thing that my mum used to say to me as the mornings grew cooler toward the end of August: September’s in the air. I gaze out of the window for a moment, remembering her, and that awful going-back-to-school-soon dread the end of August used to cultivate in me. I’m almost level with a young starling perched in the hawthorn tree. Surprisingly (or not), the air’s full of a fine mist, rendering the sky glaucous. The bird is preening. It’s almost in adult plumage.

Later, a quiet coffee in the garden, watching ants running over a wisteria. I wonder what they’re doing, but only in a vague way. Not enough to Google. Because it doesn’t really make any difference to me. I’m in a liminal state. Everything I perceive is just a stage prop; a hologram I could swish my hand through. Maybe it’s the symptoms. Maybe it’s the new new meds. Maybe it’s withdrawal from others (I Googled and found out about ‘brain zaps’. Perhaps it would have been more conducive to look up ant behaviour).

A friend sent me a photo the other day. A group of us had taken the kids to a theme park. I was crouched down, playing Giant Twister with my friend’s one year old daughter, who’s now five. Nice bit of nostalgia. In the photo, I had long black hair and a fringe, and I looked about thirty. Today when I look in the mirror, I encounter a stranger with bobbed greying hair and glasses. I haven’t bothered to wash my hair or put on make-up, and I look about fifty. (I know this shouldn’t matter, but it does.) My clothes are the same, however, as is my persona when I’m in company (although I have taken to hiding behind trees during the school run).

This morning (the morning with the misty air) I woke directly from a dream where I’d walked through some industrial gates, beyond which lay a forest. The forest: I was on an important – though undisclosed – mission, and I was glad to be in the forest, even though it was white. The pines in the distance were thick with hardened ash. The clearing in which I stood was white ash, too, punctuated here and there by ash-covered saplings. My footsteps crunched as I moved, as if I were traversing thick snow that had started to freeze on top. I walked. Eventually, I found a buzzard and two burrowing owls perched brown against the white on some ancient, healthy roots, by the river. Not a river. The river. I decide not to forage for meaning in this.

In the afternoon, we go to the village park. Desiccated, yellow, deserted, still. A bee buzzes around the shrivelled, brown remains of a clover flower. My boy runs down to the stream – a green artery through a yellow field. I follow him; clambering happy amongst the trees, cool in their shade. On our return: brain zaps under a mackerel sky.

Around teatime the wind renders the sky white entirely. Rain will come: it’s needed. The swifts will soon leave to scream over Africa again. My hair was black once, but it was greying underneath. The sky is blue above the clouds. But for now, the world is mostly yellow: stimulating, but sick.

#globalwarming #chronicillness #existentialism #nature