Explode into Gold

On Tuesday I took the train down to Brighton to go and spend the day with my daughter and her girlfriend. Uni has shut up shop for the summer, all assignments are in and now it’s time to enjoy the season that Brighton was made for. I hadn’t seen Dani since before her 21st birthday and it’s Tallulah’s 21st in a couple of weeks so a celebration was in order.

They met me at the station as I arrived, just in time for lunch. Dipping down into the Lanes, we sat outside in the sun and ate decent Mexican food from La Choza. Wandering through Kemp Town, we grabbed ice cream for dessert and headed for the beach where we spent the afternoon alternately sunning like seals on the scalding hot pebbles and cooling off in the sea. They insisted on treating me to dinner before I went home, so after a quick refresher in a beachside bar, we demolished heaping bowls of Thai curry from Sawadee before waddling back up to the station and home on the rickety rackety train, swaying through golden fields in the late evening sunshine.

I sat, salt sticky and sunburned, watching the glorious Sussex countryside curving away on either side of the train, heading for a home that I love in a place that I love, having spent the day with people I love and I felt so bloody lucky to be alive now, in this place and time. This song threaded its way through my thoughts. The perfect soundtrack to the day.

These are the days to cherish. Nothing much happens. Time slows to treacle. The sun turns everything liquid. Pouring from land to water feels like the same, silky thing. There is a stillness to everything that makes you feel like you’re in a work of art. The sounds of the day fade into the background. You become a creature of this moment and this and this.

You are aware of your animality, existing in a world of pleasing sensation. Thoughts of bodies and their awkwardness melt into the hot pebbles and only the salt reminds you of the flesh you inhabit. That slight tightness as the seawater dries on hot, hot skin has a delicious and welcome abrasiveness. The chafing note of being alive in this moment becomes a pleasure, not a torment. Look, feel, gather your thoughts. Save them like a snapshot. A day like this is a rare gift.

The smell of suncream and warm dust accompanies you as you slide through the bright streets, looking for a patch of shade. Cool drinks, sweat beading on glass and skin alike. Hot flavours of chilli, flecking the abundant creaminess of the rice on your plate. The welcome scent of Jasmine from a clean bowl of tea, Fresh and subtle, cutting through the post dinner sleepiness enough to propel you home.

These are the moments that matter.