West Kirby
I spent January in a flat in London imagining summer somewhere else. Inexplicably I’d chosen this month to do my first ever dry January, a brutal act of self-flagellation I do not wish to repeat. I was fresh from accidentally doing several times the recommended dose of liquid psilocybin over Christmas and finding something close to God, but sadly I had nowhere to channel all these new Eureka moments. Then, our new world of limbo appeared as if it would go on and on and on – all this wellness was wasted on me.
In the monotonous terror of another lockdown I couldn’t imagine the future anymore, but I could imagine summer, or at least construct one out of my ever-diminishing memories of summers gone. Like us all, I wanted this summer so badly.
Then summer came and went, and in that time I left London and moved home – a small, Northern, seaside town. We had another baby. He’s beautiful!
It’s strange, moving home. It’s not things I remember about when I last lived here, but gut feelings. I remember the feeling of being in my old bedroom on a hot summer’s day, the smell of skunk, my fingers on a bobbling carpet, the feeling of no mobile phone and nowhere to be, with just a park to go to. I don’t remember what I looked like, or what I wore, or who I was going to meet. I don’t really remember who I was. I just remember the pang of total freedom, and when I try to remember all those other pointless details it slips away like sand running through my hand. Summer is the season that really gets you in the stomach.
So in moving, we spent this non-summer between two places. Leaving London, a city I will always love, was an odd feeling, done without any real way of saying goodbye to a lot of people. I’m not one for social media announcements, although that would have perhaps been a way to say some kind of tangible goodbye, and maybe I should get over myself. I’ve returned to the city since for work reasons on a couple of occasions and I’ve felt a strange melancholy almost everywhere. Even outside, everyone feels like they’re still on Zoom, glitched and frozen. The “return of acid house” and “explosion of culture” I’d spent the beginning of summer twatting on about are sadly nowhere to be seen.
Maybe more than any other season, summers are marked out by specific moments; they have the clearest beginning and end, for one. But despite moving cities and having another kid, this summer doesn’t feel like it has the framework in which to support the making of memory. I will, of course, remember these things, but structurally this summer appears unsound, a haunted little apartment where time goes faster and slower, but you never know which. My birthday falls on the opening matches of international football tournaments, and consequently I always remember them. But as I’m writing now, I couldn’t tell you what I did, or where I was for England’s first game; a moment lost to pub booking systems, isolation notifications, and my own drift into an ambient summer.
Last summer was delirious, terrifying, banal. I watched the Prime Minister speak on the telly every day. I clapped! I read infographics about systemic racism posted by people I wouldn’t trust to recommend me a takeaway. I smoked and drank to excess, and I looked like shit. I learned how to cook properly. I played tennis with an old friend, and made an enemy at the tennis court. I made music, but only after a period of extreme paralysis and where the idea of doing anything creative felt laughable. I released a record, which felt insane. I started a record label, indisputable evidence that I was, in fact, insane.
I think, as much anyone can ever be sure, I’ve changed. Emails from twelve months ago might as well be from twelve years ago – accidentally coming across them feels like being in a museum exclusively displaying inane ephemera that somehow adds up to what might be the most formative period of my life.
Now I’m back home, I’ve finally been able to see into the distance, in a place I’ll be for a long time, maybe forever? From our room I can watch the sun rise over Liverpool Bay, and that’s where I also imagine the past, a graveyard for old ships – beautiful, grey, deathly waters. Faded glory. I’ve watched the sun a lot, actually, and maybe that’s something I will remember about this summer, the light coming in. It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.
Thomas Gorton is a model, blogger and DJ.