Daily Sketches. #20 Summer Day

20

Write about a summer day – a particular one or a fictional one. Where are you (or where your character is)? What’s the weather is like? What are you doing or wanting to do? Are there people around you, or you are alone? Write about your thoughts and feelings on that summer day.

“Nobody wants to be left alone,” she thought as the light breeze caressed her skin. The beach was filled with people, all sorts of them. Some were there by themselves, but very rare ones, maybe just one or two, including herself. Most of people came to beat the heat accompanied by an army of their families and friends, and friends of the families, and the friend’s families and their friends. Kids yelling, babies crying, dogs barking, husbands chuckling, wives gossiping or exchanging recipes for strawberry preserves.

This little life on the beach reminded her of everyday life in the city, only in miniature, similar to the way artists recreate masterpieces in microscopic scale, miniature paintings or sculptures, so that to make sense out of them you need to look at them through a magnifying glass.

She often thought that her soul was like a magnifying glass. She did not mean to understand things about the people around her, people who, if they were aware at all, were desperately trying to hide from others, and most of all from themselves. She never wanted to notice those things about people, respecting everyone’s right to live life the way they chose to live it. It was none of her business that the girl who she considered her closest friend lived in a loveless marriage for years, not seeing for herself other possibilities. It was not especially her desire to see under the gorgeous surface of her colleague a lost, lonely and deeply unhappy woman who gave up on her dreams, all to feel financially secure and superficially successful. They chose what they chose, and who was she to judge them. Sometimes she thought that she’d rather be as seemingly easy-going as people around her whenever they were getting together in large groups, always with loud pop-music, always with jokes mixed with complaints about either a bitchy friend or a bitchy life and often with alcohol. Why couldn’t she be normal, like everyone else? Why did she even have this ability to see beyond the surface?

“We thought you were just so annoyed with everyone, that you’d rather be left alone.”

She also thought so, she really felt annoyed with everyone, and she really rather would spend time by herself, just like today, when she took a bus and escaped the hot and sticky city, arriving within an hour or so at this beautiful park with refreshing breeze caressing her tired body. She took the bus to leave the crowd, but even here she couldn’t escape it – the crowd that was perfectly content to play loud music hits which not only did not transport her to a better world, but rather depressed her. It really wasn’t all that different – on the far away beach she was alone in the crowd, the way it was in the city, the way it had been all of her life as long as she could remember.

…A sweet little girl, feeling hot in a city apartment, was sent to a courtyard by her mom. “Go play with other kids.” She would go out, stay by the apartment building, watching other kids playing and feeling shy to join them. She’d stay there for a while and come back home, to the familiar world, to the things that she loved, to her own universe where she could dream and see things for what they were.

Nobody wants to be left alone. We are social creatures. We all want to be accepted, we all want to be understood, we all want to be loved and cherished. Nobody wants to be ignored. “She’s annoyed with us all, let’s just go play, leave her there alone in her corner.”

The sand by the shore was mixed with small rocks, heating her body through the thin beach towel. The waves were ready to cool her down when she began to feel too warm. She’d swim until exhaustion and fall on the warm towel again, enjoying sunrays on her wet skin. Her skin would rapidly dry out, and the salt would leave the crunchy crust on the surface.

It was only the surface. Nobody thinks that the salt crust is what her skin is made of. It was not different from life. The surface is only a dry crunchy crust that washes off with clear water. She saw such little tips from nature that would uncover the secrets of life to her, and thought that everyone saw them. Maybe it’s in the music. How can you hear life secrets whispered in your ear when you surround yourself with this loud noise?

“Don’t worry about her, she’s fine. She just wants to be left alone…” 

Rise and Write 15-21

* * *