A summer of two halves
Storms and sunshine.
It’s cold again. And I’ve read the words ‘back-to-school’ countless times in the past two weeks. Over languid summer days we’ve photosynthesised sunlight, wine glass in hand, into energy that’s ready to be channelled through this second start in our year. An institutionalised reset.
“Where did you go on holiday?” colleagues ask.
“Nowhere,” is the answer. “I just stayed here and went back to my parents.”
Here is Switzerland. My parents are in the UK.
“Why would you go to England in the summer?” They scoff, with continental entitlement.
It doesn’t exactly conjure images of shimmering pools, parasols, ice melting in your drink of choice. It’s also surprising when someone with a reputation for never sitting still decides to do just that.
“Because I get enough summer here, there’s no need to go far,” I say.
Which is true. I am deeply biased and convinced that Switzerland is the most beautiful country in the world. It gifts you all four seasons as distinct and palette perfect as those in a picture book, with the alps thrown in for fun.
When it’s warm, its reserved population flocks to its lakes like elephants to a waterhole. They gather at music festivals, open wine cellars and mountain raves. The country’s reputation for having some of the world’s best cities to live in becomes entirely justified. I’m spoilt and the fun to be had is on my doorstep.
This year though, contrast cleaved it in two. The predictable blues of the sky and the lake, its fresh algae smell a siren-call across the city, countered the unpredictability I was having to navigate. Gorgeous soul-reviving highs came with crashing lows. I got swimmers itch from duck parasites (sexy). Hikes were interrupted by rain-filled clouds that the mountains brewed in an instant. The really really hot heavy days hardly ever came.
“But actually, the weather was fantastic when I was home.” I add.
England, contrary to its usual deliverance, did bring sunshine. Home beckoned as anxiety and uncertainty, more parasites, buried under my skin and nibbled at my brain. At first, it was an enormous effort simply to be, to do nothing. To not feel guilty for chasing every opportunity and person to connect. But once I finally let go, the days started to fill themselves.
I jumped in the Thames with my parents and drank prosecco on its stony beaches with old friends. I went rowing and got stuck in a bank. I tried new sports and came last in a baking contest with a friend which was so funny we almost peed in the street. I played cards with another in her garden and had a curry with her parents. I fell asleep with my dog curled up at my feet. We all went to the pub.
It was nothing wild. There were zero new places, hardly any new faces that usually come when the days are stretched with light. Instead, there was familiarity. Loves with tectonic plates that gently move and shift through the years to form our own mountains. Whose laughs give the same amount of brain cleanse as an alpine walk.
Home is somewhere, home back to myself.