THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF LONGING

By Sally Wells

For me September is the time that really feels like a new year. Everyone rolls back from their summer adventures, suntans are flaunted, holiday stories swapped. Kids go back to school, wearing their winter uniforms, and grown-ups grab an adult education institute’s prospectus to choose a slice or two of enrichment for the autumn. It’s thrilling to be torn between Indian massage techniques or life drawing, or jewellery design, or beginners’ Italian, or choir, or.... there are nearly as many courses as leaves falling from the trees.

It’s almost October now and we’re having an Indian summer. London’s parks are beautiful, full of crackling beds of leaves to scrunch through, and shining conkers to gather. We gathered about three kilos of them on Saturday, and scooted home in the golden light of a low sun, the air so crisp and fresh. It didn’t feel at all like the city centre of the city; in fact I was reminded of my Mediterranean home, and days of big sweaters and sunglasses, silver light streaming across the sea’s slightly rippling surface, the light passing through a beer bottle to make an amber pool on my La Vanguardia. Autumn always provokes nostalgia in me; when I’m in Barcelona I daydream about big brown teapots and crumpets whilst the rain lashes against the panes of a Georgian sash window, or toast and Marmite and toffee apples and sparklers. When I’m in London I remember bright mornings on a terrace with an almond croissant and cafe con leche, or an Estrella and calamares, slowly riding my bike along the Paseo Maritimo.

Nostalgia’s fine, so long as it doesn’t turn into full-blown longing for what you can’t have, souring the enjoyment of life where you are. I’ve been around long enough to know there is no single place or person with everything I want – life’s joys are scattered here and there, not concentrated in one perfect place or person. I acknowledge the world is too varied and vast for one short, small life, and I accept that I won’t live long enough to know it all. Pero bueno...

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