it’s exhausting work

It has been almost a week of vacation, and neither the will nor the desire to write anything has materialised, so between naps I’m giving it a shot.

it’s exhausting work in the heat summer sleep

a pause to rest from my rest time for a nap

‘Quiet desperation’ probably is the English way, and the looming spectre of an inevitable return from vacation creates a kind of desperation to ‘do’ as much holiday as possible. This makes R&R into a second job to apply oneself to with rigour: wake swim eat sleep played on repeat. It feels more like preparing to work another year than it does taking space to be your own self just for a little while.

a balcony chat stopped to watch the swifts

There’s a privilege to having somewhere to go, for free, every summer that brings with it a sense of entitlement to the place - a resentment of the waves of tourists crashing against the sands of ‘your’ island. And so the yearly ritual becomes searching ever further afield for an ‘unknown’ beach (another privilege that comes from having a car). This year however, we’ve been lucky in that not only was our ‘known’ beach relatively quiet during our visit, but our unknown one we shared with just one other couple.

today’s pilgrimage bundled in a car looking for a beach

landing at a quiet beach a hawk looks for water

with the ants i shared my mat looking for cicadas

The Greek name for a cicada ‘tzitziki’ is an onomatopoeia for the sound it makes. I’ve been somewhat preoccupied with them this year, and whenever I have a quiet moment I have been searching the trees to actually see one. I finally saw one at the beach, and must have spent a good few minutes watching it, while the ants climbed my legs.