The Good Life

Today is the 7th of September.

It's been a long time (pre-pre-school?) since September has signified anything beyond stationary, schedules, sandwiches...school.

Even though I still have almost three weeks of my summer holidays left, the back-to-school/work vibe in the air has prompted some reflection of what the last few months have meant to me.

I can't say I have done anything particularly productive since I took my American Foreign Policy exam at the end of May. Not that it was all fun and games. In June there was the kuffufle of moving and goodbyes, in July there were visitors and general anxiety about what to do in the fall, in August there was my class at the Faculty of Letters and the longest exam I have ever written.

Strangely those aren't the things that will mark the past few months. It's been a summer of...well...summer. Countless hours sitting on patios, with friends, alone, in the beautiful afternoon sun or the midnight heat of summer. Plays, concerts, museums, photo exhibits, fairs...and so many books. Like I haven't read in years. Compulsively, then not at all. From cover to cover, several at once, poetry, scripts, blogs, novels, travel guides...in full polyglot glory. More coffee than I have ever consumed in my life, without a doubt.

I wrote letters to people I could have e-mailed. I revisited views I could have photographed. I sat on buses for an hour to have coffee when I could have gone around the corner. I went around the corner -- I am there now. There were perfect beach days -- I have a real tan. There were also shitty beach days -- I got rained on in my bikini.

This must be The Good Life.

There are boring days, too. Days when my parents make me crazy, when I'm tired of my own company, when I have watched so many episodes of House that I don't even get excited when Wilson wears his McGill sweatshirt.

What there hasn't been is more significant that what there has been. There hasn't been a lot of stress. Or schedules. Or deadlines. I can't remember the last time I felt rushed.

I think I needed the reminder that there is an alternative to the hectic rhythm of life I took to be natural. These past few months -- particularly the last two and a bit -- have been exactly what I needed. I doubt I'll get to do this again for a long time -- retirement maybe. I am trying to learn that living the good life doesn't mean cramming everything I love and believe to be good into a limited schedule.

I just hope I remember how good it feels to have no greater immediate ambition than to find the coffee I know is waiting for me and finish my book on Lisbon theatre in the First Republic, with an eye on the river that looks more like a sea, sitting in the gold of the September sun...