back then

There was an unseasonably warm front in today, and in a freak occurrence it is 20 deg Celsius, versus -20 just exactly one week ago. My body doesn't know what's happening to it, but it unaccountably lifted my spirits up. I feel like a better person. I am a better person when it is 20 deg Celsius. Am in my favourite faux-Moroccan coffeehouse right now typing away and it feels like I am in Paris, with persian carpets underneath me, and a wrought-iron balcony beside which my table sits, aflow with cigarette butts (not mine) and a large steaming cappucino. Just spent the last 3 hours with a dear friend, who I had thought I had lost, but it seems that no words are needed to apologize, and there is instant acceptance and a long-lost recognition that we were quite simply, friends before this birth, and probably after it. There are moments of recognition that leap across all preconceived notions and conceptions and it makes life worthwhile to realize that unexpected progressions can be made. We talked about mountainous communities and the challenges they face, those living on the steppes of Central Asia, romantic in writing but brutal in reality. Talked also about intelligence and how institutions in our life made us always feel that to be mediocre would be worse than death, but in fact growing up, one realized that mediocrity was in fact just fine. Talked also about the influence of parents, and that it was quite okay to make decisions to make them happy, even at the cost of some uncomfortability for one at the present. As for intelligence, I would rather be mediocre and happy than un-mediocre (what is that anyway) and unhappy. And then there were promises of classical music, the symphony orchestra, long ice-cream filled walks through the Common, promises of napping in the sun with half-read Russian authors, hair always smelling like spring. Filled again with an irrational exuberance for life, which even though it might dissipate tomorrow, is here today and I am reminded as always of that obvious but always poignant quote "Back then, I thought there would be other days. I didn't realize that it was the only day". Oh, life, London and this moment of June.