My City Valentine

It is overcast here, with sprinkles of rain and threats of storm, and nowhere near the 35 degrees predicted by those supposed to know. We spend Valentine's Day eating muffins and drinking coffee and demolishing our mates' shed with jackhammer, sledgehammer, crow bar, angle grinder, tin snips and brute force. There's a narrow escape for some other and myself when a large wall unexpectedly falls, the panicked survey for damage to life and limb before the adrenalin kicks and we return to work faster than ever. In the middle of all the laughs and innuendo and casual camaraderie I find myself more homesick than usual.

When we get back to our house I hide in my study, looking for sanctuary on the internet and downloading Cure songs with a hope that they will carry me to more familiar places. The Monster nurtures me with chocolate and tea and I realise I miss my city like a lover, her-water-her-moods-her-tastes-her-smells-her-dirt-her-tides-her-perspectives-her-humour-her-nuances-her-seductions-her-people-her-architecture-her-excesses-her-possibilities-her-promises...

'and i forget how to move when my mouth is this
dry and my eyes are bursting hearts in a blood-
stained sky oh it was sweet it was wild and oh
how we...i trembled stuck in honey honey
cling to me so just one more just one more go
inspire in me the desire in me to never go home' (the cure, homesick)

I leave her so much these days it seems. And every time I return she is somehow new, but always the same as ever.