there are very few people in the world who understand what it's like to have your heart sink the day the clocks go forward. who keenly empathize with the ache that comes with knowing the sun now sets after eight pm. somewhere in the fog of the last two weeks, i lost sight of the fact that i will have lost an hour of sleep last night. it'd, once again, be that time of the year i procrastinate changing the time on my analogue clock for a few days. until i scrounge up enough vitality to fiddle with the gears for five minutes. summer has never been a very kind season to me and i've learnt to dread it on instinct. all of the mid-year catastrophes over the last decade of my life have ganged up to instill evolutionary fear into me. it strikes right into my heart and the wound doesn't close up until the temperatures reach an average of single digits again and i can safely keep my sunglasses away in the depths of my wardrobe. i'm not sure if an opposite of seasonal affective disorder exists, but maybe its time to look into that.
i have never handled the heat very well, maybe something about getting too much of it as a kid. it makes me nauseous and all types of achey. the annual advent of march means my electric fan gets promoted to a full-time employee for the next few months, and its droning buzz becomes my permanent ambience. i have no natural inclination towards warmth at all; i spend all of summer trying to flee it the best i can. i'm not shy about my distaste for the heat, and it's gotten me some curious questions over the last few years. i just say it's always made me feel sick, and i don't really get into it. i haven't reconciled the difference between the popular honeyed image of summer to what i feel for it. the other day, i was on my way to university on a day where the highs were projected to be around 20°c. the sun was out, no clouds covering her modesty, and the streets were choked with people. terraces and patios gurgled with conversation and clinking cocktail glasses, and all the waterfront cafes had lines curving the corners. i hadn't seen summer in the netherlands since 2023 and it took me for a momentary spin- the sudden reminder that the sun is something cherished here, that the sticky heat beneath everyone's collars was welcome.
but back when i didn't live here, during my childhood days where i had perpetual access to air conditioning, i never thought about it too much— despite growing up in a country where the asphalt on highways melted every year in june heat. the government introduced rolling blackouts during the hottest months of the year to cope with the summer electricity demand to keep the air conditioners running. we kept our curtains half-drawn during the afternoons and made sure the thermostat was set to 18°c. popsicles were always abundant in the freezer and my dad would pick up three cups of sweet watermelon juice for us on his way back home from work on fridays. i remained insulated. protected. but i was thrust into the sizzling pan of the world a few years ago, and it's now my favorite thing to bring up to people when the topic of summer comes up. i ask if they've ever felt the scorch of 56°c on their skin. if they know what it's like for the sun to burn you up inside-out, like eggs cracked over blistering pavement when you need to venture outside in july. i tell people about the northwesterly winds that brought in sand, blanketing the city in a thick coat of dust. all my friends and i would fly out of the country for a few months every summer, to meet family, to grieve family, to escape the walls of orange sand that would press everyone into their houses for days on end.
regardless, summer became the season of running away from something. it has stayed that way for fourteen years now. in a roundabout way, i'm so practiced at running away from this advancing heat that i forgot it was coming at all. until i woke up today and noticed the one hour discrepancy between my phone and the ticking clock that rests on my desk. it's the first quantifiable reminder, unquestionable against the ambiguity of rising sleeves and sprouting trees. but this time around, i want to face this feeling instead, let the sweat sit on my skin and savor the salt, the heat. there's a lot of sweet, little things i have come to appreciate about this time of the year. i spend most of my time after march with my eyes scrunched shut, hand blocking the sun. but when i find shelter under store awnings and in tram carriages, i'm happy i'm still here to see all of it, to witness another cycle of the sun beating down on me to air out the dampness of winter.
my previous apartment used to get the most beautiful sunlight all year round. i was in love with it, with the way slices of sun would jut across the floor every evening, painting walls in sweet oranges. summer meant tangerine-peel shadows scattered across the living room, soupy heat that made my roommate and i delirious. if there was any relief in the hellish summer of 2023, i found it in the funny way the sun would cut through the blinds in my room in the evenings. i found affection in the way the light would follow me through the day around the house. the soft-boiled yolk of early morning sun dripping onto my pillow. the shimmery noons warming up the wood of my desk. evenings washing my friends' faces pink. i was in love with it. i've had the privilege of having abundantly sunlit residences all my life, but it was in that apartment i learnt how instrumental the sun was to my functioning. during the aforementioned hellish summer of 2023, its cosseting warmth was the only comfort i had in may. the month when colors seemed so desaturated. the month navel oranges go out of season. i spent the entire time steeped in ennui, lackadaisical until the ribbons of sunlight propped me up into place.
it all used to remind me a lot of the sunlight in my childhood home. i found comfort in that spurious association. since summers were so brutal back home, with lesser chance to filter out into parks and beaches, i spent a lot of time looking at the four walls of my room throughout the first twenty years of my life. bright and sun-drenched. i had practically memorized the pattern of the sunlight there. sixteen gold grids by ten cutting into the wall behind my bed, a byproduct of the squared windowpanes i had. there was an attached balcony, thronged with my mothers' prized plants and trees: lemon trees that bowed over the balustrade under the weight of its own fruit, bougainvilleas, hibiscuses, basil, chilis, perched upon the windowsill that cast swaying shadows at evening. it was patent proof of my mother's green thumb and her own sunny disposition, singularly capable of raising a haven for sparrows and pigeons in that swelter. it was all i photographed the few weeks before we had to move out, reels and reels capturing every detail of that summer sun i was convinced i hated.
having lived alone for a few months now, i've come to think of the little bit of sunlight that leaks into my place as my new roommate. not much of a change from my older one, just as warm yet enigmatic. i can trust in its unfettering presence, which has been comforting especially lately when there is little to trust in. but i've always felt like summer has this tendency to shine light on the dusty, cobwebbed parts of me that don't often get aired out otherwise. months worth of neglect sits over them, and i'm confronted with it all without fail when the clocks go forward again. i can't conceal them with big coats and winter jackets anymore. usually, i flounder and struggle through the exposure. the heat blinds me to any sort of sense.
but for the first time, i changed the time on my clock on the first day of daylight savings. maybe, it's a good augury. maybe, its that burst of motivation at the start of spring-cleaning season. but i've taken out the brooms and dustpans. all the dust is going to be swept away this time, and all the windows are going to be wiped, to let the sunlight in a bit better.
