I was sitting in my usual coffee place, with my usual coffee order, a cappuccino (they always sprinkle the cocoa on the right-hand side and I always end up putting chocolate everywhere). I’m trying to write this week’s article, some rubbish about vulnerability, and I see myself getting increasingly annoyed. Not because I made a mess but because what I wrote was shit. I’m struggling to find a good topic, an interesting POV, I am not achieving anything.
I finished the article(fingers crossed it will never end up on the internet), packed my stuff and left. I could have taken the right and gone home, but I had a couple of errands to run in town so I go left.
I crossed the quays, wondering why I was so anxious to write today. I see people around enjoying the - finally - nice weather, the colourful rowing boats ready to be taken out and I’m flooded with a desire for ice cream. In the space of a few meters, my whole demeanour changes. I put my hair behind my ears to gain full-face sun coverage (SPF 50+ and sunglasses, obviously) and start to enjoy my summer outfit, a.k.a. dress+totebag+birkenstock. Liberating.
I see the sailing boats and houseboats docked. Small waves reflecting the sun. The parking lot flower pots, the type you find in every city full of bright pink geraniums. It takes me back to the Belgian seaside I remember, not the one I visited as a teen with friends, but the one I went on a family holiday once, when I was about 4 or 5. I immediately crave an ice cream. Soft ice, vanilla, in a cone.
The errands can wait a few minutes. I’d rather sit on the picnic tables, between a white stone church, industrial-style buildings and my quays view. The only thing that can move me now is the sun threatening to turn me into a well-cooked lobster. And the ice cream I’m still longing for.