A Summer Diary (July)

July consisted of sultry days with the dust permeating the glowing summer air. The all-pervading heat, dense and sticky like hot syrup.

The dust, din, and clatter from the innumerable construction projects and roadworks on the streets, half of them closed with fences and various barricades with intricate walkarounds where pedestrians competed with cars for space. They were peppered with the noise and dust from the sites where a vigorous work was in progress. At the same time, they tried to dodge trucks, tractors and other construction machinery.

Since there was something festive in this sight as well.

Because of the omnipotent and omnipresent sunlight. Sun dissolved in the clouds of dust. Sun making every surface including the asphalt pavement to shine. Sun casting dazzling reflections from every surface capable of reflecting. Like glasses, car mirrors, or metallic guard rails.

The heat and the crowds created a fever and a sense of being dissolved in this sea of people, objects, and music randomly emanating from the cafes or performed by street musicians.

I started paying attention to the facades of the buildings with intricately designed balconies and tender pastels on the walls. Yellow, pink. The outlines of the roofs were suddenly breaking off into the sea of the blue sky with the remote islands of white clouds somewhere very far above.

The traffic is creating an intermittent rhythm of slowing down and speeding up. Pedestrians are moving along the wide sidewalks so gracefully like in a rhythm of some imperceptible music, their movement approaching the pattern of dance.

The celebration of summer and the sun that has returned after half of the year of obscurity, overcast, drizzle and dirty snow turning into the slush under feet. While the cold gusts of wind were removing the last sparks of hope and life. Dying. But now those were forgotten ghosts of a nightmare that ended.

Some cunning monster is lurking in the sudden gusts of sobering cold wind when the August is approaching its end. Something depressing that one doesn't want to think about, but its presence is getting more and more pronounced, more real and inevitable.

But in July there are no signs of this ghost. Because the sun heats up the pavements turning them into the hot white glowing stoves, emanating a dense and fervent air. And the streets shine in the white scintillating glow.

The sun beats down relentlessly, and the thoughts are mixed up and feverish, and there is no chance to cool down and think rationally.

Because the heat is everywhere and permeates everything, turning an immaculate fabric of reasoning into a boiling soup of emotions and impulses.