008 3.5 days in Brighton

Excerpts from my journal over the course of 3.5 days or so in Brighton.

16 Aug. Ran away to Brighton. I’m here for the next couple of days. Travelled by train. London Victoria to Brighton, to be specific. I’ve walked past the pier and the Dome and am sitting on the rocky beach now, eating a cheese scone for dinner. Got it from a cafe called Marmalade.

I think that places near the sea are inherently a little bit more beautiful than most other places in the world. Of course, I’ll always have a soft spot for the mountains, but the sea, yeah, she’s something. The sky looks different he. The sun does that god-like ray thing in the clouds. And I think, well, maybe it’s just a matter of anywhere that just feels entirely devoted. It's so vast and blue. I think of how impossibly green Scotland was. The seagulls are cackling now. They do that a lot.

This is my first true solo trip. Where I’ve left a “home” location and gone somewhere else entirely on my own. You know? I know no one here. And yes, it’s anxiety-inducing, but equally so invigorating. They say it’s vital for every young 20-something-year-old to travel on their own. And now, I guess, from having lived in London for a year on my own to this here trip about an hour-or-so train ride south of London, I can say I’ve done it. I’ve got the itch now. I don’t know how to make it happen. How to get everywhere I want to go. Feels a little impossible to live in your twenties sometimes. Years keep kicking on by, and yes, it’s true that life doesn’t end when you’re thirty, forty, fifty, etc. You can do it all then too; there is time for all the impossible things because it doesn’t really matter when you do them, but twenty feels pressurized, nonetheless. Guess I can knock one thing off the list now, anyway. Solo travel, check.

17 Aug. Woke up early. Real early, though not quite dawn. Walked a total of 16 or so miles, maybe more, from Brighton Marina to the Peacehaven Cliffs and back. At Temple. Eating a slice of apple custard cake now and drinking a vanilla matcha.

I sat for a while on a bench at the top edge of one of the cliffs, and I talked with Joan, ironically, about Joan. (Didion and Baez, I mean). Continued my Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Is this considered a pilgrimage? I’m not religious, but I ask a lot of questions. My grandma can attest to that. I peppered her with them when we acted as sardines in the back of a car careening down highland roads.

I’d swim, but I haven’t got shoes or a towel, and it’s all rock, not sandy like other beaches I’ve known. I think I like this sort of beach better than those sandy ones.

18 Aug. Walked around The Lanes today. Went into several shops. Saw a 1920s Czech fortune teller’s crystal ball, cost 75 pounds. Pretty rad; I didn’t buy it. Snooper’s Paradise is indeed a paradise; my mother would have a field day. I did get a couple of prints, or rather cards, that I have intentions of framing one day. Also got a fridge magnet and a button pin with a photo of Rubber Soul-era Beatles on it. Got a button for my dad too. I won’t say what’s on it in case he reads this. Gotta keep it a surprise. Came to the realization that every day I get closer and closer to wanting to get into tarot, my problem is the cards. I’m too picky; I won’t just settle for any old deck, or rather new deck; I think it has to “call to me,” or I have to personalize them; otherwise, they won’t “work.” I don’t know how tarot works, but I imagine liking and feeling some sort of connection with the cards has something to do with the whole ordeal.

I’ve got a blister on my foot. It’s killer. I popped it with a safety pin and tried to drain it. Slapped a plaster on it last night. It hurts. My shoe keeps rubbing on it. What a pest.

It’s overcast today. I like overcast beach towns. There’s something ever enticing about a visibly moody sea.

Got one more full day here in Brighton. I’d like to sit by the sea if I can. I spend so little time by it on the regular, usually landlocked from it, and sand I’m also not sand’s biggest fan. But I do adore it so, especially for the fact that there’s pebbles instead of rocks. Maybe one day I’ll live by the sea. Maybe in France or Maine or Italy or Big Sur; the list could keep going on and on. I don’t know; I’m open to most places, just somewhere, even if just for a couple of months. I think I’d like that. Moving from place to place for a little while in my twenties and early thirties, maybe longer, who knows? Imagine spending a month or two in different places, writing, reading, taking photographs, working from the road. I think I like things best when I’ve got to be in motion.

Had one hot matcha and one iced one with strawberry in it. Also had a raspberry-vanilla bun. Delicious. Two different cafes. Wrote in both. Blah blah blah. Made good headway on my essay/dissertation today.

19 Aug. Rainy today. Seaside towns look best in the rain, I think. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice when the sun is out, and you can lie back on a towel and let the sun lick your face and shoulders, but as I’ve said before, when the sea is moody and thrashing, I get a strange surge of satisfaction. Took a shower this morning; I woke up pretty early, had to get an un-delayed start. At the cafe that I went to the day that I hiked the cliffs. There’s a killer view of the ocean here. The sky is melting with the sea, and it’s the same color as the plate that my slice of blueberry lemon cake is on and the mug that my vanilla oat latte is in. Latte because, I mean, business today. I’m determined to complete my essay this week, a week before it’s due, which I know doesn’t sound like the most aggressive or impressive goal… but trust me. I usually find myself riding up to the last few minutes when submitting things, not for a lack of time skills, but because yes, I am one of those cursed few who are motivated by the pressure of a very, very close deadline. The sort when it’s not just breathing down your neck, but when it grows long claws and is scraping at your shoulders, digging ever further in.

The rain cleared up. Sat on the beach. Orange swimsuit that was my mom’s. I’ve got a cup of rooibos and an apple muffin. Never seen water so teal. There are two men fishing, for what I don’t know, but they’re posted up with tents further down the beach from me. I think of my pawpaw and my sister when I see people fishing.

From where I’m sitting, I can also see two sailboats. I think it’d be nice to go sailing one day. Maybe if I ever make it to Hydra. The place seemed to work for Leonard Cohen; it’s been on my list for years. Right now, I’m weighing options; it’s paralyzing. The seagulls are cackling again.

Still reading Slouching Toward Bethlehem, I’m enjoying it. Didion’s just got that voice, you know? There’s something about the cadence of her writing and her frankness; it’s sometimes a little too clinical for me, but then she says something utterly poetic, and I’m swept back up again. I latched onto her because The Year of Magical Thinking was one of the first books I’d read that talked about death and grief directly. She showed the honest parts and didn’t apologize. I admired that. I read Magical Thinking after my dear childhood dog died, the first real hard-hitting death in a sequence of deaths that I’d soon experience. And I’m not asking for pity here; I’ve coped and am doing alright, but this is the way it goes. There’s the old superstition that bad or unfortunate things come in threes, and at first, I thought it might be the thing itself that comes in threes, but seeing as we’ve passed that, it might just be the stretch of time. Which, ironically, is the thing that can tell us yes or no. Three years accommodating five deaths. I’ve come to consider death and her allies often, making space for her in all that I write. Not in a bad way.

Walked along the coastline. Dipped the edge of the book I got here in the water, and with it, the hem of my pants got soaked by a wave. Listened to music with my head tilted back toward the sky. Stared at the waves and the shimmer of them in the light. Tracked how the tide came in at a diagonal and not head-on. I thought of Jeff Buckley, as one must when they’re by the sea. Mazzy Star sang “Fade Into You,” and Phoebe Bridgers sang “Liberty Tree.” Made it a point to listen to “Sea of Love” by Cat Power and think about My Policeman’s Patrick and Tom. Felt the dying rays of light kiss my cheeks, and I shivered in the ruthless breeze. I walked back to the place I stayed in while I was here with the wildest hair you ever did see— Jim Morrison could’ve been my twin.

I do believe that those 18th-century doctors had the right idea: running off to the sea can cure a range of maladies, even if it’s just the sort that you might call burnout, general depression, or anxiety.

20 Aug. Boarding the train back to London today. I have to finish my essay. And then figure out what in the world to do next with my life. I’ve got a book to finish writing, and a handful of other ideas or beginnings of more books to tackle and a few more things swirling around my head. At a coffee shop at the moment, killing time. Laptop just died.

I’ve just migrated to a different cafe that is a bit closer to the station, and it has an outlet. I’ve got a cup of rooibos. It’s just about the only tea that’s sweet enough for me to be able to drink with nothing added to it. I’d get a coffee, but it sometimes makes my stomach hurt, and I don’t want to put myself through that whilst I’m on a likely packed train. I do prefer my rooibos with a spoon of honey and a squeeze of lemon, but it’s still good without it. The skin of my blister is flapping, barely held down by the sole band-aid I happened to have at the bottom of my backpack slapped on it. The skin is raw. It hurts a bit, but I’ll deal with it once I’m back in London. Not letting it dampen my enjoyment of this trip.

On the train now. Cue Electric Light Orchestra “Last Train to London.” Safe to say, I think I’ve found another place to leave a little part of myself. Look in the pebbles between the piers, in the alleys of multicolored homes and store-faces, in the bins of miscellaneous treasures, in the chalky cliffs on the England Coast Path; I’m there.

Signing off on this excursion.

Until next time. Take care x