Heavy rain today. That's the season. It is the kind of rain that takes away the taste of beer. Of anything. It just makes things heavy and sad. Doused.
I can sit under a canopy outside a local coffee shop that I have all to myself, with this spare hour to myself in the weekend. The coffee helps fight back the rain. Dark roast blend adroitly cuts through the wet air.
So there's the coffee, and there's the feeling of the dry towel against my sandal soaked feet. But everything else can feel like a failure. Like it's broken.
Some say that gratitude is the tool to take your mind in another direction. And it is definitely good. It's hard to be continuously sad or angry, when deliberately thinking about things to be grateful for. Even though to the depressed mind they can feel ridiculously fundamental at first.
Another way to work with it is to just notice what is nice. Amongst all the things the genuinely suck in the moment, what is nice? Describe them, amplify them and cherish them. And writing descriptions is so therapeutic. I dont understand why more people don't do it. In the short period I was on instagram, I wrote as much as I could in the description box besides the image. Maybe people think the image is enough. A sad short cut.
I don't remember a lot from my bachelors in Aesthetics and Culture. I remember a lot outside of the studies. Like ducking out from a party, to be video calling on the iPhone 3GS, on the lawn of campus.
But I do remember one of the few very practical tips of aesthetics that a professor gave, which was that we should practice describing the objects we wrote about or discussed. We are too quick to jump to analysis, instead of staying with the object or the situation. I remember he said it like this, and I felt a little dumb for not really having done it before:
if it is a statue, then walk around the statue.
Really goes for everything.
And sharing descriptions have the added benefit of bringing the reader closer to your experience as well.
I'll meet an old friend tonight. I'll bring an umbrella and put on some rain gear, and I'm sure we'll have a good time.