Underseat Personal Item.

London. June.

It’s seventh-circle-of-hell hot and my absolute favourite place to be. When I was in London last summer, I would take long evening walks along the canal near my grandmother’s house, listening to the audiobook of Oisín McKenna’s Evenings and Weekends. There was a quote about the city that I have carried with me for a year, which read:

“It’s because of the summer. It’s because of the mania that grips London during a heatwave. It’s because the grass is yellow and no one can sleep, and the city is desperate, tetchy, and horny. It’s because everyone is alert, primed for something huge to happen.”

Last year, I watched from behind a La Marzocco machine, making iced lattes for commuters, as London summer rushed by. But this year, I have found myself in it. As I prance around London Fields during my lunch break, on the hunt for coconut water and peaches, or run down the tube escalator on the way to an event I am to write about, I believe in McKenna’s words. It always does feel like something huge is about to happen. And it doesn’t matter what it is, or even if it will ever happen, because this lingering suspicion is what keeps the city frenetic and forever fizzing.

Because nothing is more thrilling and more addictive than crashing about town, the taste of sweet wine, and cigarillos that Seb accidentally bought on your tongue, watching the sweaty masses gather and disperse, and gather and disperse, and shriek into the thick evening air.

(As I write this from the window seat of a pretentious South Kensington cafe, the posh boy behind me declares, “Right, it’s nearly 6 o’clock, let’s go for a drink,” to which his friends respond, “It’s not even 4:30 yet.”)

But I am haunted by the impermanence of this jovial time. Summer will end, and slowly, reluctantly, everyone will put their shoes back on, drink down the last of the warm rosé, and go inside. And I will, once again, be catapulted across the Atlantic Ocean to rekindle the most toxic relationship I have ever had. This relationship is with America, or more specifically, California. Not a single thing, or person, or place has ever made me feel so deeply depressed but equally elated.

The past three years that I have lived in the U.S. have been a dizzying, exhausting, constant whiplash. I have spent months in a toddler-like state of tantrum, red-faced, fists clenched, saying, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. But then, all of a sudden, I’m all gooey-eyed and in love with the mountains and the trees and Trader Joe's, wondering how I could ever possibly live somewhere else.

Last weekend, I was out in Dalston for a friend's birthday, and a girl I had just met asked me, “So, how’s America?” and I accidentally and obnoxiously laughed at the question. Not because the question was bad, but because I had no idea how to condense three years of emotional turmoil into a simple, casual, pub-appropriate response.

California is a place of extremes —one day it gives you everything in a big, beautiful, superbloom, and the next, it steals your catalytic converter. It is a place where some of the world’s greatest beauties come face to face with the world's ugliest and most disturbing failures. And for me, it has never felt real, but rather like it is still in the trial-run phase of being a place, before the flesh-and-blood version is allowed to be released.

It is for this reason that when I am apart from California, I rarely miss it. It is so far from something normal that my memory of it dissolves the moment I am back on Ealing High Street. And all I am left with are a few strands to tug on: the view from the roof of Kingman Hall, the smell of the eucalyptus tree, and the salty tang of an animal-style grilled cheese on an extra-toasted bun from In-N-Out Burger.

Just before I left in May, an old friend of mine from school, called Ben, came to stay briefly as he made his way home after a month of traveling. It was a wonderful, unpredictable overlapping of timelines. Having someone from my past life witness this new life confirmed to me for the first time that it does, in fact, exist. That California exists. It was the relief of turning to someone, knowing that they also saw the ghost.

As I watch the Sunday evening news with my grandma, I remind myself that soon I will be back again in the land where the actions of an illiterate oligarch aren’t just read as headlines—they are felt every day by people who haven’t got the luxury of leaving. And it will be time again to pack the bags that I just finished unpacking and get back on the 15-hour flight that I’m still recovering from.

Anh Phoong Injury Lawyer waits patiently on a billboard at the end of the Bay Bridge. I know that when I see her pant-suited power stance, I will think of this moment right now: of me staring out the window at the little fox that grooms itself in my grandma’s garden, and the hum of the boiler, and the sweat on my nose, and the payment notifications from TfL
—all will be a dream as long and distant as the thought of California right now.

But until then, you will find me picnicking on Primrose Hill, or swimming in the Serpentine Lido, or being cooked alive on the Piccadilly Line. I wish you all joy and as much peace and good tomatoes as you can find in this hot mess.

Edith xxx