Indian summer nights
Soft august evenings as the sun begins to set earlier, reminding us the ordinary life is heading towards us again.
The small bats are speeding past the balcony where I sit, wrapped in a Mexican blanket, suddenly sensitive to fresh evening air after a summer of unforgiving heat. They glow in my neighbour’s terrace lights, the bats do.
I’m reading Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s book ’In my own words’, and the cicadas are screeching as I marvel at her courage, perseverance and humanity. She’s spent her whole life fighting artificially erected walls, fighting for herself and fighting for others. A winding and improbable journey for that Jewish girl growing up in a working-class home in 1930s Brooklyn.
At the corner of my balcony stands a tall green stalk, leafy and sprouting. It’s a type of weed and it looks to be growing out of the stone itself. I live on the third floor and I can’t recall ever watering it.
Some things - some people- are destined to grow tall, without asking permission, without second-guessing. They insist on being and the world must adjust to their ways.
I get up and give my weed a little sprinkle. Everyone needs a little watering.
