There’s something about May

In this part of the world, something changes on May 1. It’s nothing you can quite grasp, or describe, or experience on the first day of any other month. You wake up to birds singing outside the open bedroom window while all else is quiet, as if, for some magical reason, all else has agreed to stay quiet to let the birds play. Absolute coordination, simplicity, and calm.

In this part of the world, May comes as a period of transition. You walk to the window and feel the sea breeze. It is this light breeze that engulfs you and sweeps you off your feet, takes you on a warm 31-day journey and lands you in June.

You run into people you haven’t seen in years, you hear about people you haven’t heard about in years, you meet people you’ve never encountered before. May is a crossroads. It is inexplicable.

May is love. It is soap that smells of orange blossoms, it is the scent of lemon blossoms in the air, it is vanilla ice cream with fresh strawberries on top on Saturday afternoon. It is the first signs of humidity, the coconut scent of suntan lotion, panna cotta with berry sauce, and banana yellow t-shirts.

It is bare feet, reggae sounds in the background, loud loud laughter, and jumping from the edge of the pier into the clear blue waters. It is red tomatoes you pick from the vines, it is palm trees swaying in the distance, it is cold showers and late nights and morning stretches. It’s hope and starry skies and mesmerised eyes and faith in something bigger despite some remaining traces of fear.

May is effortless writing, it is writing about the little things.