I have this terrible feeling, this terribly dangerous fluttering feeling that I believe is called “hope”. The sun isn’t helping. After weeks of rain, of flat white skies and grave afternoons, the weather is finally perfect. Obscenely so. We have a bunch of sweetpeas on our table that smells of golden syrup and the kitchen scene in late morning is so gorgeous I can only look at it out of the corner of my eye. Blackberries creep across the path outside, imploring us to eat them, and when we do they taste precise and correct and barely stain our clothes at all. Things are not all bad right now is what I’m saying; things are almost good.
Like looking at sweetpeas, I read the news with one eye closed. Yes there is horror, gradations of agony and hell. But in among the pain there are moments of magic, like the communities coming out to rebuild mosques, and mobilising to defend their streets from far-right rioters, and like Simone Biles flying, actually flying in feats of artful greatness, and, on the other channel, signs of real change. Could it be, dare we dream, that Kamala Harris might become president of America? A woman who is firm on abortion and reproductive rights over a man who takes credit for overturning Roe v Wade? It makes me feel hopeful, which then makes me feel terrified.
