What did you do this summer? The end of the summer resembles the end of the year, doesn’t it? How was your summer. How was your year? I felt a lump in my throat, on the 31st of August, but it quickly went away when Hey, a friend asked, what are we doing for New Year’s Eve?

This summer, without really planning on it, I discovered myself (discovered, rediscovered, big words is what I mean, yes, yes), even more, through concerts, loads of people I met, entrepreneurship, Bali, books, the mountains, articles, music, festivals, road trips, the beach, friends, movies, fun, loads of time on my own. You live most of the time inside of your head, make sure it’s a nice place to be resembles You live most of the time dressed, make sure you feel what you’re dressed in, or Are you comfortable on your couch when it’s just you and your couch?, or is it just me?

What? 

This summer, I felt like living inside my pajamas the most – stylistically speaking – and on the couch was the nice place to be. 

Uh-huh!

The couch is like a barometer to me. While a barometer is used to measure atmospheric pressure, I use the couch to sense the humanity in someone. When I meet someone – the friend of a friend at a party, people I’m about to work with in a meeting, a friend of a friend in a club, a man approaching me, in a restaurant – without wanting to, somewhere inside my subconscious, a question arises whether this human being in front of me looks and talks as this human being does on this human being’s couch, at home. Of course, filters, gestures and expressions, adapted to nowadays’ society, do show up, but so does a natural spark, in a fraction of a second, or not. It’s OK if it does, it’s OK if it doesn’t.

The naturalness you sink into on your couch, on a Saturday morning!

It’s not about liking someone or not, we don’t have breakfast with everyone we meet. Liking is… God Only Knows! …Is about that drop of magic. That we all have, hello, and that we all like, no?

Just when I thought I’d found that something this summer – stylistically speaking – fall came and, so, now, I keep on reminding myself not to forget to put long sleeves or trousers on, while looking into my closet and thinking Oh, I feel like changing something. Not giving everything away, but, rather, inserting things that make me dance a new dance into everything. Why? I entered a new chapter, again. I’d like to mark it somehow.

Style marks both the eras we read about in books and the eras in our lives. Just like frames that frame moments do. It’s interesting to observe myself, from a distance, at times, and remember why I obsessively wore a jacket, dress, someone’s trousers or some heels. It’s interesting to notice, also, that specific something I seem to not give up on, no matter what. Luckily, I don’t want to, it’s that specific something that’s at the base of me.

We each have a specific smell and we don’t even mean smell only when we say specific.

2011. An ex-boyfriend once asked me: Can’t you just dress like all the girls do?, as we were arriving at a party. I wanted to cry for a second, but, also, throw a little party for myself, at the same time. I’m smiling now. Grinning. I was wearing his jeans then, I loved them and I know I would’ve been thrilled if I were him. The funny thing is that I know he was thrilled, too, but he was also too annoyed by it to say anything, you know? Jees. Funny, funny. I know now and I knew then. Then, however, it would’ve been too big of a turn off for me to put it on the coffee table, in front of the couch, for everyone to see. So, I preferred not to see it. Jees. Funny, funny, I told ya. Of course, they fitted me so well. They had a particular cut, only one pocket at the back, they were the perfect grey and they were from corduroy. The kind that Levi’s does. So.

2016. Do you feel good in this dress?, the next ex-boyfriend asked me, when we got to the seafront restaurant. I was feeling a specific sssomething that involved collarbones – m! And we loved each other. In different ways, I came to understand. Love can have multiple forms. We, still, mean each other well, sure, but separately, thank goodness. Definitely different. My different involved courage, yay. I threw another party, in my soul, again. For the courage to be myself, no matter what. That, apparently, likes to feel a specific sssomething, as well.

My specific something, their specific something. I often ask for opinions, yes, in an era where opinions are expressed without us asking, all over the place. It’s important to me, however, to know my opinion, every time, in the first place. It comes from intuition and it’s fascinating to play with it. Literally, not metaphorically. The latter involves fire. Not that the first doesn’t, but there you go. Intuition always knows what state I’m in – bohemian, rock, home wear, chaos, minimal, disco, playful – and what’s the tune I’m dancing to. It has its own Shazam. Aw.

I’m not saying it’s all about clothes, hello! At all. It’s about those simple, little, little, little things you don’t pay attention to from the start, but are like little, little, little cartoon characters that scream and jump around, hoping for you to sense, hear and see them.

A time, eventually, comes and you sense, hear and see them. And you think about you, about taking responsibility, about them taking responsibility or not, and so on.

Do you believe people change? I believe people evolve if they want to and want to work at it, extend, dream, throw their hands in the air, take the necessary steps. I believe in people’s specific something that’s at the base of people, regardless of clothes, hair or relationships. It’s the character. It’s chaos and chaos is both the formless matter supposed to have existed before the creation of the universe and the word of the summer of 2018. In the best way. 

Character can’t be copied, nor imitated, mimed or hidden. It’s the fraction of the second on the couch and we all know how much we like to sink into our couch. In our pajamas. It’s important to see who’s on it. In it. To see who’s in the elevator mirror. It’s where the little cartoon characters always salute you.

Elevator + Couch = What are we doing for New Year’s Eve?

Summer of 2018

Later edit: Summer of 2021