It’s seventeen degrees out and the sky is blue like the UK parliament. I am inside, meanwhile, thinking about the essays I have to plan, the applications I have to write, about how it looks just like summer.
It’s seventeen degrees out and the sun is shining. I am inside, meanwhile, thinking about how I shouldn’t bite my nails, about MA research plans, about how I’m biting my nails anyway. The sun is hot and yolk-yellow, and I can see it from my window. It’s strange. All of this is very strange.
It’s seventeen degrees out and the sky is blue and the sun is yellow, and I am inside thinking “Hold on, this is strange.” This is strange because the winter sky shouldn’t be blue. The winter sun shouldn’t be yellow, and I am thinking about second grade, about my brown November coat and purple December mittens, and about the class thermometre never rising past number 10. I remember that would please me. “Ten degrees,” I’d think, sitting in class, not paying attention. “Perfect. Perfect for winter.”
It’s seventeen degrees out and I am googling numbers, figures, tables. The average maximum temperature in Bilbao last December was 15.2 degrees. The year before that it was 12.8. The year before that it was 16.0. Before that 18.5. 13.2. 14.4. 15.2. The year I was in second grade it was 12.0.
It’s seventeen degrees out, and that might not be strange, but it feels strange. So many things feel strange, lately. It feels strange that it’s as warm as some May days. It feels strange that it’s raining less. It feels strange that there are less bugs around than usual, or maybe there are more, but it feels strange that no one’s pointed out the difference. It feels strange that my aunt didn’t comment on it while we were sat around the dinner table, that my mom left her coat home without a second thought, that my sister just dissed Greta Thunberg. It feels strange that my home doesn’t feel like home anymore - not like second-grade-me’s home - in the most physical of senses, and it feels strange to wonder if it’s just me. If only I can see this. Feel this. Just me.
It’s seventeen degrees out and I don’t know what to do about it. I already recycle, and use public transport, and want a keep-cup for Christmas. I went to a protest once, held up a sign and everything, but I’m a quiet soul: yelling, breaking things, organising - it just doesn’t come naturally to me. I avoid conflict like it’s the plague. I want to tear down oil rigs, burn down the State, break the noses of climate nihilists. But my arms feel too weak, too frozen in place, terrified of the consequences.
It’s seventeen degrees out and I am thinking of the consequences. Of climate anxiety and climate grief. Of how the tories just won a landslide election, and of how the NHS is fucked. Of how people of colour are fucked. Of how poor people are fucked. Of how the homeless, the disabled, the climate: it’s all fucked. I am thinking about kindness, about how one can teach kindness, or else punish the unkind, the greedy, the miopic-in-the-figurative-sense. I am thinking about powerlessness, and poetry, and about how I should kick my anxiety in the balls because the world is ending. Because the world is ending and I am sitting inside, paralysed. I am sitting inside, writing. I am sitting inside, planning essays, and personal statements, and opening the windows to let some air in. I could go out in a summer shirt if I wanted to, I think. A summer shirt and a light jacket.
It’s seventeen degrees out - seven-fucking-teen! - and I am inside, thinking about light jackets.
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