Embracing Clichés
Making the most of summer | Glimpse of Summer Ep. 8
You know it’s a good day when you lift the curtain slightly and a bright blue is blinding your eyes, activating a button in your brain that says: wear a cute outfit, put on some lipstick, and stroll around the city to the next coffee shop. I know, such a cliché but there is power in an archetype. In a narrative that writes itself.
The other day I wrote a review about a play that I saw at the Fringe – the annual theater/comedy/music street and not-so street festival extravaganza that takes place in Edinburgh every August. It was a play with no actors, as you the audience would have to perform, sort of. The idea was pretty effective: put people in a room, screen the words on a canvas and have them read the lines in union, or individually, depending on the scene.
Kind of like being in church where everyone just repeats what is written on the little pamphlet they hand out to you - I think. I haven’t been in church for a while but I remember this feeling of community, of forming a group with strangers, singing together, praying together. There’s a script for the whole thing and that is somewhat comforting. You don’t need to actually think about how to worship god. You don’t have to invent it. It is already laid out for you.
Just like the “making the most of summer” trope. As we’re getting closer to the end of it or so people keep saying every freaking second since last Tuesday and if you’re like me and feel like: wait what? Why is it ending already? The leaves are still green on the trees. Did I even have a great summer yet? The sun is still showing up (most days). Are there enough memories, can I string them together and call it: Summer of 2022?
– So I made a plan.