since term ended this has been the pattern of my days — i stay up each night, reading and writing; corresponding; and finding myself chatting with friends who live in several time zones, accompanied by the latest radio plays on bbc, or perhaps i might binge watch a tv series, a new film, an old favourite. my evenings are precious again: they’ve become personal time that is both reflective but also highly productive. i wane at around three, or four, and retire, sleep soundly and well and get up at 11am. i make a leisurely brunch, sometimes lunch for the family, and do some light housekeeping. in the afternoons i go into town. it feels just like when i was living in the us and home for the summers. i can slip casually into an exhibition (no crush, and no yammer-yammer-yammer of socialising that makes the art recede into the background) or an afternoon screening of a film (uncrowded, with retirees and teenage schoolchildren), and as i’m not due to surrender my student id until july i rapidly bought myself discounted tickets to dance, film and theatrical performances, which i go to in the evenings, when i do not have dinner with old friends, new friends, the parents. i date again, thawing my heart out a little, cautiously. i made a count last night: 12 exhibitions, 5 performances, 4 films, 2 outdoor art and music festivals, 2 talks (and a partridge in a pear tree) in 3 weeks. no frenetic activity, no jampacked days, but nevertheless purposeful filling up of just enough of my days and nights, to see enough, but with enough time to reflect on what is seen, and to enter into new spaces, that i’d hardly known existed, new groups, that i feel apprehensive about entering but glad for pushing a little a little more a little little more at my own boundaries of experience and knowledge. (there is a greek word that means knowledge that is obtained through the act of seeing (as opposed to acquired by reading or from being taught; i wish i could remember what it is.)