I have autumn braids now...
...And they are long — down to my waist — and a little unwieldy, but I love them. I feel like Solange when she first went natural, and acted as a shot of adrenaline in the natural hair movement's bloodstream. Lord love Solange.
In the summertime, I went to my storage unit in east London. The building where my unit resides is not easy to get to per se, on the edge of the old industrial part of east London where developers have sunk millions to build trendy new builds that smell faintly of Goldsmiths degrees and are made of glass and steel. Inside the facility, the workers are only at the reception desk. The rest of us are only ever there to stack and re-stack our ultimately useless belongings, after adding or taking away. On the day I went to visit my storage unit, I had plans to go "shopping" in it. I went with a backpack and emerged with... a lot more. My arms ached from the burden of ferrying my stuff across the Thames on the Overground.
But! What I had liberated from under the dust sheets of that little cell was essentially an autumn look book. Jumpers, dresses, a beret, even! My perfect slouchy jeans I got at New Look for seven quid in the sale, the Gap dresses I bought reduced to an amount that made me feel the thrill of theft even as I handed over a debit card, the acid green trainers I hadn't even missed, but which now seemed to beckon me to slip them on for a run in Brooklyn. I dug through that storage unit and found autumn for the low, low of price of £0, and now, matched with my waist-length braids, I am ready for the season. I am wearing the slouchy jeans right now, braids tucked behind my ears.
This summer, I finally got an agent to represent my TV and theatre interests. She is great and proactive and calm and I cannot believe I waited this long to have her. I am working on two new plays, though the cloud of the news cycle is thick and heavy overhead and translates to a mental and physical fatigue. One play feels good. The other is managing to be both formless and misshapen, which is quite a trick. My agent is patient, and I want to please her. Is this like having a lover who you know is thoroughly invested in your wellbeing and success?
Not at all.
Your lover gets far less than what an agent gets.