Australian Summer
I hate winter. Some people settle into it fine—hot chocolate, blankets, that whole thing—but I’ve never managed it. I’m at the window thinking where did the sun go, because I actually need it. Heat on my skin. Real light. The ability to exist outside without planning seventeen layers. Every year it’s the same: the temperature drops and I vanish into my apartment for three months.
Australia’s in the middle of summer on the opposite side of the world. Brutal heat, full blue sky, oceans. The fantasy fills itself in: surfers who look transcendent, beaches where people actually look alive, the kind of light that rewires you. I’d be there if I could.
But I’m here, stuck, watching the days get shorter and the world turn gray. So I’m grateful when photographers like James Geers send images back from places like Australia. Emily Lacometti’s in a lot of his work. She’s the kind of person who looks like pure summer—completely at ease in light, bleached blonde, golden, the way you’d move if you’d never been cold. Looking at her photographs in January is maybe obscene. It doesn’t fix anything, but I do it anyway. Every day until the sun comes back.