Chapter Twenty-Three: The Sweet Smell of September (~jinghan)

Sometimes we can fool ourselves into thinking that grouchiness is an attribute of other people only. And we lament how their mood, there less than enthusiastic response to anything we say, their inability to keep up their side of the conversation brings down our spirit. But recently I’ve noticed that I can be a grouchy person too.

I can be grouchy when it’s 2pm and I haven’t had my lunch yet.

I can be grouchy when the classroom is warm and that question is just not making sense.

I can be grouchy when I’m tired and you try and tell me about that cool (complicated) theorem  you just read about.

I can be grouchy when I had intended to get on top of a lot of work but didn’t get very far at all despite the hours.

I can be grouchy when I’ve been in doors for far too long.

And such is my mood as I head home after a long day full of such things. A irritable feeling. Cotton wool in my head. Tired but restless. Wanting to text someone to get away from myself. But realising that I would only have lamenting things to say. And they probably don’t want to hear that.

But then as I step out of the train onto the platform to switch to another train…

A swirl of sweet evening air greets me. The smell of warm evening and flowers. The peaceful last light of the day lingering in the sky longer than the day before. The promise of summer. Of sweet fruit and sunshine. And how could I still be grouchy?

I flip open my phone and text: “It’s such a beautiful evening, it smells of flowers everywhere and it’s so warm!”

When you’re a student you get into the habit that whenever you’re not eating or sleeping or commuting (and sometimes when you are) you’re calculating which subject you should be studying up on right now. It can be a draining way to live. And this is how I’m feeling as I head up to my room with my heavy bag of books after dinner. (Calculating and drained.)

Someone has opened my window, though, and the beautiful spring evening has invited itself into my room. “Don’t be so wound up, relax, be alive, fill your senses, come curl up with me,” she beckons me. And I accept gratefully the reminder of the other things of life. Instead of studying I lie on my bed under the window in the golden light of my lamp reading and breathing deeply the sweet smell of September.