‘Phenomenology of the Desire to Return’, a great essay from this wretched August

I have always disliked August and I dislike it with every fibre of my being, even those I do not have. August seems to target me; something must have occurred that the Penati are making me atone for, punctually and in instalments, in the eighth month of every year that God sends to earth. Every time I strike a Flaiano-esque pose to throw people off the scent, but it doesn’t work, because that’s not what’s ailing me: “Boredom and melancholy lie in wait wherever one goes in search of fun or a change of scene. Only the place where we live keeps us from thinking about death, failure and old age. Tourism, what a sad invention. There is no health outside one’s own cave. Stay put’”. So I proceed with my usual activities as if nothing were amiss: I depart on holiday, go to the seaside, engage in dinner conversation, fry anchovies and cook baby squid; yet I do so with a cautious and temporary cheerfulness, awaiting the inevitable setback, which never takes long to arrive. So mine is not that pleasant, affected hatred of those who stay in the city in summer – those fine snobs; I don’t believe in the concept of the city in summer, at least not in this heat. Mine is an infallible curse; it has always brought me trouble. August pulls a fast one on me and knocks me out. So I’ve learnt not to get my hopes up, to stay on the defensive and wait for September.

Fortunately, he keeps me company – the most secret agent of late August, far more secret than the head of the CIA who’s off to Russia on a worrying, unknown mission. He’s the CDT, the "Happy to Be Back", the clandestine figure who, around the twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth, begins to feel irresistibly happy. Of course, he hides it all behind a polite little smile; it’s clear he doesn’t say it and will never admit it – it’s an unmentionable thing, the pleasure of it being September, and it smacks of a dreary life. Go away, you jinx! But how can that be? Don’t you love the sea, the sun and this life? Weren’t you happy with the outings, the boat trips and the aperitifs at sunset? If, over spaghetti and clams, sitting at an outdoor table with a chilled glass of wine, you say: “I’d actually love to come back”, it means you wish to remain outside the group, a foreign body, a bad omen. And so the CDT keeps it to himself. Not very well, though, because I can tell by the look on my brothers’ faces – that sidelong gleam in their eyes – and the way they speak, without a trace of melancholy, in a lively tone that says: relief at last. That’s our tan, that is.

Just like me, they went through the entire ritual of being model summer revellers, mingling with the rest; they are men and women who fought valiantly within a fiction they hated. They said “how marvellous” to every little village, even though it was forty-one in the shade – and there was no shade to speak of. They even managed to make the best of the lake. They put up with the hours wasted on their phones – our hours and those of others – scrolling through holiday snaps and aphorisms on Instagram, because that’s what summer time boils down to. They didn’t even turn back when faced with that great slap in the face of rhetoric: “Ah, at last we’re living.” They and I long to go back to not living. To return to our own little things, which are silly but at least can be squandered freely. To return to moaning about trivial matters, to return to days and time as we know them – the ones we know how to make go well or go awry, but at least we’re the ones who decide. That’s what we can’t say.

I no longer wish to appear happy and well-rested; I am on edge and utterly exhausted. That is why I understand the Editor-in-Chief and stand by him. Good riddance to these questions: ‘So, did you enjoy it?’ ‘So, are you having fun?’ We will continue to avoid greeting one another, comrades. But we can recognise one another; we know who we are.