The Sophomore Slump isn’t real. The idea that after a breakout début work or season, an artist or athlete’s second normally flops, is a lie. Carla Simón’s Alcarràs is a poignant and eco-conscious follow up to Estiu 1993, Fontaines D.C.’s A Hero’s Death continues the band’s charming and effortless lyricism and Cole Palmer’s second season at Chelsea is looking to be just as, if not even more, prolific as his first.
My second month in Paris didn’t hold as much novelty as the first but it did not fall victim to the Sophomore Slump. Simmering with life and energy, October let me go a little deeper into Paris, into my relationships and to discover new things.
Friday night is now starting to become a ritual. A welcome change from the Wednesday nights of Cambridge and the void of going out prospects at home - it lends a bit more predictability, the bars will be busy, the metro runs light and the promise of a Saturday lie-in awaits. Tickets are booked, pres organised and bars scouted. You get the metro to the Marais, Bastille or Place Monge, side by side with your evening compatriots, a network of kicking back and partying hard.
On a Friday night in Paris the beer and wine flow, who knows what will happen? Who’s going to be at the bar first? you think to yourself, wearing your coolest jacket. As you walk towards the spot the air buzzes with conversation and banter. In between sips of wine and puffs on cigarettes the people at the tables discuss, laugh, joke and sing to each other. Who knows what will happen tonight?
After Friday night everyone sleeps in. On Saturday a different way of going out takes hold and the city’s streets are full of runners. Everyone here runs, all the time. There is someone jogging by my window 24/7. And why not? Maybe 2024’s biggest trend isn’t brat summer but lacing up your old Asics and banging out a couple of Ks around the park.
I love this. I have dipped in and out of running in the last few years, depending on the weather, basketball and various academic commitments. This feels different, I feel like running because I want to run, because I know that it feels good. Not for fitness, not because I have to. The soft burning sensation in my lungs drives my legs to lift my feet. With each left foot strike my right arm lifts. Both limbs then move backwards to be counterbalanced by right foot and left hand in a motion that lasts until my body or brain calls stop.
There is something to be said for the feeling of control that running provides. It is an absolute hold over your own body. Whether they like it or not, every single cell is compelled to work a little more, respite slightly harder. The blood pumps and the muscles wear and tear. Your breath runs short, your thoughts become scattered and you can feel blood pounding in your temples.
There is a coin whose two faces are the physical manifestations of anxiety and a hard, strong, concerted run1. Both are acute responses to stress, be it internal or external and are all consuming. In the grip of anxiety, it hardly matters whether someone tells you you’re going to be okay, getting through the next five minutes is like walking through thick fog without a torch, you can only be there. There is no future or past, no forward or backward path, just the heaving of your chest and the rabid movements of your brain. The world shrinks to a body-sized volume of space - you become a vacuum for thought and feeling. Equally, pushing yourself on a run takes you out of everything you know. Time falls away, how long has my breath been short? How long has my gaze been at the floor? It is your body that feels, a loping stride that dictates every sensation. Again everything is reduced to a body-sized volume but here is where the heads of running distinguishes from the tales of anxiety. At a certain point the black hole of your being is gone and becomes a void. As clear and light as the sunlight on a summer morning. The overloads reduces to stillness - an alpine lake, deep and clear. Instead of the paralysis brought on by anxiety you can float through your course as smooth as an arrow.
Often the reward for this effort is the magical runners high. It is a brain tingling rush of hormones that prolongs the out of body experience that is running. The comedown takes a while. Your body is graced with the post-run internal glow that can manifest as a slight smile and feeling of smugness. Anxiety leaves a rather different sensation. It can fade out slowly or all at once - prompted by something completely arbitrary. I can remember sitting in a French class feeling like my stomach was about to give out and the word ‘cercueil’ (coffin), brought me right back to planet Earth. Regardless of the manner anxiety passes a feeling can sometimes remain, unlike the soft contentment of running there seems to be a shadow that weighs more heavily on my spirit. However, like running, and I appreciate this is not common to everyone, a curiosity can emerge. In this case it is a tad morbid. I have wanted to position myself externally to my physical and mental sensations and see how I could exist differently around them. Thought experiments about transforming the energy that overtakes my body. It is here that I find a final similarity with running. Yet this time, it is not to transform but to relive the experience of a good few laps. To drink in the full feeling of being encompassed by my body and the world around me.
Some photos from this month
Music - Popnaissance - ‘Image’ by Magdalena Bay
Pop music is back this year with a veritable treasure chest of music from the likes of Billie Eilish, Charli xcx, Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter all dropping excellent records and still keeping us on our sonic toes. This track, taken from the wonderful album Imaginal Disk, recommended to me by the excellent
sees Magdalena Bay weave together poppy melodies in the build up to meeting a lover. The crooning vocals and eye catching (ear catching?) production will have you hooked.
Film - Photons make up everything
Premiering at Cannes to positive reviews, All We Imagine As Light is a slow and tender film looking at the lives of two women living in Mumbai. We are treated to a portrait of the city and the expectations on two of these women, Prabha, whose husband works in Germany and has not contacted her in over a year, and Anu, a Hindu in love with a Muslim boy. This beautifully shot film has a lot of soul and we witness the emotional and physical journey both characters undertake towards a catharsis of sorts. Both domestic and profound this film will strike a chord with many.
Book - Post-war Britain’s Social Precarity
October was a slower reading month for me and so I only finished one whole book within its 31 days. It was Andrea Levy’s Small Island which follows the story of two Jamaicans moving to Britain following the Second World War. Hortense is naïve and bright eyed, ready to realise her dreams of England. Her husband Gilbert served in the RAF during the war where he met Queenie, a woman evacuated from London to Lincolnshire during the war, from whom he is renting a room in her London house, and whose husband Bernard is missing in action in India. The novel explores Britain at a turning point, faced with the reforms of the post-war Britain and the Windrush migration towards the so-called ‘Mother country’.
For me this novel runs slightly too long, losing momentum with each jumps between ‘Before’ and 1948. In addition the bizarre final twist feels incredibly forced. However, Levy’s deeply human portrayal of Gilbert’s time in the RAF is excellent. The author threads a balance in the character of Hortense between naïve optimism and hardy determination faced with a people that do everything in their power to not welcome her.
That’s it for this month everyone.
Lots of love,
Luca
This part of the post is inspired by this article and other things Matt Haig has said on the topic along with my own experiences with (lowercase A) anxiety.