It's an 'end of the rainbow' sort of deal

I have a tattoo on my wrist, I got it a year ago in February. It reads "seek beauty" and it is written in Thai. I translated it myself after my second trip to Thailand the preceeding November (and checked it with as many sources as possible). The Thai language has several words for beauty, and several for seek, the one's I chose make the meaning clear, it means seek in the broadest sense. The beauty I picked means it in the Romantic sense encompassing natural and sublime beauty, knowledge and just those moments of contemplation which are transformative. So that's the background to where I'm going here....

A long day at work today, and still a day shy of my 'weekend' (which begins on Saturday night and ends on a Sunday night, oh a life in retail, how I loathe thee) and the beautiful sunshine outside the shopping centre I work in seemed to be begging me to stay out and enjoy it and not return to work after my lunch break, oh course I resisted it. I cycled home, as I always do, after my shift finished at 5pm and felt the cares of my week begin to lift. There were a lot of cyclists about this evening - Brighton is a very cycle-friendly city so there isn't anything unusual in that - but the inarguable Start of Summer seems to have infected the usual drudgery of the cycle commuters with new zest and joy in their journey. We weaved our way through the traffic, racing from junction to junction in half acknowledged races, flying down the hills and powering up the inclines. I love waiting at a traffic light junction in the little box ahead of the cars reserved for cyclists as more and more cyclists come flying round from either side of the cars stopped behind you and make a little gang, all of you racing off from the lights the moment they begin to change, vying for position up the next hill.

I decided an afternoon so beautiful should not be wasted and dropped off my bike and bag at home before grabbing my new (new to me, old to photography) SLR and heading down to the beach. A 3 minute walk later I was basking in sunshine bouncing of the pebbles and sea and fiddling around with the myriad of settings on the camera in an attempt to master the art of film photography in an hour. I decided to continue my stroll, ended up at the marina finishing my film on photos of boats (or, potentially, photos of nothing on account of cocking up the exposure/aperture setting/focusing...) The marina broadwalk is littered with cafes and restaurants, all of which have tables outside in the sun. After hesitating for all of 5 minutes I took a table, ordered a nice glass of white and lit a cigarette.

Sun on my face, wine in hand, the challenge and adventure of learning a new type of photography - represented in this little scene as the camera manual sitting on the table in front of me - a thoughtful drag on a cigarette, a message on my phone from a friend imploring me to join him on the beach this weekend, the quiet calm of the slowly swelling sea in the marina and the odd squawk of seagull or starling overhead.

On the way home I passed a pub where punters and music spilled out onto the street, the song crept over me and accompanied me home as I softly sang my favourite refrain over and over as I weaved my way through the streets and back to my flat; think I'm gonna be sad,
I think it's today yeah, the girl that's driving me mad, is going away, yeah...

Perfect. Beautiful.

I don't have much money left this week but this was an investment in me; £11 for bread and dips and a large glass of white isn't so excessive in that light. And these moments, these afternoons, they are so fleeting, so brief in hindsight that each minute of contentment must be savoured and treasured. Recorded and sought out again at the next possible opportunity.

And every time I find it, every time I manage those few moments of beauty I am reminded of all the things I promised myself when deciding on that tattoo and the day I called it my mantra.

Whilst the very worst storms in Brighton see me dig in at home and wedge my windows shut, I do enjoy a saunter out to see Brighton getting ripped to pieces by wind and rain. During the very worst gales Brighton has seen since I have lived down South it was too dangerous to even go near to the seafront as the wind and waves actually lifted pebbles from the beach and moved them over the fences onto the promenade. This was the occasion when many of the beach huts on Hove seafront were completely levelled.

This weekend weather forecasters are promising us gallons of rain and gale force wind. If I listen very carefully I can hear the wind whipping through the trees and the rain lashing against the windows, but I have to listen very carefully through the double glazed windows and the high hedges which protect half of my parents house from the elements. Back home in Brighton my attic bedroom is south facing and exposed to the elements. I have, more than once, been awoken in the middle of the night by gale force winds shaking the entire building and a sound that suggested the most inclement of the elements would be bursting through my ceiling in the immediate future.

There is something deliciously raw about the sound of wind and rain hurling itself destructively at buildings, which, in the face of unbounded nature seem terribly primitive and impermanent. Pulling the duvet over ones head and listening as the wind screams past the window is one of the basest pleasures in life. I often think that the knowledge that we are safe and warm inside, comfortable and dry, is the closest we can come to jouissance after infancy.

The sublime is a fearsome experience but one which not just transports but transforms.  My very worst mood can be complete eradicated (or perhaps I should say 'blown away') by a fearsome storm, to the point that I receive the news of extreme weather warnings with delighted anticipation.  It is in this vein that I lament my current location - some 200 miles from the south coast which has been promised floods and gales whilst the East Midlands braces itself for a bit of rain.

Winter, at least, is decidedly here, and there will be plenty more occasions on which I can shiver with awe as the house shudders beneath the weight of a storm.