Shadow Work

I spent yesterday evening in Regent’s Park with my friend, J. She’s Californian and an actor and often does things that remind me of this fact – like when we go for dinner and she orders something which is not actually on the menu but compromised of her favourite parts of three separate dishes – but then she will immediately turn and say, “oh god, am I being a bit American?” We’ve been good friends for over ten years now; every time she says this to me, I can’t help but laugh. Because yes, but also the self-awareness is endearing.

We met at 5pm, picked up two giant bowls at The Salad Project. I made the mistake of ordering mine with a kale base and I couldn’t finish it, it felt like it was cutting the inside of my mouth to shreds. (Aside: just took a quick look at TikTok and Miranda Kerr tells me that spinach and kale are bad now, and that sushi has parasites???? I… I don’t want to eat venison for breakfast.)

After my overly chewy salad, J and I walked to Regent’s Park as we complained about the heat. It’s very hot in London, have you heard? The temperature has far exceeded my personality, I’m afraid. Neither of us had proper Eclipse glasses and I had seen too many ophthalmologists warning of the dangers of retinal damage to take any risks; I spent all evening terrified I would accidentally look directly at the sun, like a siren call. J showed me how to watch the shadows cast by the trees instead, to notice the tiny crescent moons caught inside them. How beautiful, I thought, and I wondered if I would have noticed if J hadn’t pointed it out, or if my subconscious would have felt slightly akilter all night, like it knew something wasn’t quite as it should be but couldn’t figure out what it was. She wondered if we could ask people to borrow their glasses and I wasn’t sure if they would be receptive to that in London. They might think she was a bit American, I joked, better not. So we sat in the eerie half-light of the eclipse, watching shapes in the shadows, surrounded by hundreds of people. All of us sitting outside, waiting to see a phenomenon, to be reminded of how magical this world can be at times when we put away our phones and we feel our feet on the ground and we let our minds settle enough to see clearly. Everyone there wanted to be awed, I think, we wanted to sit in that park and create a memory. One we will share forever, even if we do not know each other’s names, even if we will never meet again and even if we do, we will not know that we both sat in Regent’s Park that night, watching as the sun went strange.

J grabbed my hand and she said, I feel like this is going to be a moment I’ll remember for a long time. You, me, this park, these people. This sense that we are all in this together.

Was that a bit American, she asked then and I smiled at her. A little bit, I said, but I liked it.

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