‘House party season?’

‘From Brockwell to Berkeley’ is an ongoing series of snapshots from life on opposite sides of the Atlantic. It’s written by two close friends: Hannah (who moved from London to California in August 2020 to study overseas) and Jaleh (who remains in London).

I keep dreaming of house parties. As a cry from my subconscious, it’s hard to ignore. It turns out that in times of crisis my shallow desires strut to the forefront of my mind and stay there, like glamorous but unwanted houseguests. In these recurring dreams, I wear a glittering choker that reads ‘PRINCESS’ in fake crystals. Brattiness has never seemed so beatific.

I’m desperate for some recklessness, and I’ve started seeing it wherever I go (which isn’t far). Spring flowers are out in Ruskin Park, and they flaunt their colours with an audacity that would be outrageous if it wasn’t so uplifting: crocuses in royal purple, snowdrops in defiant little clusters, daffodils puckering their petals like they’re leaning in for a kiss on the cheek.

The sun is out, and even that feels like an invitation. Warmth spells possibility. Yesterday, for the first time this year, I had the windows open in the evening. The first scent of spring stretched itself out into the room, soft and slinky — almost feline. It was the suggestion that struck me more than anything, the quiet promises it made: afternoons in the park, tanned skin, a new pair of sunglasses. It wasn’t much, but it was still the most heady I’ve felt on a Friday night for months.

Thoughts of summer aside, I’m still craving a house party most of all. A real house party, where each room has a different mood and you drift hazily between them — pleasingly unsteady on your feet, pulled into various conversations like a tipsy buoy bobbing about on the tide. Bottle caps pressed into the carpet so that it resembles a delinquent flower-press. The smell of perfume and crushed limes. All the furniture pushed off to one side to accommodate the makeshift dance floor, so that a lamp and a coffee table huddle together like two awkward guests. Also, actual awkward guests. I would happily eat a whole crushed lime for the chance to say, “And how do you know the host?”

I want to take hours getting ready, with my makeup getting sloppier but seeming more sophisticated the more sips I take. I want to leave lipgloss marks on the glass. I want to take embarrassing, raucous videos on my phone and wake up cringing to them the next morning. I want to dance. I want to be told secrets, spilling out with the wine. I want to sing along incoherently to a song I vaguely know, and be unembarrassed because everyone around me is doing the same.

I want to get stuck in a conversation with people I can’t stand, and be saved by a familiar hand slipped around my waist. I want to dance some more. I want to make a bagel at 4am and feel smug that I didn’t spend money on chips on the way home. I want to spend money on chips on the way home and even more on a whole bottle of ketchup from the 24-hour corner shop, spurred on by the single-mindedness of the salt-driven drunk — because there’s never enough sauce in those ridiculous little sachets.

I don’t really want to wake up the next morning with the headache and the mossy feel in the mouth — but I would happily do so, for a night of freedom and over-indulgence. There’s a lot of talk about a rerun of the Roaring Twenties. We’ll be in our twenties in the Twenties — the stars will align, sparkling with possibility. Just like the faux diamonds on that ‘PRINCESS’ necklace.

Read the rest of the posts in ‘From Brockwell to Berkeley’ .

Originally published at http://jalehbrazell.wordpress.com on February 27, 2021.