Ten days in Brussels, it passes quickly. Tomorrow returning to my other home. I haven’t written much about being here, mostly under a blanket of heat and humidity, like Melbourne in January but with no beach to flee to, or Adelaide without the bone-dryness.
Tonight it rained, just now, angry balls of hail, benthic thunderheads, the sky shuddering. Rain until windows were opaque, streets awash, darkness at eight in the evening and the heat blown across and out of the city on the back of the charged atmosphere.
This afternoon in the height of this swampish warmth I walked through Parc Duden and Parc Forest, my route determined by a mindless and simple switch-backing, first uphill until uphill became no more, then the next downhill until in the tree-occluded valleys of the park, almost enough to feel I was in a forest despite the grizzling penumbra of traffic. Tomorrow perhaps I will do this again. Yesterday also, though more predictable — a circle of the parks by the most distal route.
Days with Gala, last night with Paea and others, dinner and vodka with cucumber, a house on the other side of the park and then midnight or later on the grass itself. Dasniya also, the reason why I came over, to help with her workshop last weekend at Charleroi/Danses — I’ve still not written of this, and waiting for all the photos to be approved and then…
I have spent some time in Brussels now, but seldom wander it like a tourist. Well, in summer like this no one does, or at least those with any sense, and winter also, dancing on the ice. The park though has always been close, from the first time I stayed here, and the hills on this side of town give a sense of a city I feel an affinity for. Back again when? I’m not sure, but likely not too distant a time.
