I used to be so inured to travel. To the perfected ritual of the at-capacity carry-on bag; the rolled-up T-shirts and miniature toiletries. The iPhone wallet full of QR codes; the Uber to the station to the terminal. The petty indignities of planes, trains, and automobiles; movement as fundamentally unremarkable.
But after months of lockdown, leaving the confines of home felt like stepping into pure technicolor. It is only one hour to Lewes from London by train, but it might as well have been transatlantic. Did the fields flanking the tracks always used to be so green? Did sunlight through the windows always melt so deliciously on bared arms? It was enough just to sit there with headphones on and to have a body in forward motion; to fall out of my orbit and have the rest of the world rush up to meet me.
That wonder stayed with me as I walked into town with my friend Doreen Joy Barber and watched seagulls wheeling over Harvey’s Brewery, a fortress above the river. It followed me to Burning Sky Brewery, where founder Mark Tranter poured my friend Matt Curtis and me glasses of the new Cuvée Reserve. The annual release is normally a blend of the brewery’s own Saison à la Provision with Lambic from Girardin in Belgium, but that overseas addition wasn’t possible for the 2021 edition. The brewery describes the resulting beer as poignant, but I felt a reacquaintance with small joy as it was poured for me, the novelty of drinking something previously unknown with friends not seen in months or years.
In between wandering into the barrel store and watching a forklift on its trundling mission out front, I walked across the road to where a small church stood during a quiet moment. The grass outside was knee-high and buzzing with bees, but inside all was dark and cool, except for the stained-glass windows that burned red and gold. I am not a religious person, but I couldn’t resist lingering for a while in the incense-scented interior, feeling pleasure in solitude once again. Eventually, though, it was time to plunge back into the blazing world, to find my friends and open one more bottle with them.
