Crowded lanes, murky water – but the lido was the only place to be as the Earth turned

Towards the end of the year’s longest day, I joined a long queue. Happily, the line that snaked around the exterior of Brockwell lido in south London moved quickly, and before long my friends and I were inside and stripping down to our costumes to celebrate the summer solstice with a special late-evening swim in the 50-metre pool.

We didn’t stay in for long. Being surrounded by so many fellow swimmers doesn’t allow for much stretching space, and the 600-capacity slot had sold out in advance (what fun activity doesn’t, these days?), meaning the lanes were crowded. Any attempt at backstroke would have been foolish, and after a few lengths of front crawl I was put off by the unusual murkiness of the water, which was properly cloudy compared with the transparency I’m used to at my regular haunt — Charlton lido, just further east. The fogginess must have been caused by all the sun cream the pool water had rinsed off limbs, we decided, a somewhat icky reminder of all the bodies that had passed through the pool since it was last emptied.

But as the sun began its slow descent over Brixton, it felt right to be outside with hundreds of others, looking up at a sky ever-more rosy as the Earth turned. I realised I had never lived through a time when so many people I knew had plans to celebrate the solstice. That evening more than 20,000 people gathered at Stonehenge, the classic location for marking the longest day. But even in my London circle, friends were attending solstice yoga classes, a themed storytelling event in a Peckham carpark, or simply staying up to watch the sun set and then rise.

A day that previously seemed to pass like any other – at least for us city-dwellers, our bodies so unattuned to nature’s rhythms – had come to feel significant. But in an age when so much of our lives feels uncertain – the economy, politics, our safety, the weather – is it any wonder that we are looking for ways to re-earth ourselves, to seek connection with both the natural world and the people who walked on it before us?

As the British poet and author Rebecca Tamás writes in The Book of Mysteries, taking part in ancient rituals allows us to feel more rooted in our pasts and therefore ourselves, giving us more purpose. After spending the pandemic on Exmoor, where she observed – even “entered” – nature’s seasonal shifts, Tamás learned the power of giving yourself up to natural cycles above our capitalist calendars and work schedules.

Last week, as a heatwave descended on the UK and I was unable to set foot outside our fridge-like office without melting into a sweaty mess, it has felt more important than ever that we learn to live according to what the natural world is asking of us, not just pushing on ahead regardless.

So did I regret my decision to attend a gig at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts on one of the stickiest nights of the year? Perhaps. But as the Manchester-based indie band the Orielles played their noisy art-pop in the round – and in between every track guitarist Henry Carlyle Wade used a towel to mop not only his forehead but also to dry his fingers that were otherwise slipping too freely across his fretboard – I realised just how far away our systems are from being able to integrate with the climate’s unpredictability.

The fault, of course, rests with the havoc humankind has wrought on our planet. For now, a night of unconventional, independent music – and the promise of a Magnum on the walk back to the bus stop – had to do.

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Photograph by Ellen Peirson-Hagger