Last day of summer reading Jane Eyre

22/09/25

The last day of summer.

I naturally woke at 8am. I found myself avoiding the duties of the day from the start, even tasks I enjoy, such as writing - something I love to do is avoid something I love, and it’ll never make sense to me as to why. I was either blessed or cursed with various interests, passions, moods, disciplines.

After experiencing writer’s block this morning (rare for a girl who never shuts up), I realised I write best ritually at night under candlelight. Staring at blank pages uninspired, I turned to Charlotte Brontë for inspiration. I left my desk for my bed and picked up my second-hand copy of Jane Eyre along the way, which cost no more than a pound from a charity shop. It’s a bright autumn morning, I sit on my bed to read. The sun beams through my windows trying to catch my attention, the warm glow coating my skin. If there’s one thing that helps me feel present, it’s a book in my hands and sun on my skin. This must be how animals feel lying on that one patch of sunlight on the floor: there’s just something about the sun and other forms of life searching for each other and resting in union.

The clouds do not interrupt our union, ensuring my skin and the rays can continue an ancient conversation. Moving from west to east, as the morning transforms into noon, sun beams begin to extract themselves from my window frame one by one and the hairs on my arms respond to the arrival of the brisk chill that entered my room.

I am acquainted well with the seasons, the annual cycle of time, knowing they come and go, excited for some and trying to escape others. But the last day of summer feels melancholic, I feel distraught parting ways; knowing we’ll meet again in months to come, but in that time I will be changed. Saying goodbye to another season is just another way of parting with the current version of myself.

The sun and the moon are the only loyal friends I have, they always return to me in cycles and in phases, I follow their rhythm in deep trust as they are the only Gods I have seen with my own eyes. Seasons are distant friends I miss too much and quickly forget their temperature until they abruptly arrive on my doorstep again.

I say farewell to the current version of myself that sat still on green grass drinking matcha with a lover who doesn’t call anymore. I spent the early hours mourning narratives on pages I have turned and can’t read again. Before a tear could fall, the summer sunlight and the autumnal chill held hands and greeted me at my window, like divorced parents who can only remain in each other’s company for a short time.

Summer kissed my forehand and moved behind clouds, taking what I know as ‘myself’ with it, knowing the autumn equinox will change me, already pleading to instil its wisdom in me to guide me to future stages, on this continuous journey towards my higher self, or my true self - whatever it is I’m searching for within, from what currently exists to idolised figments of my imagination.

It’s evident that I have been reading Charlotte Brontë as my sentences are longer than usual. When I write, a voice in my head often says “okay wrap it up… this is too long… who even cares?” I am just a product of my environment, with decreased attention spans.

When I first started reading Jane Eyre, I remember telling my friend how difficult it was to read classic literature after spending years on the internet engaging with ‘short form’ content, even as an avid reader in my teenage years. We laughed as I questioned why Charlotte Brontë needed to describe Jane Eyre sitting at a windowsill, in her play room, reading a book she loved for over three pages. And yet, here I am, sitting next to my large, arched window, reading a book and describing how this feels in great detail to people on the internet.

As I reside on Yorkshire land, in the same county as Charlotte Brontë did in the 1840s when she wrote and published Jane Eyre, we both wanted to tell someone how it felt to sit at a windowsill to read a book. Like an animal that rests on a patch of sunlight that snook its way into the room, perhaps a tale as old as time is a girl reading at her window, trying to find pieces of herself in someone else’s words.

My second-hand copy of Jane Eyre.