Tomato Avocado Basil Salad, Geum Jeong-yeon's Dazzled by Memory

20210920, #breakfastdiary 216, 23°C/occasionally cloudy Leftover chicken breast sausage from the fridge, tomato, avocado, and the prettiest basil in the world, with lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper #tomatoavocadobasilsalad Barthes, who was famously sensitive to weather, said in his final year of lectures at the Collège de France that weather is like the very essence of life and memory. Weather is a kind of blank state, a meaninglessness that lets us communicate and make contact with one another — and precisely because of that, it can hold subtle nuances words can't capture, or so the idea goes. Put another way, it may be weather itself that produces those delicate nuances. Thanks to COVID-19 (in this case 'thanks to' really is the right phrase, not 'because of'), September 2021 has brought us the clearest autumn skies imaginable. Instagram is flooded with photos of sky and clouds. Sitting beneath a persimmon tree, I imagine sunlight occasionally falling on my forehead, carried by a gentle breeze. I think I understand now why weather is the essence of life and memory.