My writing is cyclical. There are years where I can write daily, and quite a bit too. Other years, the well runs dry. Sometimes I go back and edit all the dross I create, others, I simply can’t muster enough courage to read what I write.

Once I finished a second novel for a Nanowrimo, I felt depleted. It was physically taxing, as the (still unfinished PhD) work took most of my day, so I had to write late at night. It was emotionally draining, because it helped get a lot of shit out of my head.

I still had Sloucher coverage to do the years after, but I still wanted to flex the creative writing muscles instead of science by day, music journalism by night.

So I started doing physical zines and either give away or sell for cheap, while still keeping enough earnings for at least all materials be paid for. Out of several short stories, I managed to get a small novella about a dude and five decades of his life. Starts in the 70s, finishes in the 2020s. One particular chapter is focused about his childhood crush getting married and the conversation they have a few days before her marriage (to someone else).

One of the topics is breakup songs and she asks him to cite five break up songs. One of them is Don Henley’s Boys of Summer, a song I’ve loved since I first heard it as a kid. I based that episode on a conversation I had with a friend (Lili) at The Wick at Both Ends, in Sheffield. She was getting married soon and she was leaving Sheffield for Monterrey, where she was from. So she had a month to do all the things she couldn’t during her intense course. We went to concerts, to Club60, and walking.

Anyways, that night, at The Wick at Both Ends, we were having cocktails and talking about life in general. She was a week or so from leaving, and she loved England, so the conversation was a little gloomy. She was wearing her engagement ring, and we ordered this fancy drink, lilac in colour. When the glasses arrived, fake plastic wedding rings adorned both our drinks. We laughed, because they probably thought we were marrying each other.

I took the ring and held it for a moment. Just earlier that year I had to return one to a shop in Sheffield, as I’d broken up with someone I thought I was going to marry. I took a bit of loss in money due to exchange rates (I paid with a Mexican credit card) and Lili sighed.

“There’ll be someone else” she said, then raised her glass. I clinked and we proceed to get with the drinking.

Boys of Summer wasn’t a particularly well-loved track in England due to the Eagles notorious bad reputation and ego. Still, the Eagles never stopped being popular-ish here in Mexico and I’m sure I’ve heard their music in public transport as much as I’ve heard The Doors, but never as much as The Beatles.

That particular novella I wrote with Boys of Summer as a running theme is a piece of writing I actually enjoy re-reading. My dad was quite happy with it, and one friend from the music scene remarked that he didn’t think I had it in me to write like that. I’ll take it as a compliment!

I think that looking back and forward from Boys of Summer is what always had me. There’s a strong nostalgia and yearning in the song, but still a certain amount of affirmation there, hidden between the beautiful synth line and the occasional smattering of guitar.

-Sam J. Valdés López