'Don't tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass.'
- A. Chekov

Words, words, words... dancing in my head. One side of the mind occupied with understanding all things, another busy imagining stories, yet another reined in to deal with your reality. Guess which sides are happier, and which is the one that constantly rebels against the task?

I would truly hate to be writing cheesy stories for the sake of it... No, I'd rather cut off both my hands. Each must have a deeper point that would allow for my thoughts to be better 'digested' by others.

It's so strange... every time I think of one of the stories I have in mind, I realise that each bears its own main struggles in terms of writing it. One I am still unable to write the right introduction and first chapter, yet most of the story itself was flowing almost painlessly out of my head... but without a first chapter, you might as well kill the story as a whole, in a way. Another story brings about the greater difficulty of thorough research and language style. With yet another, I have no difficulty writing the beginning, but get stumped with the 'heart' of the story itself, or rather the structure that should be used for it (because of jumps in the timeline within the story), etc, etc...

Then there is the issue of me getting lost in my own head, seeing stories like a movie, and every time I 'watch' them, more intricate detail is added in layers... But it makes it too easy to just keep watching while forgetting to write.

I'm not worried though, for I experienced how it felt when the time was right for a story to come out at least in a draft form... when the idea has matured enough in my head, it seems that I am quite capable of complete dedication to the task.

Words, words, words...

Once upon a tide
Washing over my life,
The breathing ocean
That knew no boundaries

Stretches over the land
Drenched in sorrows forgotten
In the pit of the mouth of hell
Opened one day, and only by chance

When all was blind and withered,
And only tears came out from a single eye
On the forehead of Time fleeing
The senseless rule of Man.

20/02/2011

It's a quiet Sunday afternoon. A cool, almost freezing wind keeps swirling into the room through the window I keep open even though my whole body is numbed by the coldness.

Lost as I am in deep thought, I delve into the intense swelling waves of emotions that keep rolling along the shores of my whole being. Earlier, I went to make myself a cup of tea and went back into my room... my feet took me to the window, and as I stood there blankly looking out at the grey and overcast horizon, I caught a glimpse of two men by the building's large rubbish bins in one corner of the parking lot. I gazed down at them with sudden interest and watched as they seemed to be looking for something inside the bins. First I took in the men's appearance... They were wearing caps so that from where I was standing I could never really see their faces clearly, but they looked rather young, no more than 30. One of them retrieved a large bag from the bin and found in it many electrical cords and other discarted battery leads, which he proceeded to shove into his own backpack. The other man was busy looking into the other bin... sifting through all the rubbish in a very expert way, at times throwing something of interest to his friend who would swiftly shove it inside his backpack.

Scavengers of modern times, I thought to myself as I observed the two men from the window... I grew so fascinated by the scene that I forgot everything else as I watched them carry on their scavenging expedition.

At some point, one of them found discarted bright yellow vests council as well as construction workers often use when working outside. The first thing the man did was check the pockets, of course. As they were empty, he threw them aside... and then hesitated for a second or two before pulling one of them back to him to try it on. I watched that man try on the bright yellow vest just the same way people do in a clothing store. He seemed happy with it because he kept it on and then threw the other vest at his friend, who proceeded to try it on as well. Suddenly, they no longer looked so obvious as scavengers... and people who passed them by no longer threw puzzled glances at them. No, they simply thought they must be workers of some sort because of the yellow vests, you see.

I grew so fascinated by what I was watching that I didn't even hear my mother come into my room. Standing at the threshold she said: "What are you looking at so intently, hmm?"
I just smiled back at her and said: "I'm watching these two men taking stuff out of the bins, it's fascinating." My mother gave me a perplexed look, but soon enough she was standing next to me to have a glance herself... and at once she, too, was watching them as they carried on exploring what they could salvage from others' discarted things. It went on for a while, and then the two men picked up their bulging backpacks before disappearing as suddenly as they'd appeared.

They left no mess behind, careful to put everything back as it was, and truly no one could have known they'd ever been near those bins.

Another thing that shocked me although it shouldn't really surprise me... it's the amount of stuff people just throw away even though it probably could be fixed easily. Some things even looked brand new, but I guess people keep throwing stuff out to make room for 'newer' things. And then looking at these two scavengers working so seamlessly as a team reminded me of the natural order or chain of nature... In nature, you get the hunter-type of animal that will catch the prey, eat what it needs from it and discart the rest while other animals then come into the picture to finish off the rest, etc... In the case of human beings, it seems that we have our very own food chain within the species itself. Or something of the sort...

It seemed so stupid to me that apparently it's illegal to take things out of people's bins. I mean, why not? If you choose to throw things out, and if others could still have use of them in some ways, then why not allow for it? No... apparently it's not proper to allow for that because for some reason you have a 'right' to own your own rubbish till it's collected by 'officials' or something...

I had found this old audio tape with cartoon songs the other day, which my mother had saved for 'posterity' along with my slight speech 'impediment' many children have at a young age... and as I was reminded of all things past, today I remembered that the first ever 'pop' song I really liked was this one.(It starts with a little 'story').

The song, from a French singer called Mylene Farmer and entitled 'Pourvu qu'elles soient douces', was a very daring one for the times (mid-80's). I was exactly 4 years old. I was absolutely mesmerised by the video... but of course the one I just linked to You Tube is the extended, uncensored version... the one I used to be able to watch on TV was the censored one, but I clearly remember the officer using his whip to uncover the girl's bottom. And everyt time I heard the music starting on TV, I would run into the living room to watch it... I was like that little boy peering inside the tent, I guess. I was only 4 years old, and I had no notion of sex or desire, but this one song along with its clip resonated in me from the start, I just had no idea why. It just felt so... sensual and erotic, without understanding why.
I'll be honest and let you know that even though I was only a tiny child at the time, I remember strikingly feeling things in my body... the key difference here is that I had no notion of what it meant.

Today, I can go on wikipedia and learn about what that song really was about, and then I have to laugh at the thought that in the household I happened to grow up in, it was quite okay to call me every time the clip came on TV (the censored version, obviously). but this one song... it was the first ever modern song I listened to and actually really liked.

Apart from that, I was also listening to the Batman Begins soundtrack today... especially this track, but it has to be listened to from start to finish. This one track actually happened to suit my mood perfectly today, especially the softer passages.

13/02/2011

I guess I will never understand that paradox within me... how much pain I can endure while at the same time, I already know the taste of everything that is most peaceful and loving.

I knew it was a 'mistake' to allow for my being to take in the scent of this person... but could I prevent it? No, I couldn't. Do I regret it? No, never. Not in a million years. But does it hurt? Yes, it does. Why? Because if I never see him again, I shall spend the rest of my life looking for that exact same scent.

Does it matter? No, it doesn't, for I am only a drop in this vast ocean of life. I always knew this from the start, you see.

Is it ridiculous, or funny? Yes, it must be.. go ahead and laugh your head off, but to me it was very real. It was more real than this reality that dictates everything. It was unique, and it was mine.

And I never want to hear about things ending, because in my heart of hearts I already know that everything meaningful never dies. It just never dies. It cannot die, because something happens deep within, and though I cannot tell you what it is that happens exactly, I just know that it happens, and it can never die.

These moments we share, that is all that we have. And I promise you from the deepest of my heart that they can never die.

You can lose everything, and yes, everything does come to pass... but not those moments.

Never.

Feeling so intensely that I have no words... You know emotions are running high when tears sting your eyes, but your lips are still smiling. Overwhelmed as I am by the intensity I feel within me... how can one even attempt to describe the might of a neverending swelling wave only the heart can see?

The touch of a hand, but not any hand...
Stolen moments only your heart can retrieve...
Images solely engraved in memory...
Each of your five senses remembering... a touch, a scent, a sound, a sight, a taste...

08/02/2011

I had a night plagued with strange dreams… In the first one, I was in Paris, walking past my old music school or conservatoire. I wasn't alone, there was someone else with me, and I offered to have a look inside just to see how much it had changed in all the years that had passed. As we walked in, the main hall was exactly as I still remember it, crowded with parents and children, and dark walls covered in sheets of paper with lists of names and exam grades. I remember taking the person's hand and we ventured all the way to the upper floor where the teaching of theory used to take place. My focus in the dream by then shifted on how it felt to be holding someone else's hand, and I literally focused on every single sensation and feeling that gesture evoked in me... and then the dream morphed into a completely different one.

In that next dream, I was standing by large bay windows with a view on the sea in the distance, and I was watching massive waves swell upwards only to collapse on themselves and swell up again. The thought “These waves must be great for surfing” came to mind… and then I decided to explore the place by going up on the roof, and when I got there, I was blinded by a strong sunshine and very hazy blue skies… And in the near distance stood the Empire State Building without a doubt. I had again a camera around my neck, but this time the sun was so strong that I wasn’t sure if I would be able to take a good picture of the vista.
The light was just bouncing off the pure white stone of the roof terrace on which I was standing, making it shimmer like diamond dust.

After that, another dream started, but this time I wasn’t in that dream, I was watching the dream like a movie. I barely remember it, but it was about a guy who convinced 3 people to follow him to become movie stars or something, so they went with him and he turned out to be some sort of psychopath who broke their faces with horrible things I don’t even know how to call them - I remember shifting violently as I saw him about to stick something in each eye. All I really saw was the people’s faces covered with a piece of cloth as he broke every bone. Then a friend of the man came over to check up on what was going on, and it became clear that he, too, believed that the man was supposed to help them become movie stars and when he heard that he’d broken their faces, he said something like “My god, you went too far!”… but then the three people walked into the room looking so beautiful and happy… completely oblivious to the pain they must have gone through.

Then came the last dream of the night… In this one, I went shopping to buy a red plastic bucket ( strangely looking like one kids use to build sand castles) and I remember feeling so relieved to find that there was one left on the shelves… So I bought the bucket and then found myself watching a movie in the cinema. I have no recollection of what I was watching, but right at the end of it, just as everyone was starting to leave, a very old lady who looked like the bloody Queen started talking to me about how good the play was, and I remember thinking: “it wasn’t a play… it was a movie.” At the same time, I was silently wondering if she really wasn't the Queen, but I couldn't be sure, so I kept the doubt to myself. I smiled at her politely and made my way out when I realised I’d forgotten my red bucket, so I went back to my seat to pick it up. It was right there on the floor and I remember feeling relieved that it was still there. The old lady was still there as well, smiling at me and trying to make small talk with me. She seemed to have no intention to leave the auditorium and I remember just standing there with my red bucket in hand, listening to her. Then everything went hazy...

Some eventful night I had, eh.

The fragility of life is witnessed in death.

Last week, I went to help my mother out with a job in a flat in a posh part of London. It was the first time I 'visited' that appartment... of a middle-aged man working for a big company and whose job involved a lot of jet-setting in various countries. As usual when entering the space of others, I observed around me and tried to catch a glimpse of their lives without ever meeting the people themselves.

His appartment was one of those that looked like the picture perfect of a letting agency's magazine. It was so spotless and polished, and ordered, that it just didn't really feel like real people lived there at all. There were large Persian rugs covering the wide, open spaced living room. Even the bedrooms appeared so impersonal, with no pictures to be seen anywhere, and bare, pristine white walls. The shelves were full of trinkets collected in the various countries he'd probably visited along the way, and there were a few paintings adorning the corridors.

I said to my mother: "You can really tell the guy barely ever spends time in his flat," and that's when she informed me that he was always travelling on business.

I ended up spending several hours in that home, looking around me as I did little chores. At some point I went into the kitchen to make myself some coffee. You could tell the man liked his wine and his taste didn't look bad, either. I smiled when I saw the bottle of Porto next to the wine, just because I had tried it not so long ago.

This afternoon, my mother called me to let me know she would no longer need my help for this place. She received a call in the morning informing her that the man in question has died. He was on a private jet, and that jet crashed sometime last week. Yet a mere couple of days earlier, my mother had been talking to him on the phone. And now he is dead.

07/02/2011

A cool, windy Monday morning in the world... watching the kids play in the school playground right outside my window. These kids have so many toys available to them in that school. They have these little wooden houses to hide in, footballs, skipping ropes, and all sorts of toys they can pick up from a giant colored chest in a corner to play with... they even have a gardening patch in one corner and I'm just watching 5 year-olds watering some sort of shrub.

We never had anything back in my own days. There was just one massive playground with a football pitch and I'm not even sure if we were allowed to play ball outside of sports classes. We used to bring our own 'toys' though, like skipping ropes. The old game that is still in vogue in most primary schools has to be the one where kids hold one end of the skipping rope each while a third one skips over it time and time again. Well, that was a girls' game, really. You would never catch a boy play it or else he would probably be bullied by the other boys laughing at him for playing a 'girly' game.

I remember rarely joining in for such games; instead, I prefered to invent a story or adventure and then cast members of my crew to play it, much like a role playing game. I was always the heroine, obviously... The one I remember strikingly was called 'Super Star', but it sounds way cooler in French ("super etoile") where there isn't the double meaning to the world 'star' as you have in English. I mean, 'star' can now mean a star in the nightsky, or a celebrity of some sort... My meaning of star was of course attached to the nightsky - etoile.

Super Etoile was the name of the heroine, a girl from another world who had landed on Earth and was trying to escape some dangerous creatures who wanted to prevent her from getting back to her world and steal her powers. I remember how I actually pretended that I had read the story in a book when really I was making it up as we went along... I knew that if I had just said 'hey, let's play a game I invented', the kids would be instantly put off by it, but as soon as you validated your idea by saying 'hey, I read this really fun story', then suddenly everyone wanted to play it. I was really good at making stuff up, especially when dealing with gullible people who just take your word for it without much questioning. I was under 8 years old at the time for sure, because once I turned 8, everything changed when the teachers began to bully me. But right before that, I used to come up with all sorts of games and I was kind of playing the part of the ring leader... the boss?

I had so little understanding of the outside world's 'rules' and lived so much in my own fantasy world that apparently I spent my time feeding my imagination picking ideas from what I was observing around me and that happened to please me for some unfathomable reason. At a very young age, the one thing that seemed to have a lot of influence on me was without a doubt television and all the cartoons and movies for children I was watching. I think for a long time I actually believed that what they showed you on TV was an exact version or copy of how it worked in reality. It's the contrast between idealised or cliche visions they depicted in movies, and the reality I lived in, that disturbed me greatly at first.

When I was around 4 years old, I apparently loved to watch Little House on TV, mainly because it presented such a different version of the 'family' from mine. There was a father and mother, and several siblings, and they all loved one another so much, blah blah blah... It kind of appealed to my budding idealistic side, I suppose. When I noticed that they used to pray at the table, I decided to re-enact the habit in my own reality. So... I would go for lunch at school and I would start praying at the table and telling the kids to follow my lead... The issue was that French schools are secular and you are not allowed to express any religious faith inside them. The funny thing was that my 'praying' had nothing to do with religion... I was just re-enacting what I'd seen in that TV series without understanding the religious side of it at all... but the school took it very seriously when I refused to stop doing it and even called my mother to talk to her about it. When she learned what I'd been doing, she was shocked. She had to assure the teachers that really, I wasn't being brought up in any religious manner whatsoever, but that I probably picked up the idea from something I'd watched. After that, she explained to me why I couldn't just pray at the table for the sake of it at school, and I stopped doing it. Mind you, I'm sure that by then I had other things to try that rubbed a few feathers the wrong way, especially with the adults.

All this often leads me to feel like a different person from the one I started off as... When I look at pictures of myself aged under 8, it's like staring at a completely different version of I. It leads me to try and imagine how that little girl would have turned out to be if it weren't for life's circumstances coming into play so strongly that they forced a completely different way of shaping my self. But... would that original, untouched version of I have been better? I was too strong, too fierce and ruthless, in a way, caught up in my own vision of things and perhaps today that version of I would be extremely successful in some field or other, but it may have lacked in humanity. It's hard to say, really... One can only vaguely conjecture, here. The fact remains that as a rule of thumb, what we start off as is too often replaced by a variant of our self, and I wonder what happens when someone such as myself, begins the journey of incorporating the original version of I back into the one shaped by circumstances and society's influences.