Cernée

I bought a few things at my favorite café the other day. As I was walking out, Laurent, so sweet, handed me something, the sweetest something, as I walked out the door. I got back into the car with my bag of stuff and a tin full of my favorite chocolate covered almonds.

Boy2 - Are those chocolates? Those look like chocolates. Are they Mama?

Me - Yes. And no, you may not have any.

Boy2 - What? Why? You share everything with us, you always let us taste your food and you always let us have the chocolate you get when you have a coffee.

Me - Because you've got bags of Easter chocolate to eat, you don't need anymore and these are my favorites, not yours, you won't feel about them the way I do. These chocolates need to be loved.

Boy2 starts laughing.

Boy1 has known me for 3 years more than Boy2.

Boy1 - Um, I'm afraid she's not joking.

Ride with me

Circumstances introduced you to him a long time a ago, probably when you were very young, maybe 8 or 9 years old. Do you remember the first time? You felt unfamiliar to yourself in his presence, laden as well, an electric blanket upon you that someone forgot to turn off.

He has visited you over the years, never invited and never really welcome, like your other dark companions. You thought he left between visits, really left you. You never realized he had a home, your basement was full of other shadowed friends.

You are lucky, he is not your darkest companion, distress. You have another, the darkest of all, who has also been with you for years, forever actually, part of your birthright - how odd is that? An obscured passenger, waiting to lead the way.

You will let him one day, you know that now. You will let your decisions be guided by the one who lives only in the shadows and sees truth in the dark.

Come what may.

Opera Red

A whisper should be felt, not just heard. It should be that close.

When it's not, for whatever reason, when it's just an ear-tease, when it isn't given the possibility to be what it was always meant to be, you eventually stop listening, stop believing. You no longer believe the words because their integrity is in the touch, they must be felt. And you no longer believe that touch will eventually reach you. So you give up. Not because it will have any effect - it won't - but because there's simply nothing worse than wanting and waiting and expecting what you will never have.

Unfortunately, it does not end there.

Some things don't ever fade. You just find a better place to store them. Somewhere that closets the intensity you cannot bear to witness and never touch. Nothing is waterproof, however. That intensity, that opera red, will seep out sometimes, making you think you're bleeding out, from inside your insides.

Kisses

I don't kiss the boys on the mouth. Never really have. Not because I feel any particular way about it but more because of the way other people feel about it. Yes, I realize how silly that is as I write it.

Anyway, in France (sweeping generalization ahead), the vast majority of families don't kiss each other on the mouth, aside from the spouses, obviously. It was never anything I had really thought about until I moved here and French people asked me about it sometimes. Hey, Nicole, do people REALLY kiss other family members on the mouth like they do in American movies?

Kissing here is different, it's true. There's the whole ritual of la bise, you know, the kissing on both cheeks thing. Which is the standard greeting between all children and adults, women with women, women with men, and some men with men, depending on the relationship - family members yes, friends will more likely get a handshake.

At school, most of the children, even the boys who are trying to be very non-nonchalant about their mothers (WHICH INCLUDES BOY1) give one kiss to them when they arrive to pick them up. Despite the fact that this was not necessairly customary for me, when Boy1 told me to 'lay off the love stuff' when I picked him up from school (and by that he meant hugs), I decided it was better than nothing. So now I get a polite peck on the cheek. Thankfully, Boy2 is still young enough to care more about getting a hug from me than being cool while his friends are around.

Back to the kissing on the mouth thing. It's generally, even by children, considered to be a kiss reserved for people in a romantic relationship. Once, Boy2 turned his head as I was giving him a kiss on the cheek and he laughed and said, "Ooohhh, we kissed on the mouth."

So, the other day Boy2 actually asked me if we could kiss on the mouth. I said no, some families, mostly in other countries, kiss each other on the mouth but that we weren't that kind of family. His reply, "Let's be that kind of family." I said no again. His last attempt, "How about we let eeny, meeny, miny, moe decide?"

Earth of fire

The lock on my garage door is odd. You have turn the key away from the lock in order to lock it. It's completely counter-intuitive. It's not at all what you want to do. I've been locking and unlocking that door for years and it still hits me every time that it's very illogical.

We don't always get to do what we want to do. Does it sound like I'm stating the obvious? I'm not.

So what do you do when unlocking the door means turning the key towards the lock? What do you do when you can't do what your intuition tells you to do? When the creases in your soul are yelling at you to do something other than what you absolutely must do? I'm no longer talking about garage doors.

I don't know.

I suspect you try to unfold your soul, unfold it all, and take a look at what has gathered in those pleats. A story lies there.

Lâcher prise

Lâcher - to let go

Prise - a hold, a grip

I wish I had more grace.  I wish I knew more about history.  I wish I learned lessons more easily.  I wish I were more serene.  I wish I knew what I am supposed to be doing.  I wish I didn't use self-destruction as a coping mechanism.  I wish I drank more tea and less coffee.  I wish I had more tools in my tool box.  

I had a dream the other day in which I jumped off a beautiful cliff.  I didn't hesitate, I just jumped and wondered if I would be afraid.  I wasn't.  It felt amazing.  I felt relieved and free.  It wasn't a suicide jump, it was a lâcher prise.  It was a hold I let go of.   

Question of the day:  when was the last time you let go of your hold?

Tried and true

Tests, by nature, are designed to reveal.   Level, rank, resources.  Character, motivation, determination.    

I took a class in graduate school  - testing theory.  Not that it has helped me in real life.  My tests are never fair and the grading scale is harsh and no one ever seems to have the proper test taking skills.  

So I've revised my methodology.   The tests are over.  It's now trial by fire.

Question for the day:  when was the last time you were tested?

Well I never

Someone actually called me capricious this weekend.

Capricious? Come on. Whimsical, maybe. Occasionally unpredictable, and even that's a stretch, because, really, if you know someone really well, are they ever? But capricious?

I was hoping it was a language thing, the capricious flavored mud was slung in French. Slung, is really the past participle of the verb to sling? Sling, slang, slung?

Anyway, back to not being capricious. I asked for clarifications and just got more mud, it means the same thing in French as in English. Governed by caprice. Willfulness, whims, vagaries. It just got worse as it went on.

Given my reaction, there was a vague attempt at sugar coating the mud.

Apparently, I wear my capriciousness very well.

And not only that, but she also refuses to get undressed

Yesterday I had my second visit at the office of La Médecine du Travail. If you work in France, theoretically, at some point, you're supposed to be seen by a doctor working at the Work Medicine Office. The idea being that some people don't take care of themselves and if you integrate a medical visit into professional life, more people will get regular check-ups. There are also those high pressure jobs where stress can have major effects on health and then very high-risk or physical jobs where physical condition is important.

I teach English. You can see where I'm going with this.

For my first visit, two years ago, I didn't know what to expect and I just kind of went along with everything.

But not this time.

I walked in and gave my name. The receptionist asked me if I had brought some urine in with me. I hadn't. She asked me if I would like to urinate in a cup for her. I wouldn't. She stared. I waited. She asked why. I said that I had already urinated in a cup once for my GP this year and once for my gynecologist this year and I thought that was just about enough urinating in cups for me. She showed me to the doctor's office.

A very nice doctor. She asked me if she had had any health problems since my last visit two years ago. She. As in me, but in the third person. I know I'm a princess and all regal and everything but I was surprised by the royal we. This continued while she asked me about smoking, exercise and work problems. I kept my repsonses monosyllabic to avoid saying, "No, she doesn't and yes she does and no she deosn't."

Then she asked me to get undressed. Now, I'm all for getting undressed when the situation calls for it. But this just didn't seem like one of those situations. Why did I need to be in panties and a bra in order for it to be determined that I'm physcially apt to teach English?

So I said no. She looked at me oddly and offered possible explanations as to why I wouldn't want to do that (period? prude?). It wasn't either of those, I really just didn't feel like it and didn't see the point. She huffed and puffed and pushed up my sleeve to take my blood pressure, listened to my heart through my t-shirt, and pushed my pant leg up to see if I had puffy ankles.

Before you go thinking that I'm a royal pain in the ass, I swear I'm not. You get no gown here, no privacy while you undress, you just stand there and do your strip tease while the doctor watches. And sometimes, especially when there's no music, you just don't feel like it.

On needing sweetness

So I went to the bakery yesterday to get some bread. I started off something like this, "Eh, I'll have a loaf of spelt bread, sliced, don't close the bag please." Because they always use these little tapey, plasticy, wrapy things that I can't ever get off without ripping the bag. And since the boys and I never finish a loaf in one sitting, I like for the bag to remain intact. And since the boys are gone for the week, who knows how long that loaf of bread will last me. I'll end up using most of it to make garlic croutons, I suspect. Or maybe I'll stuff something for Easter dinner.

Back to the bakery, while she (baker's wife) is slicing and not closing bags, I'm looking around, and there's a guy behind me looking at me looking around, probably thinking, I'd really like to get my bread today lady. And she asks the question, "Anything else?" Well, maybe it's being without the boys for a week or maybe it's something else absent from my life but all I could think was YES! many things else.

So, that one loaf of bread was followed by an, "Um, maybe 100 grams of assorted chocolates? Dark only, please."

Observing man shifted to the other foot. "Anything else?"

Why did she keep asking me that? It just seemed rude to stop. "Well, maybe 50 grams of nougat - almonds and dried cherries."

Observing man shifts again. I look back at him and say, "Why don't you go ahead and get your bread, I may be here for a while."

He smiled and said, "No, no, please, take your time." I thought about telling him that his body language disagreed heartily with his spoken language, but you know, this is France and the men like to be gallant.

"And maybe that mini tarte tatin."

"And actually, I'll take that last mini kougaloff too."

"Are those chocolate covered almonds made here? Oh, well then, 100 grams of those too."

Polite, observing, foot-shifting man said, "Bon appétit," as I walked out the door.

Night blue

You think, for a time, that a brief séjour in the basement might do you some good. A salt-preserved, self-preserved time out. Your eyes get used to the artificial light, then to no light at all - lights burn out.

You keep yourself busy, you keep yourself company. You could build a whole life down here.

When you come up from this basement, and I swear you will, your hands will be full of all the things you never thought you could do. You try them out here first, in the dark, unaware that it's blue dark - the kind that speaks. You're so weary of the black dark that keeps secrets - but you're unaware of that too.

When you walk up the stairs and leave nothing behind, you will know.

That which is done in the dark is still true.

Forget-me-not blue

Find your treasure. Do it young, when you can find it instinctively, like a heat-seeking missile, no questions asked. At a time when you do not yet second guess yourself, a time limited only by the endlessness of possibilities.

If you lose it, and you probably will, isn't that what youth is also about, wait a few years before you go looking for it again, try out a few more things. Make reasonable decisions, live life in your mind and in the world constructed around all your reasoned choices.

Then remember what you're missing and find it again. But before you do, think about what that treasure really is. What you really want to do with it.

Will you open it, dig your fingers in deep and let its wealth cover your hands?

Or will you turn it into a picture so you can frame it and make it fit into your life - hang it over your lovely fireplace?

If that is your choice, you'll paint the frame blue. The blue of forget-me-nots. A silent and painful nod to what you allowed yourself to lose.

Pearl of darkness

A speck of dust, wrongly led. Usually by a shadowy friend, the lighting is very odd when it's time for a tornado. Who knows how you get a friend like that. Usually like an odd family heirloom, no one knows from where or why or how, but a presence is there now, accepted as part of the landscape.

There are those who will tell you pretty stories of an out-of-place grain of sand and a pearl, but that is not our story. Ours is a story of a speck of dust, led awry.

I do not know the physics of tornadoes, I do not know how warm and cold and high and low and wind and dust manage to dance together. But I am from the Midwest, I know the drills, I have spent time in basements. I have felt the chaotic swirl of that tornado for years, lived with its threat, its promise of destruction my darkest companion.

How have I really lived with it? I have dressed it up during the off seasons to take it out, decade and music helping me choose its accessories.

Rust of the anchor

I heard myself speak, a quiet insistent voice I did not recognize, loud only in its force. Unyielding force, but no push, just position. It sounded hoarse from the inside, its frequency having never touched the air.

It did not feel like brushed steel. Maybe tempered iron. In any case, a matrix of metals - elements I never knew belonged to me.

I cannot say I am comfortable with it, it feels more of me than mine. For now. But I do like the idea of mining, of a hidden mine manned by dedicated hands that seek not exploitation, but proper use of natural resources. Of earthy elements inside my own private earth.

Sediment

It is time to sort what you have been given, all of it. Pattern wire to do the cutting so you don't have to. Your only task is to witness the sift as it happens. There is no alchemy here, no transformation. Just the river bed and what will remain.

Make no mistake, you will be winnowed, your cooperation is not necessary. The cool current of a sigh will finish the work.

See what you can find in the remains, what you will be left with. Lick your shadow wounds, take your time. One day you will think of this as a good day.

Can I do that too?

There's a blogger scheduled outage, sometime today, I'll be sleeping, or almost because apparently all things blogger are managed on California time. Fine by me. There are a few things in life that really should be managed California style. Washington (state, not DC) too. Illinois too. Actually, I like to think that every state (both United and soul) has something it manages to do better than any other. Washington - coffee, for starters. Illinois - wild mushrooms. This funky soul state I'm currently in - hopefully blow one speck of dust off that mirror.

I would also like to add that I love the notion of a scheduled outage. I would like to schedule one myself. Just a parenthetical notation of a few hours, a day maybe, a week would be ideal but that would logistically be difficult to manage. I would take the time to look at the chips, suspended in mid-air before they fall.

If and when

I talked to one of the bad guys in my dream last night. He was really bad, pure in his essence of badness, much more convincing than in a movie. We spoke in abstract terms of my capture and conversion, which, thankfully, the dream did not make me witness. We laughed, his laughter sincere and mine not so much, about the difficulties inherent in transition and initiation. He told me that everything I had experienced up until then was just an avant-goût. A pre-taste, a before taste of what was to come. We spoke of this over cocktails in a well lit bar.

Bad guys aside, avant-goût is what remained from that dream.

What are you getting a before taste of today?

Fall back

The weather's been nice here. Upper 50's, sunny. As soon as I can, I go barefoot.

All the floors in my house are hardwood. Except the kitchen which is very cold ceramic tile. Which feels great in the summer and breath-catchingly cold in the winter. The hardwood floors are very old and very, um, rustic (read: neither waxed nor vitrified nor whatever else one does to a hardwood floor). Which means that you can only go barefoot or wear shoes or slippers in my house. Socks = many splinters.

I was upstairs yesterday, working from home, cleaning, doing whatever. I sat down at my desk and crossed my right foot over my left knee. And saw a HUGE splinter dangling from one of my toes. About a half an inch long and about as thick as an acupuncture needle. It didn't hurt, obviously, I hadn't even noticed it, who knows how long I'd walking around with it in my toe.

And isn't that just the way it happens sometimes? You walk around with this thing that you don't even know about.

What have you got that you haven't noticed?

Oddities

Four people told me they thought something strange was going on yesterday. Cosmic energies swirling about.

Julie pointed out to me how strange it was to hear a mother (me) say to her children, "Stop bickering and stop speaking French."

My favorite violet ice cream doesn't taste very good anymore. It tastes like shampoo.

Boy1 had an dental appointment this morning. Not his first. Cavities were involved. He was anxious. While we were in the waiting room I walked him through a couple of visualization exercises. When he opened his eyes he said, "Thank you, Mama. I can do this anytime I need to find my courage."

Spring forward

I spent a couple of hours in a walled garden yesterday, my back to the sun. It was a beautiful day, a promise of spring, blue sky and warm sun.

A few minutes after I sat down, I saw a butterfly. And then I watched the lizards come out of their winter hiding places and sit, like me, backs in the sun.

My winter hiding place? Cafés and wine bars. I'm not sure how that differs much from what I do when winter is over.

We haven't changed the clocks yet. So, for a few weeks, I'm an hour closer to my friends and family in the States. Can you feel it?