Fedora Man


mercredi, le 30 septembre 2009

Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal. Drugs, alcohol, or lies. Unable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort.
~Jean Cocteau


I wanted to post something else this morning, but then this quote came up on my blog through the link I have to a site that provides daily quotes. It should not come as a huge surprise that it, as most things do, reminded me ever so much of L’homme! Again, in a Meatloaf way, I have to give to L’homme: ’Two out of three ain’t bad’. Well, that is if you don’t count cigarettes and porn as drugs - alcohol has already been accounted for. Oh my love, even through the pain, you can sometimes really make me laugh!

One of L’homme’s more endearing disguises was the Fedora. He’d wear one, come rain or shine, indoors and out, day and night. Some Fedoras he bought for himself, some I found, some he received as gifts. One of the last Fedoras I found for him, together with a beautiful white Blanc du Nil shirt, made from lovely, cool Egyptian cotton, was in Carcassonne on our trip to France last year. That day I also bought gargoyles that I have since, very ineffectively, had installed as part of a water feature in my courtyard. If I knew then what I know now? Which wouldn’t I have opted for? The gargoyles or the shirt and Fedora?

Funny thing, hindsight. But I know I wouldn’t have done anything differently. I wouldn’t have known how, then. I wouldn’t have known that I had to it differently.

I haven’t seen L’homme in his signature Fedora for quite some time. I was, however, pleased to see that his Blanc du nil shirt was still part of his wardrobe. Has he not been able to afford a new Fedora now that he is a bit cash strapped after the broads hacked his band? Or has he already got the new ’feet to stand on’ running around madly to find a new Fedora for him? One that fits just right? Who knows? The reality is that I shouldn’t care, even though I do. Funny that, always with a hat on!

Enough of L’homme, his Fedora, his escapism, his disguises. I have a deadline of my own to hunt down. In fact, this deadline went whooshing past so long ago, that I can’t even remember the sound it made.

(The way I mostly remember L’homme from our road trip through France last year. Always with his back to me, always walking away from me and I was always digitally trying to place him in my relentless chase after ‘Les plus beaux villages de France’. Always with the Fedora, often with the Blanc du nil shirt, but already creating the distance he eventually formalised. If the truth be told, I hated it when L’homme figuratively walked away from me, but physically loved watching him walk away. He has an awkward gait that I find irresistibly sexy.)

Forever Young


mardi, le 29 septembre 2009

I can unequivocally say that Forever Young is one of my most favourite Bob Dylan songs. When I heard it this morning, it brought a smile to my face and memories came tumbling out from years I had long forgotten.

Somehow I thought back to my childhood and remembered picking petals off daisies and wondering whether he loved or whether he loved me not. I didn’t realise then that this little game originated in France. I guess I should have known. I should also have known that the original version would have that inimitable French ’C’est la vie’ feeling about it.

Il m’aime un peu
Il m’aime beaucoup
Il m’aime passionnément
Il m’aime à la folie
Il m’aime pas du tout

He loves me a little
He loves me a lot
He loves me passionately
He loves me madly
He loves me not at all


I think of L’homme. I love him a lot, but he loved me not at all. C’est la vie.

For today I will follow Dylan’s words and build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rung, I will be courageous, stand upright and be strong, I will believe that when the winds of changes shift, my heart will again be joyful.

My hands were always busy, but L’hommes feet were always swift. C’est la vie.

(I knew I had taken many photographs of the many exquisite flower seller displays when L’homme and I were in Amsterdam two years ago and started flipping through my archives. I knew I had photographs of Gerbera, the daisy I used in my childhood to ponder love. This photograph was taken two years ago, to the day. How serendipitous is that? Thanks to Bonjour, Happiness for the inspiration.)

Confusing Words


lundi, le 28 septembre 2009

Conventional has never really appealed to me. Particularly not the full catastrophe of conventional with the picket fence, the luxury family sedan in the drive-way, the husband with a successful career in finance and a wardrobe full of various colours of pin-striped suits and matching comfortable, slip-on shoes. The routine of bed at ten, breakfast at seven, fish on Fridays, roast chicken on Sundays and sex under the covers with the lights out, probably on Tuesdays.

To my mind conventional means rigid, inflexible, routined, disciplined, predictable and mostly, boring. I just cannot be most of these things, it just is not me.

I grew up in a household that would probably best be described as off-conventional as opposed to unconventional. There were few rules and lots of freedom. For this I will be eternally grateful.

What attracted me to L’homme was that nothing about him was conventional. He could easily be persuaded to do things spontaneously, impulsively. When we were together, we mostly lived an unconventional life. I was happy to be the financial provider, the home maker, the gracious hostess, the holiday planner. When we lived apart we lived our unconventional lives separately, yet very close together.

I never expected an unconventional life to be easy. At least not for those who live it. I am fine with that, for I have sacrificed a lot and suffered for long and there are many levels on which I will never give in to the expected norm. None of this being easy, but being essential to the person I am.

But as the years dragged on, I realised that L’homme held up an image of being unconventional to cover up his dysfunctionality. His easy come, easy go lifestyle was not based on a fundamental understanding of himself, an essential comfort in his own skin. For many years he has been using copious amounts of booze to pretend who he is and who he is not and somehow the real L’homme fell through the cracks.

I was not hallucinating when I was led to believe that L’homme wanted to be with me, wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, and when he said these things, he knew me well. A possible part of L’homme’s dysfunction is his inability to discriminate between the person and what the person offers.

L’homme was happy with everything I offered. The money, the comfortable home, the extravagant holidays, the lavish meals, the wardrobe, the indulgence of him. I now realise that when he said he wanted to be with me, he probably meant he wanted to be with what I offered. This should hold true, because when the offerings became slim, I was no longer Rispa to him, but Nora and Timid Trudy. Funny that, as I am still me.

On the last night L’homme spoke to me before he left, in a belligerent drunken state he accused me of being insane. In fact, he hissed it at me through clenched teeth. I now very strongly suspect that the insanity he bestowed upon me then and since, is merely a projection of his own madness. Certifiable madness runs in his family. Is it in his genes too?

Oh my love, I feel so very, very sorry for you!

But at least you taught me that there is a marked difference between unconventional and dysfunctional. In my usual functional way, I will embrace an unconventional life. This may be the biggest risk I take, but this is what I have to do. I truly wish for you to step off other’s feet and to find your own.

(This is typical of how I confuse things and go against convention. The most popular Arum Lilies are the white, yellow or pink ones, gorgeously shaped like a funnel, wrapping around a yellow spadix. My favourite Arum Lilies are the black ones, with a purple spadix. Beautifully functional as flowers, yet very unconventional. When I saw these at the florist this morning, there was no way I could resist them, even though I nearly mortgaged My Mother just to have a few stems.)

The Wake of The Princess


dimanche, le 27 septembre 2009

A lazy, lazy Sunday. Catching up with some friends over the phone, watching a spot of cricket, and taking The Princess for her walk.

And as always on a Sunday, some contemplation. I read a poem by Pablo Neruda the other day that reminded me so much of L’homme. I read it again today. It fills me with melancholy.

Clenched Soul
~Pablo Neruda

We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.

I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.

Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?

The book fell that always closed at twilight
and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.

Always, always you recede through the evenings
toward the twilight erasing statues.


I walk around my house listlessly for a while. I snuggle next to The Princess on our couch to watch the end of the cricket match. My team looses and this does nothing to improve my melancholy mood. I make some lists for a busy work week to come. I decided to turn in early.

(With the sun setting behind her, The Princess retrieves her ball from the water with proud encouragement from me on the side. I sometimes think some of our fellow walkers must think that I am stark raving mad, not that they would be very wrong, but I do like to encourage The Princess enthusiastically when she retrieves her ball. In L’homme’s words and tone of voice she is always promised a biscuit.)

Market Day


samedi, le 26 septembre 2009

I can hardly believe another month has flown by! It is again last Saturday of the month Village Market Day. My Bountiful Friend is away on what I seriously suspect is a DW (Dirty Weekend) with an ex-lover, but for now she is remaining tight-lipped. So this month I make the trip on my own.

My Mother has already secured the best table in a shady spot under the trees when I arrive. She’s happily chatting to friends and as I walk up to greet her, I think what a truly remarkable woman she is.

She is 91 years old. She still drives her own car, in fact she bought a new car about five months ago, just because the A-class Mercedes is now available with a glass panel in the roof. She has always had a thing about a sunroof in a car and this was the closest she was going to get in the model she loves. She lives in a retirement village in a dusty industrial town about an hour’s drive from the city in which I live. Her house is beautifully decorated in modern, bright furniture and she’s always making changes and adding fresh new touches. She is mentally alive and alert. She lives life to the fullest and enjoys every minute of it. I envy her energy, her determination, her zest for life.

She jokingly scolds me for loosing too much weight and tells me she has a surprise for me to stop the weight loss. I wonder whether she has kidnapped L’homme and is holding him hostage in her car. We both know the reason for my weight loss and my weight has always been a touchy subject, especially with L’homme.

I’ve often been somewhat overweight and have battled most of my life to be thinner than I am. But I have the kind of body that adds a couple of grams around the waist by simply thinking of meals to prepare. A trip past the deli-counter is a sure gain of a few more grams. When I look at a menu, I’ve already added more weight before my order is placed in front of me.

My mother is an excellent cook, genes she made sure were transferred to me. I love good food, I love eating well. I hate the consequences. But since L’homme left, eating has been difficult. The upside is, I’m much thinner than I was when he was around.

My Mother and I take a walk past the food stalls. I pick a plate of gnocchi with a delicious Napolitana sauce. I wolf it down and tell her my apetite is back. But I suspect she knows it’s not true. We sip our ridiculously large glasses of red wine and exchange stories of a week gone by.

My mother buys me a beautiful apron to encourage me back into my kitchen. I buy burgandy roses and lovely pickles for a foodie friend’s upcoming birthday.

When we leave, My Mother fetches me a desktop convection oven from her car. She assures me it is a must have in a kitchen for one. I hug her tightly, thank her profusly and think how much I love her, how special she is.

It is nice to come home to The Princess who is elated to see me.

(I always wanted a garden that was just purple, white and green, but I think the time has come to add splashes of colour. Today I bought a burgundy rose bush, I can’t wait for it to flower and flourish in my garden.)

Marie Antoinette – Fictional Account



vendredi, le 25 septembre 2009

Marie Antoinette was taken from her home in Austria to be married to a man in France who seemingly had no desire for her. To ease the lack of affection from her husband, to deal with his impotence, she went on lavish shopping sprees, investing in beautiful dresses, shoes to match and wigs that caused heads to turn wherever she went.

But she also instituted positive changes in the court, she did away with segregated dining spaces, heavy make-up and opted for a more simple feminine look. She had little influence over her husband, the by now King, and he didn’t discuss matters of importance with her. He shut her out. To still her agitated mind, she kept herself busy, she read avidly and tried to learn a foreign language, with little success.

She was, however, instrumental in the appointment of a popular Minister of Finance, but when the bread prices soared, the Minister was sacked. The rioting Parisians took to the streets and stormed the Bastille. Most of the royalists fled France, but Marie Antoinette stayed behind to support her husband. Despite her life being in danger. Despite his impotence, despite his shutting her out.

France declared war on Austria and Marie Antoinette was officially seen as the enemy of all of France. When the monarchy was officially ended, the King was separated from his family, tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal and executed.

Marie Antoinette’s health began failing. She was taken to the Conciergerie and resolutely declined all plots for her escape. She chose to face the consequences of her choices.

Given no time to prepare, her trial was mostly a farce and in a Kafkaesque kind of a way. Someone had been telling lies about Marie Antoinette and, one morning, she was executed. The liars were the libelles.The most ridiculous accusation was that she sexually abused her son. She emotionally turned to the women in the courtroom, but despite the support of the market women who once bayed for her entrails, the outcome of her trial had already been decided.

Wearing a simple white dress she was taken to the Place de la Révolution. She accidentally stood on the executioner’s foot as she was led to the guillotine. Pardon me Sir, I meant not to do it were the last words she spoke before being beheaded.

My fascination with Marie Antoinette? I often jokingly say I was Marie Antoinette in a previous life. The reason why I am so angry and disgruntled in this life, is because I was beheaded on the basis of lies.

I moved from a city I loved to be with a man whose pretense of Frenchness did not go unnoticed. Despite his impotence and shutting me out, I stuck with my king. I spent excessively. I tried to bring about change, but all to no avail. When the money ran out and the party was over and the creditors were banging on the door, my king led himself away. Wearing a simple black dress, I was led to slaughter.

But I remember well the happy days. If I do not return to them in this lifetime, then maybe another.

(The towers of the Conciergerie and beautiful, simplistic Parisian lampposts. The ornately decorated lampposts on what is today Place de la Concorde with the ever present Tour de Eiffel.)

A Day of Rest.


jeudi, le 24 septembre 2009

Today is a public holiday. I have to admit that I’m not entirely sure why, but I’ll take the day off nonetheless!

The ICC Cricket Champions Trophy is being hosted in my country. So all I have to do today is to watch my team play, take The Princess for her romp in the park and go to The Artist’s birthday bash. I can so manage all that. Oh and then I just need to finish off the lamb casserole which will be the main feature on the menu. No problem.

I love my latest bed rest read and am couch camping with The Princess when I get a text message from The Poker Man. He wants to know what I’m doing. I tell him I have one eye on the cricket and one eye on the stove and every now and again I read my book. He asks if he can come and watch the cricket with me. I shriek and jump for joy. Since L’homme has left I’ve been left to watch cricket on my own.

I hit the pause button and rush out to the shops. It’s a day for a braai, a day to catch some sport, a day to test another boundary.

When The Poker Man arrives the summer smell of a braai fire hangs in the air, the salads are done and the potatoes have taken the place of the lamb casserole in the oven. I’m amazed at how much stronger it makes me feel to be inspired by food again. To cut things, to chop things, to adjust flavours and to taste until it is just right.

L’homme was always in charge of the braai. It was one thing I never interfered with, never intervened. Now I have to manage the braai for the first time in many, many years myself. I’m uncertain about everything. About how hot the coals should be, how long the lamb must be on the grill for, how often they must be turned. My Sweet Jewboy distracts me with advice, with witty comments, with his quirky sense of humour.

Before I can miss L’homme too much, we sit down to lunch. L’homme could do succulent lamb chops on the Weber, but these are great. I lie, they’re better than great. They are fantastic. With a hint of lemon, a hint of rosemary, a hint of thyme, cooked to rosy pink perfection. I’m immensely proud of myself. I’ve hit the ball way over the boundary, I’ve acquired another new skill. And my team wins the cricket game.

The Princess and I go for a very quick walk in the park and after her supper, we pile into the car with the lamb casserole and other party treats. She’s delighted to see her best friend and I overhear The Princess bragging about the braai. I wink and smile at her. She looks gorgeous in her designer collar I bought for her in Paris, as usual to L’homme’s annoyance.

Friends start arriving, the wine flows and the conversation interesting and entertaining. Compliments from the lunch table spill over to the dinner table. The yoghourt lamb casserole is excellent. I was hoping there would be some leftovers for The Poker Man, but not a morsel is left.

The dinner ends early. I pick a DVD from The Artist’s library. The Princess and I settle back on our favourite couch and watch a movie. A perfect end to a near perfect day. Tonight I can again whisper ’faire bons rêves’ to L’homme as I crawl between the covers with a smile and I can sleep with the fairies.

(The Princess with her gorgeous collar all the way from Paris.)

My home is my own


mercredi, le 23 septembre 2009

When it became impossible for me to support L’homme and me on my salary in the city I loved, I was fortuitously offered a transfer to the capital city along with a substantially increased salary. As in the biblical tale, L’homme in those days told everybody where I go, he will go, where I lodge, he will lodge. In the city I loved, L’homme was poor and had little prospects. He happily followed me to this city where we now live.

When we arrived in the city ten years ago, the house hunt began. I very soon realised that L’homme had little interest in finding us a home. The show day Sunday list had to be kept short with a break for lunch or a stop at a bar. He became increasingly irritable with my inability to find a house that felt like home to me. We eventually saw the house I now live in. L’homme loved it and convinced me it’s the house I should pay for.

I remember well the day the transfer went through. I sat on the steps in the kitchen and gave in to severe buyer’s remorse. I cried bitterly. I told L’homme I’d made a terrible mistake. I bought a house in the wrong area, it was too close to poorer suburbs, suburbs that were just going to get poorer with time, it was not in a suburb that cried ‘location, location, location’. I told him the value of the property was not going remain linked to inflation. I told him that with poverty creeping nearer, there was going to be an increase in crime. Halfway through my heartfelt sorrow, L’homme had already left for the nearest bar.

Whilst the house was just up the street from where I worked, it was also a short walk for L’homme to a once quaint street lined with bars and restaurants. I juggled my new position and creating a home. L’homme juggled the drinks and new found friends. Soon the walk from the bars to the house became too tedious for L’homme and he moved out to be even nearer to the bars.

I never really liked the house that much. I found it difficult to create resonance with my soul. I started making a few changes, commissioning some artwork and mainly battling with L’hommes absence, his presence, his absence, his presence. Every time he moved out, I liked the house less, every time he moved in, I tried to create a home. But there was always the lure of the bars. In the meantime my house starting falling prey to the gratuitous crime this city is so well known for. With ever new security breach, security would be improved, but it never appeared to be enough.

By now I was juggling a day job, a business of my own, fighting off criminals and trying to make sense of L’homme’s moving out and moving in. The crime became so bad over the Christmas periods that we started referring to the season of cheer as the season of fear.

Then suddenly L’homme announced that he was moving back in. Permanently. He’d made up his mind. I was the woman for him. He needed to look after me. He wanted to grow old with me. He didn’t want a life with anybody else. He was back for good and was not leaving again.

I went back to making my house a home. After another series of violent attacks, I completely overhauled the security of the house, essentially making it impenetrable. I started repainting the outside of the house to ward off evil and to reflect my somber fight against crime. I made sure to include bright splashes of colour to celebrate the happiness in my heart of L’homme in my bed and to let the criminals know that they can’t get me down and they won’t drive me out. Not with L’homme watching over me.

When we came back from France last year, Brave and I started painstakingly re-painting the inside of the house. It is no coincidence that one of my colours of choice was French Green and this was to be used in every room.

L’homme didn’t help much with the painting. Not because he cannot hold a paint brush. It’s just that any such domestic activity reeks of suburbia to him. He finds domestic activity stifling. Oppressing. He did help to re-hang paintings and re-shuffle artwork. To his credit he did help me with some mosaic tiling in the TV room. But all my nesting, all my home making, added to his irritation and frustration. Before the last paintings found a new place on the wall, L’homme’s irritation and frustration bubbled over, he threw blame my way, he ducked from responsibility and he left.

Tonight I’m turning the music up loud, I’m sipping a glass of wine, I’m cooking a wonderful lamb casserole and I’m dancing in the kitchen while The Princess’ soft brown eyes are growing larger. She hasn’t seen this much kitchen joy and activity in months!

I’m taking my house back for me. I’m creating a home for me. For now.

(How apt is it that one of my favourite sculptures in my courtyard is a Kokopelli and the scary part is that I had this sculpture commissioned!! Did I suspect then what I so know now? It was commissioned in the days when L’homme was not living with me. I fell in love with Kokopelli and other New Mexican art on a trip there a few years ago, in a life before L’homme. The Kokopelli is a trickster god, someone who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and conventional behaviour, and is sometimes referred to as Casanova of the Cliff Dwellers. He is always depicted as hunchbacked and always playing some sort of flute and often takes part in rituals relating to marriage. L’homme was my Kokopelli, the trickster god, the Casanova, taking part in rituals of marriage, but always slouched under the weight of the bottle, definitely not the weight of the deceitful mind – that responsibility he shifted to others.)

Walking through the fire


mardi, le 22 septembre 2009

I’m looking for a book. A very specific book. A book I need to draw inspiration from to draw. I still toying with the idea that I need to make at least more than one etching. But standing between me and etching is this small problem of drawing. But if I can breathe without L’homme, I can teach myself to draw an adequate stick man.

In my search I come across a Charles Bukowski book I bought for L’homme in New York. I seldom bought only for me or only for us. I often bought for L’homme. I doubt whether he ever read it. It doesn’t have the characteristic breaks in the spine of a book read by L’homme. Nor does it have his obligatory red wine stained signature. ’What matters most is how well you walk through the fire’

I page through the book. I too like Hank’s poetry, maybe not as much as L’homme, who from experience can relate better. I like it in an amusing kind of a way. I come across the poem ’the icecream people’ with the opening line:
the lady has me temporarily off the bottle
and now the pecker stands up
better


I realise L’homme may be able to relate well to many of Hank’s experiences. L’homme would not be able to relate to his honesty though, for L’homme has no honesty to call his own.

As with Hank, L’homme, our sex life was never precarious because of my stomach, it was precarious because there was always a bottle on your pecker. Face it. Admit it. And take another bit of blame away from me and add it to the pile in the bottom of your wardrobe.

I think about the fire L’homme lit around me. I wonder how well I am walking through the fire. On some days I walk through the fire L’homme lit around me bravely, on some days weakly, but in a Chruchillian way, I mainly keep walking.
If you are going through hell, keep going
~Winston Churchill


I wonder how well L’homme is walking through the fire. But I realise that he was the arsonist. He walks away from the fire he lit, comfortably on someone else’s feet.

(In the park where The Princess and I go for her daily walk, they did some controlled burning some time ago. I’m amazed at how quickly and how green the new reeds are coming through. Maybe the reeds needed the dead weight lifted in order to grow again. Maybe I need to lift the dead weight.)

Hopping Mad, So Very Sad


lundi, le 21 septembre 2009

It’s rush, rush to The Physio, rush, rush to The Shrink. It’s stumbling in, it’s falling down, it’s breaking down. It’s sob, sob. It’s mad, mad.

I hate giving one step forward and taking ten paces back. I had too much L’homme contact last week. I’m mad at myself for ever falling for his charms, his lies, his deceit. And if it was only once, I could probably have moved on, but it was over and over again. I’m sad for myself for being cheated, betrayed, intentionally lied to. I hate myself for allowing my heart to do the thinking, for moving from comedy to tragedy in one swift, tiny error of judgement. Worst of all, I’m down right angry about the arrogance, the malice and callousness with which L’homme orchestrated all of this.

I tell The Shrink that he’s looking for himself, that he needs to find his own feet. I wonder whether he misses me while he’s looking for himself out there. In the past that may have been true. L’homme was always the one that followed me around. He moved to be with me. He moved to be near me. Looking for feet to stand on.

Then the pattern started of moving out, moving back in, moving out, moving back in. Over and over again. Every time I let him go. Every time I took him back.

’ I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way.’
~Pablo Neruda


But as time wore on, his charm made way for his callous unconcern for my feelings, his lack of capacity to have empathy for my situation which became our situation. He became persistently irresponsible towards our relationship, with my love. He was the one that established the relationship in a hot tub with drunken sex and laid down the law. But as time wore on, the ease with which he established the relationship made way for his inability, his incapacity and his unwillingness to maintain it.

When I finally ran out of money, his frustration with the strains this put on his self-indulgent lifestyle boiled over. Without a shred of guilt, without a shred of remorse, he callously stepped off my feet and maliciously ended our relationship. And straight to the bar and the booze and to rationalising how none of this was his fault at all. Shifting all the blame on me. He took the clothes I bought him and left a large heap of blame behind. Dressed like a rake, he went off in search of his next target. One with money, one with feet he can stand on.

What infuriates and saddens me today is his total and utter lack of honesty. Towards me, towards himself. His declarations of love were lies. His intentions of establishing a relationship were false. He would choose to call them momentary truths, but I am with Friedrich Engels on this one: ‘An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory”. L’homme loves to theorise, rationalise, philosophise, to think that he thinks. In fact that’s what he was doing on the night that he, with his distinct flair for irresponsibility, decided to snub me and the special dinner I had cooked and I retreated into silence.

If he presented himself as a cad, I would have been spared the hurt and pain. But he presented himself as an honourable man, basically an honest person. Like a love-struck fool, I fell for it. That tiny error of judgement. The Clever One would laugh at me with all her might. We always warned each other against people who said they were basically honest. We rated it as possible as pigs that could fly. But for L’homme I was prepared to make an exception. That tiny error of judgement.

What makes me truly angry is the blame L’homme is trying to shift on me to absolve himself. I never stopped loving, I never stopped caring, I only ran out of money. What makes me sad is how he shifted from being charming, witty, intelligent, warm and caring to being cold, calculated, arrogant, callous and malicious.

L’homme continues to lure women into his life, into his bed with the same pack of charm, lies and deceit and when someone likes him too much, he arrogantly steps back, accuses her of being insane. The vicious circle of his desire to establish relationships and when he realises that he needs to do some maintenance on what he has established, he cold-heartedly shifts the blame and slinks off to rationalise how none of this was his fault.

It is with sadness that I realise my role in this. In the years L’homme was with me, I provided him with the space, the time, the places and the means to apply more and more layers of veneer to a personality he so badly wanted to hide. He would loose a job, I would provide, he would be ill, I would nurse him back to health, he would loose a job, I would employ him, he would have nothing to wear, I would dress him, he would need a break, I would whisk him off on an exotic holiday, he would have nowhere to stay, I would let him move in. All I asked was love. Every time L’homme would add another layer of veneer until thirteen years later he must’ve felt invincible, unimpeachable. And then the arrogance, callousness and malice boiled over.

Of L’homme, with his PhD in con-artistry, one of the nicer things that could be said is that he married well.

The last thing I’d like to give L’homme is the blame he shifted onto me. He can take that blame and put it in his wardrobe. Every morning he opens his wardrobe, he can be confronted by memories of me and memories of how he is to blame for the hurt and pain he left in his wake. I’d like to give L’homme responsibility.

(To find some calmness, I bury my nose in a book and shut L’homme and the world out.)

Blah, Blah, Blah


dimanche, le 20 septembre 2009

Not in a chatty, happy way. Not in an inspired, chipper way. Not in a desperate, depressed way. Just in a blah way. A kind of deflated, flat way. A Sunday bluesy way.

I potter around with a bit of this and a bit of that, but nothing settles. I pick up a bed rest read and decide it’s time for my coccyx to lie down. My mind potters around with words here and words there, but nothing settles.

I remember a conversation with L’homme not too long ago on the beach-front couch. He told me that he is reminded of me every morning when he opens his wardrobe. Funny that. All he has is his clothes. All his clothes I bought for him. What reminds me of him is his absence. The void he left behind. In my house, in my heart, in my life. I turn over and go to sleep.

I awoke and at times birds fled and migrated that had been sleeping in your soul.
~Pablo Neruda


I realise that it’s been a month since I posted The Inspiration. I’m secretly pleased that I’ve managed to take a daily journey in photos and words. Even if I sometimes upload a few journeys at a time, the journeys are taken daily and are uploaded as time permits. I inwardly cringe at the extent to which I am baring my soul in a public forum. But I remind myself that it is OK, because I want to be brave and strong and true. Cowardice, weakness and lies have never worked for me. I am now grappling with the full extent of L’homme’s cowardice, weakness and lies not only to me, but also to himself.

I cannot decide on a photo to go with today’s post. I curl up on the couch next to The Princess and absently flick through Pink Floyd’s ’channels of shit on the TV to choose from, choose from…’. Ah!!! Mamma Mia – The movie is showing in enough time for me to grab a glass of wine, empty my bladder and get a handful of snacks.

I danced to ABBA music at garage parties in my youth, liking their music much, much more than I ever admitted to. I have extremely fond memories of the evening My Bountiful Friend and I went to see the stage production with my Famous Friend. He had us rolling in the aisle with his interpretation of auditioning for a role in the Far East stage production. I wonder if L’homme can remember a morning when we saw the sun rise on his beach-front couch, screaming with laughter at the Global Investor, doing a Mamma Mia shuffle on the pavement? Be that all as it may, a bit of nostalgia was just what I needed on this Blah, Blah, Blah day.

Pure, pure, wonderful escapism!! But by the time Meryl Streep sang The winner takes it all, I simply howled. But then I also knew there was only one photo I could possibly add to today’s post.

(Walking down Broadway with L’homme exactly about two years ago, I must’ve known I would ultimately find a reason to use this photo. Or is this proof that I am even today more of a closet ABBA fan than I am prepared to admit?)

Time for thinking, time for feeling, time for etching.


samedi, le 19 Septembre 2009

The wings of time
faintly whisper magic spells
softly promise healing
meekly mention change

The hands of time
tick past the trickery
of an aching heart
willing on the mind

The certainty of time
sprinkles fairy dust
on the gaping wound
lighting a path for reason

Time for feeling
time for thinking
time for tragedy
time for comedy
~Rispa Frances


I dropped in at The Artist’s house today with some delicious home industry treats. She has an upcoming exhibition and needs to stock up on her etchings.

She delicately draws her images on the etching plate, dips it in acid, carefully applies the ink and then… the anticipation as the plate rolls under the press. The delight at another beautiful work of art!

I’m in awe. She convinces me it’s easy. I confess that I cannot draw a stick man. But before I know it she thrusts a tiny etch plate in my hand and tells me to draw anything I see in the room. I nervously look around and my eyes keep going back to an antique clock. So it happened that I made my very first, very own etch!

It’s doubtful that I’d ever coquettishly be able to use the old romantic cliché ’want to come up and see my etchings?’ with reference to etchings by my hand. It may be more likely that I will be referred to, as was the girl in The Thin Man, ’She just wanted to show me some French etchings’. I have many etchings albeit that none of them are French!

Today I was really inspired, I just love creative processes and cringe at my own inabilities, but who cares?

I loaded The Artist’s hound in the car, came home to pick up The Princess and the three of us had a great time in the park.

As always, I so badly wanted to share this silly little piece of my creation with L’homme. I shared it with The Princess instead. Somewhere in all this insanity there must be sanity, but right now my heart hurts too much for my head to think.

(My first etching.)

Dining out


vendredi, le 18 septembre 2009

It was My Husband’s idea that we go out for dinner tonight to celebrate the end of an era and the start of my life without the shop.

My Husband is not a husband in the biblical sense. He is an incredibly good friend and has been for many years. We have a mutual friend who lives Down Under. My Husband and I once conjured up this trick to play on our mutual friend, who is not aware how close our friendship had grown, and to let her know that we have tied the knot. We even arranged a wedding ceremony at the shop. L’homme was meant to be the priest, I cannot recall who was meant to be the pageboy, but neither of them showed up. I suitably arrived half an hour late and from that day my dear, darling good friend became My Husband. If he did not bat for the other team, he would indeed have been fantastic marriage material!!

The Painter had just come back from his first international exhibition in New York, The Artist arrived with paint on her hands, frantically finishing work for a local exhibition in a few weeks’ time and The Actress was delayed by a shoot that overran.

We’re having dinner at my favourite local. The food is good, the prices reasonable. The wine is flowing. The chatter is light, amusing and entertaining. We swap travel stories and life insights.

I walk back from the bathroom and see L’homme sitting on the balcony. My heart skips a beat. One of the things that influenced my decision to sell the shop was that I no longer wanted to be on a street where L’homme was every night. I no longer wanted to face painful reminders of him every day. If he is now going to decide to move around the corner and run me out of my favourite local, I will really be furious.

I sit down at the table. A somber, black cloud hanging over my pleasant evening. I regret phoning him last night. I regret ever falling for his charm. I regret having been made a fool of for so very, very long. But more than that, I regret still missing him so very, very deeply. Again, tortures from a distance with his new found cruelty and malice.

My Husband hugs me and holds me tight. He plants a kiss on my forehead. I take a huge sip of wine. I take control. I pretend. I laugh. I talk. I arrive home in tears.

(L’homme and I never visited any for New York’s famous museums. L’homme was always in search of a bar, I was always in search of a shop. We did make it to the entrance of the Museum of Modern Art, but it was almost closing time. I did manage to buy some things at the museum shop though, of course to L’homme’s great irritation.)

Finding Feet


jeudi, le 17 septembre 2009

Tonight was the last night I was obligated to spend time in my former shop according to the sale agreement. I cringe at the special the new owners are running. I cringe at the tacky advertising on my once sophisticated notice board.

The Gallery Owner and his soon to be divorced friend drop by. I’m delighted to see him. I could always rely on his support on exhibition opening days. Some other friends join us and it’s a fitting last night in the shop for me, sitting around the round table, laughing and joking and clinking glasses of red wine.

The Gallery Owner and friends leave. The soon to be divorced friend stays behind. We have a lot in common and talk about books and music but not about our hearts. Conversation is difficult above the music, which is much louder than I ever allowed. I consider inviting him home for another glass of wine. I remember the last person I dragged home with me was L’homme and decide against it. I get up, pay for my drinks and leave. I go home alone.

I phone L’homme. He tells me he can’t come back to me. He needs to find his own feet. I ask him whether he ever stood on his own two feet. He says he did when he was a diplomat in Paris That was many, many years ago. In fact, before he met me. So what he is essentially saying is he never stood on his own two feet in our many years together. Nor did he therefore when he was with The Ex-French Girlfriend. I cannot be held for cutting his feet off and being legless most of the time, was his own doing.

I doubt his need to find his own two feet or his need to stand on them, should he find them. I suspect he’s simply looking for new feet to stand on. Feet that adore him, feet that send him gifts, feet that whisks him off to exotic destinations, feet with money. And in spite of what he says, I think he has found those feet. And I pity those feet. They too will develop blisters on their corns when they walk for miles crossing the great divide between his words and his actions.

When I put the phone down, all I hear is his heinous laughter in my ears about a day he lied to The First Ex-Wife about how ill he was. She phoned me tearful with concern, but fortunately, before I contacted him, I found out he was alive and well and in a bar. Funny that. But tonight he reduces The First Ex-Wife and me to the laughing stock of his comic book life as he delights in his deceit.

He blames me for falling ill, for having to use a deodorant his skin reacted to because I threw his perfume away. I never did. I merely moved all the cruel reminders of him left behind on my dressing table the day he left without a word, without a goodbye, to another cupboard. If he had the common, garden variety, decency to contact me before sneaking into my house a second time, I would’ve told him about the perfume, the photo’s, the remaining bits and pieces. But he didn’t. And now I stand accused. It deeply annoys me that he measures me by his vindictive, malicious standards. I was many things to him, but vindictive or malicious I was not.

I blink to rid my mind of the image of feet and callouses and L’homme’s callous abuse of feet that are not his but that he has used to stand on for so long.

(On our barge trip through the South of France last year, the barge broke down on the second day. L’homme and The Engineer tried their best to repair the diesel engine, to no avail. Thankfully there was a restaurant within walking distance that served excellent coquilles Saint-Jacques, one of L’homme’s favourite dishes.)

Flying away


mercredi, le 16 septembre 2009

The Princess and I ’Bien joué’-ed our way narrowly over a green traffic light to the park today. Her favourite friend was waiting for her and she ran and played and smiled broad dog smiles and wagged her candle-wick tail with delight.

I stop outside the shop and L’homme is sitting on what he used to call his beach-front couch. I reverse slightly to make sure that my eyes are not deceiving me. But they aren’t and it is him in all his colours.

I’m not sure what to make of his presence. It looks so right, so completely where he belongs, comfortable on a leather couch with a glass of red wine, yet it looks so terribly wrong.

I sit next to him and hold on to his hand desperately, to make sure it’s real, to make sure it’s him. He tells me he heard I was no longer involved in the shop, he didn’t expect to see me there and he wanted to spend some time with his own nostalgia. My own nostalgia wells up and spills over my cheeks and I clasp his hand tighter.

He speaks softly and I strain my ears. We talk about his hacked broadband, he tells me about his precarious situation at work, he tells me about the mail of Kafka’s The Trial he sent his boss whom he used to refer to as god, he tells me how he battled to eat, he tells me I was angry with him. And he has another glass of wine. He lets go of my hand.

As always when I see L’homme with ache in my heart I neglect to do what I have to do. I order another cappuccino and leave the new owner behind his laptop in his empty shop and I avoid making contact with his eyes. I take L’hommes hand and inadequately tell him how hard it was to sell the shop. I let go of his hand.

I sense L’homme letting go of some of the distance he’s put between us. I take his hand. He tells me about his new friend. He has another glass of wine. I have another cappuccino.

And I listen to his life that seems troublesome, he tells me he has become less sensitive and I despair. I touch his neck. He takes my hand away. I hold onto his hand. He tells me he has not met someone new. I hope with all my heart that it is true.

He gets up to leave. He wraps me in his arms and I hold on to him tightly. I want to tell him that his being there tonight eases the pain of letting go of the shop so much, but I can’t find the words. I had so hoped to just see him there one more time, just to talk to him, just to feel him close and unwittingly he made it happen.

He let’s me go. He kisses me softly on my lips. I lightly kiss his neck and fill my nose with the smell of him. He walks away. I call him back. We hug once more.

With strength I drew from L’homme I sort out the remaining financials with the new owner.

I come home and hug The Princess and tell her all will be a bit easier now, a bit lighter, at least for a while. I read the opening line to The Trial. I think someone must have been telling lies about me, I knew I had done nothing that terribly wrong, but, one evening, I was arrested by pain and heartache.

Oh my love, my old, my sweet, my gentle love, my darling L’homme, I was not that angry, I just didn’t know how to fix anything and I needed you to help me, to love me. And please don’t blame me for your leaving. It was not like that, you know it. You left because you wanted to. You spent months withdrawing to prepare for you physical departure. Stand naked before yourself, and be honest, L’homme. If it were true that I was angry and you had no intention of leaving, if you had all intention of staying and seeing the tough times through, you would’ve found a way to make me laugh and to make the anger go away. You always did that.

On the day L’homme left, on a short Facebook chat, I told L’homme that leaving was his choice and he said that he knew and he said it was all his fault. Does he still feel that way? Was that a momentary truth and has he in the in-between months shifted the blame to me?

If I hugged myself long and hard enough, could I turn into an angel and fly away from all these tormenting emotions or would I always remain cast in sandstone with flowers at my feet?

Meeting with inspiration


mardi, le 15 septembre 2009

I rush back from The Physio, thankfully with no more bags of pills and promise that my treatment may soon be over. These frequent trips are becoming tedious, but I understand their importance in keeping my back straight and strong. The last thing I can afford now is to buckle under a broken back. I already am buckling under a broken heart.

The Actress and I walk our dogs early today. We bump into The Poker Man. Not only has he been kind and generous with his support over the past few months, but his warped sense of humour and oblique take on life amuses me.

The Actress’ large black hound and The Princess play boisterously, with teeth exposed and paws wildly clawing the air. The Poker Man’s dogs run along, noses to the ground, looking for treasures under every blade of grass. With a loud yelp The Princess comes running from the bushes, straight towards me, pointing with her nose to her bum. The Actress’ dog in hot pursuit. The Princess, yet again, has a nick on her bum. Thankfully this time only a surface wound that will not require any stitches. I give her a huge big hug and a few biscuits. After walking calmly next to me for a while, she can’t resist the play invitations from her friend and bolts off into the tall grass at high speed.

The Actress has a called a meeting with a couple of artistic friends to discuss an idea for a creative centre she has been carrying around for some time. I’m not entirely sure why I was included in the meeting. I have little of artistic value to contribute. I nonetheless enjoy the enthusiastic chatter.

On my way to the shop after the meeting, I realise the importance of enthusiasm. The importance of finding a dream, of sharing it with others and of working towards it. Right now my life is not full of very realistic dreams, but it will be again, one day, maybe.

(The Actress’ large black hound leaping out of the water like the Loch Ness Monster with a stick in the mouth. The Princess enjoys playing with him, though he can be rough and overbearing at times. She mostly carefully watches her back to avoid an accidental nip from an exposed fang. She is a princess, after all, and plastic surgery has its price!)

Healing Mondays


lundi, le 14 septembre 2009

This morning The Shrink asks me how my I-am-not-good-enough persona manifests itself. I know this persona so very well. I call her Nora and describe her as: Not good enough, under-achiever, guilty, bad, avoiding, delaying, sabotaging, non-starter. Moody and broody. Resentful, revengeful, dissatisfied, unfulfilled, begrudging, obsessive. Dark and black.

Through anger, I tell The Shrink, through fighting with the person that brings Nora to the fore, through lashing out at those who tease her whilst I pretend that Nora does not exist. She wants to know if it’s always been that way. I tell her it’s gotten worse with time.

Another drop falls in the bucket of how misconceived Nora has always been. How badly I need to find a hole in the bucket where the not can escape through, I am beginning to understand that I am good enough, even that I’m mostly more than good enough.

I tell The Shrink I need to let go of my anger over the way in which L’homme left me. I have to get my heart to understand that he did not leave me because I was being Nora. To L’homme, on the whole, I was good. I was more than just good. I was exceptional.

But L’homme knew so very, very well how to lure Nora out. When Nora comes out, she loves to drag a friend along. Her best friend is Timid Trudy, who is: Dowdy, plain, dull, boring, suburban, stupid, uninspiring, fat, ugly, undesirable and frumpy. A wall flower. Nothing to contribute. Needy, seeking approval, seeking affirmation, desperate and doubting. Nora seldom goes anywhere without Timid Trudy in tow.

Timid Trudy would seek L’homme’s approval, his affirmation and L’homme would respond by making me feel not good enough, fat and ugly. Hand in hand Nora and Timid Trudy would fight with L’homme, lash out at him.

Of all the personalities that split me, Nora and Timid Trudy really need to get off centre stage. In fact, they can only come on again at the curtain call so that they can be applauded for their large role in my life, one they played very well. But they’re old, tired and haggard now and I need to write them out of the remainder of the story of my life.

I admit to The Shrink that I still thrive on L’homme’s hugs of some 10 days ago. I tell her that I worry about him so very much. I tell her I hate it when I know his life is difficult.

Walking home I think that I also need to let go of my anger towards myself for not telling L’homme in my quiet days before he left that conflict was not necessarily wrong. In spite of the conflict, the very good times we had in the various romantic stages of our relationship only alluded to the potential we collectively and individually possessed to make our relationship strong. To make it endure good and bad and to make it bind us together.

I come back from The Physio this afternoon with a bed rest read and bag full of pills and walk into delicious smells tumbling from the kitchen. When I went to buy meat for The Princess’ meals this morning, I eventually caved in at the sight of the lamb chops. I haven’t managed to even consider lamb chops as part of my unable-to-eat diet since L’homme left. His greatest cookery skill was to braai the most succulent lamb chops on the Weber. But today I am brave and strong and true.

I find Wonder Woman in the court yard, watering the plants. I realise she has in her quiet, efficient manner bravely taken over some of Brave’s duties.

Brave is the man who tends to my garden, in person and in name. But Brave had the misfortune of being struck off his bicycle by a bus. Brave spent weeks in hospital and his recovery is painfully slow. My usually neatly topiaried bushes are reaching out to Brave with long arms of longing and everywhere weeds are carefully coming out of hiding. Wonder Woman hasn’t taken to sculpting bushes into elephants yet, but she is making sure that plants stay alive and that the paving is swept.

I set the table beautifully for one, dish up for myself on my favourite floral plate. I take small mouthfuls of memories and chew slowly on each one. And I wipe a tear from the corner of my eye. Today I am meant to be brave and strong and true.

(On the night of my 39th birthday. L’homme and I had dinner in Paris at the Les Élysées restaurant under the exquisite panoramic glass ceiling, a gray-and-green translucent dome designed by Gustav Eiffel. It was the most extraordinary dining experience of my life. The culinary passion, the excellent service, the intricate beauty of every dish and the sublime taste of each course will remain with me forever. As will the laughter and joy L’homme and I shared that day.)

My beautiful, beautiful shop


dimanche, le 13 septembre 2009

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
~Winston Churchill


Today I arrived to do the last stock take I will ever do in my shop. From today my shop belongs to somebody else and I am just here to lend advice, to explain procedures and to hand over what I had invested so much of myself in.

An acquaintance walks past. She’s surprised at the weight I have lost. She’s stunned that L’homme had walked out on me. She comes in for a glass of wine.

She tells me she always thought I was so confident, so brave and so strong. She tells me I created real beauty on a street that didn’t offer much beauty. She asks about my home – is that beautiful too? I tell her it is. I tell her it is full of beautiful art work and full of things that are beautiful and special to me. She tells me how much beauty I created for L’homme, the beautiful holidays I made possible for us. She tells me for her I created a haven she could escape to from the madness of the street.

For once I listen to this and I know it is true and deep down I begin to feel beautiful about me.

Suddenly everything feels right and in place. It’s been a very long time that I’ve known that the street has lost its beauty for me, it’s been quite some time that the shop has lost her beauty for me. I need beauty, it sustains me.

Back home I know I can create beauty again. Perhaps this is the end of the beginning for me. I’m not beginning to be the creator of beauty any more. Perhaps I am the creator of beauty and I can now move on to create beauty elsewhere. Maybe in another business. Maybe in another relationship. Maybe even between L’homme and I again.

Tonight I will slide between the sheets and I will be beautiful for me.

This was one of my favourite shop photo’s (again not taken by me) and it was used in many marketing campaigns I used to run. We served delicious cocktails in beautiful glasses.

Contemplating obsessively


samedi, le 12 septembre 2009

Contemplation
~Charles Baudelaire

Thou, o my grief, be wise and tranquil still,
The eve is thine which even now drops down,
To carry peace or care to human will,
And in a misty veil enfolds the town.



It’s Saturday and that usually means rugby day. Today being no exception. I absent mindedly watch a game in which we win the trophy in a Southern Hemisphere competition.

As much as I enjoy watching sport, I haven’t really been following the competition. Rugby is just too closely associated with L’homme in my mind for me to bear this season. But this was an important game, after all, and I felt obligated to see it being played.

Watching L’homme watch a rugby game, was watching the L’homme personalities I desperately needed to see for real after the final whistle blew. L’homme is passionate about rugby, he’s involved, he’s present, and he’s dedicated, he’s committed, he will never walk out on a rugby game. Touch, pause, engage. He’s all 15 players on the field. He scrums hard, he hooks the ball, he passes it to the back line, and he runs fast, he kicks high, he scores tries, he converts them, he attacks, he defends. He touches, he pauses, he engages, with every muscle in his body. And then he is the spectator too: he curses, he screams, he delights, he despairs.

Earlier this week, I spoke to my dear friend, The Sorted One. I told him L’homme had walked out on me. He told me he knew. I asked him why he hadn’t mentioned it in any of our many conversations over the past few months. He said he knew I would discuss it when I was ready. I appreciated that.

I often turn to The Sorted One for advice. Before L’homme came along, I was intrigued by The Sorted One’s mind. He seemed to have many answers because he had contemplated many questions. And he is kind and soft and gentle.

This week he told me he had often wondered how L’homme managed to sustain my passion. And he had the simple answer: through intermittent and wonderful reward.

I think about this. On a level he is right. When I experience L’hommes soft sides, I feel content, I feel strong and I feel grounded. When I experience L’hommes spiky sides, I feel insecure, ungrounded and not good enough.

L’homme is not very generous with his soft sides. He hides them deep and far and seldom lets them out. But I know they are there. In thirteen years I have seen them from time to time. And I believe in them. And the more he raises his spiky sides, the more I fight for his soft sides.

The deeper L’homme withdrew into this cave, the more desperate my search became for his soft sides. And when L’homme was certain that he had hidden his soft sides in the deepest, darkest corner of his cave, he bolted when I left the door of his cave to go and walk The Princess and left for good.

A statue I bought of a monk gazing upwards and I wonder what he contemplates and I wonder if he finds any answers and I wonder if he finds lightness and I wonder if he will tell me if he does.

Ground zero Fridays


vendredi, le 11 septembre 2009

Eight years ago with the September 11 attacks L’homme was again in one of his living with me phases. Huppel, a stray that sought shelter on my bed when his front leg was shattered by a small caliber bullet, had moved in permanently. And we spent the night glued to my TV screen, witnessing the Twin Towers collapse.

L’homme and I were good at spending nights watching events that leave indelible marks. And I drew parallels between the senseless attacks on innocent people in a land afar and the senseless shooting of an innocent cat roaming the small hill behind my house.

In an uncanny turn of events, Fridays have joined Sundays as hard days. It was on a Friday that L’homme stood up my deliciously prepared dinner and I stopped talking to him, it was on a Friday that he callously left wordlessly and I fell apart, it was on a Friday that I saw him again and he folded me in his arms and I swore the world shifted on its axis and the catastrophic events of the last few months were righted.

But now I run errands on a Friday and I see his car is firmly parked in front of a bar. Unmoving. Was that why he needed me to give him access to money last Friday? So that he could remain firmly in a bar?

There were times when I tried to figure out which came first, the chicken or the egg? Did L’homme start drinking to silence the madness of his mind or did his mind become silenced as result of the drinking? Or will it forever remain the unresolved debate: L’homme’s drinking, L’homme’s madness. That is it?

His inability to commit, to be present, to be involved, to care about the feelings of others, to accept responsibility and his increased irritability and frustration when his easy, comfortable, self-indulgent lifestyle is threatened – are these the results of years of excessive, abusive drinking? Or are these the madnesses of his mind he is trying to silence? Deep down he is so sensitive, so soft, so caring but over the years these characteristics, which I so fell in love with all those years ago, were reduced to mere glimmers.

L’homme fears boredom and craves stimulation and a bit like Leonard Cohen he will perform for anybody who will applaud him. And he craves acceptance and adoration, yet despises it. And with a loan he secured on a lie from me, is he again today performing in a bar for applause from anyone?

The ease with which he extracted a favour from me a week ago, easy come, easy go in and out of my life, does that mean that he literally rode roughshod over me in order to get what he wanted and was I yet again an innocent bystander caught up in his madness? A distant memory?

The funny thing is, I mostly accepted his madness. On some level I even understood his madness. Am I just deeply saddened at how little discomfort his madness could endure.

As I drive past later to drop things off at the shop, his car is still firmly in front of a bar. I shudder at his ability to torture me from a distance. And I resolve to discuss with The Shrink how I can empty this cup of guilt that was thrust in my hands while I was innocently standing by as L’homme stormed out the door, on his way to a bar, for good.

My only guilt is that I ran out of money. The blood of a dead relationship is on L’hommes hands. Does he feel any guilt or remorse?

(An artist’s rendering at ground zero in New York of what is to come in the place of the Twin Towers, scheduled for completion in 2013. When will my rebuilt heart be completed after it was destroyed by L’homme’s nuclear attack and what will it look like?)

Bags of sorts


jeudi, le 10 septembre 2009

When I was at university we went through a riddle phase, as wanna be intellectuals do. Tonight I recalled: ‘A man lies in a field with a bag of sorts next to him. The man is dead. What happened to him?’

Tonight I feel out of sorts. I cannot actually recall when last in my life I felt this out of sorts. It’s a very different feeling to feeling happy or unhappy, to hurting or not hurting

It’s not an emotion, it’s a feeling that runs through my body with nowhere to settle. It doesn’t stop in the pit of my stomach or get a hold on my heart and none of the paths in my brain leads to a place it can nestle.

Even The Princess was out of sorts tonight. She barked at the parking attendant when we arrived at the shop, she barked and ran after a dog that walked went past in the street, she barked at people walking by on the pavement and she even barked at the odd customer that came into the shop. This is not like her at all. She usually lies regally on her Ottoman, fast asleep.

Did she sense that I was out of sorts or did I pick up from her to be out of sorts?

Tonight was the last night that I put an appearance in at my shop. I don’t go over weekends and on Sunday I hand over the keys. My friend, the World Traveler, came by for a drink or more. In the days when we opened the shop, he always joked that he would drink the shop profitable. In those days he drank more Long Island Iced Teas than his body could hold. Now he drinks more whiskeys than his body can hold. In a strange way it was befitting that he was there.

His presence was neither comforting nor uncomfortable. There was a strange assortment of people in the shop. None that I cared for. None that impacted on my decision.

But now The Princess and I are back home. And I feel strangely unsettled and I do not know why.

(Even I will admit that I got a bit carried away shopping in New York. But there really wasn’t much else to do. And sitting naked surrounded by bags of sorts, all I managed was to incur the wrath of L’homme. And after all these years I still do not know what to do to gain his acceptance.)

Sitting on doughnuts


mercredi, le 09 septembre 2009

Unfortunately not freshly baked, delicious doughnuts sprinkled in bright hundreds and thousands or chocolate vermicelli, or better still, those shiny silver little balls that masters of confectionary decorate their creations with.

No, I’ve taken to fixing my back just to find out that my coccyx is cracked. And now I have to sit on a round doughnut cushion made of memory foam covered in a boring beige fabric to alleviate the pressure!

The Physio sent me off the chemist with a seemingly endless list of things to ease the pain. For consolation I added some bath delights to my shopping bag. This time their will be no pampering treats from L’homme, so I have to grab my own.

I linger in the bookshop for some bed rest reads and stop at the delicatessen to stock up on some delights that will make the medicine go down.

As I walk out of the delicatessen I realise that I have no idea where my car keys are. I suspect I left them in the chemist between pills and cushions, but alas, they are nowhere to be found. Hot flushes of panic flow over me. In my pain induced haze, I left home without my mobile phone and now I’m stuck in a mall without my car keys. The only number I can recall from memory is that of L’homme.

But I can hear his irritability, I can feel his annoyance and delete from memory that he could possibly rescue me. I limp back to the bookshop, but there are no keys on the shelves where I browsed. I ask at the desk and offer to reward the man who hands me my keys with a quick cup of coffee. I’m infinitely relieved when he smiles sweetly, but declines.

I walk into the parking lot in the bright afternoon sun and suddenly there is no recall in my mind of where I parked my car. I achingly walk this way and that, but all I find is my car. I stand around sheepishly for a while, imitating The Princess in the park. At least I do not have a ball in my mouth. But the thought does cross my mind that I’ll soon have a zimmer frame and a colostomy bag! And then I see my car.

Note to self: when in excruciating pain, take a taxi or phone a friend, and, if you can’t get that together – don’t forget your mobile phone at home!

Tonight The Actress, her daughter and The Artist stopped at the shop for a drink. And we talked about Paris and making movies and poetry and things that are soft on the soul.

And as I tell my staff that an era is about to come to an end, I see L’homme drive past, peering into the emptiness of my shop and my heart but I see my soul in all its splendour sitting in the passenger seat next to him.

(The Actress brought some flowers to brighten the dullness of my doughnut cushion.)

Sick in bed, sick in the head


mardi, le 08 septembre 2009

It is unfortunately very true that, without leisure and money, love can be no more than an orgy of the common man. Instead of being a sudden impulse full of ardor and reverie, it becomes a distastefully utilitarian affair.
~Charles Baudelaire


Today The Princess and I have taken to bed.

The pain in my back makes movement near impossible and I decided to force my back to rest. The Princess delights in my decision. She doesn’t have to lie on a narrow, hollow couch to be close to me, she can curl up right next to me and do what she does best: heave huge big, sighs in the big, big bed.

I try to force my mind between the pages of a book, but it keeps hopping from colour to colour of the carefully painted stripes on my bedroom walls and from there it jumps to the ceiling to play lavish games amongst the ornate designs.

And my mind wanders til it finds the thing it likes to wonder about most: L’homme.

In the fighting weeks of earlier this year, I’d often accuse L’homme that he drinks too much. He told me one day that a very clever and important geneticist once diagnosed him with Tourettes Syndrome and one of the disorders associated with Tourettes is an excessive desire to drink. I think he called it being a hydrophiliac. But that means getting sexual excitement from water. Is that maybe why L’homme often wanked in the shower?

Anyway, at the time I did some rudimentary searches and didn’t find anything to substantiate his claims. Besides, to me this just reeked of shifting responsibility, of finding a way out. If he was that concerned about the Tourettes diagnosis, I would’ve heard about this years ago. And like he blames his broadband bill on hacking, he could blame his excessive drinking on a syndrome that resulted in involuntary actions.

What is true though, is that individuals with Tourettes often experience a host of additional behavioural problems and herein I think may lie more truth.

I’m not going to try to label the personality of L’homme. He is too much a mixture of sensitivity, of caring, of intelligence, of wit, of an ability to make me laugh and then an ability to be unbearably cold, distant, cruel and even malicious.

I wonder whether L’homme felt that while I provided all the money, all the comfort, all the ease of a beautiful artistic home, I also gave him a sense that he was in control. No need for him to take responsibility, not need for him to be involved, no need for him to participate. Easy come, easy go, he can just go with the flow. But when the recession hit our household, he needed to take some control over his own life, some responsibility and I very strongly sensed that he resented me for that.

Does the easy life suppress his own disorders, and when unease sets in, does he become diseased? His inability to maintain enduring relationships has in the past surfaced in times of unease, as has his marked proneness to blame others, the others usually being me.

Yes, I was partially to blame for the financial recession we were in, but so was he. And his irritability with me increased, it became palpable and I became the reason for his unease. And he cunningly and manipulatively blamed me for the satisfaction he was finding in his increased drinking, increased porn site surfing until I believed I was not good enough.

And given this belief about myself that I’ve carried around for so long, I find it hard to make the mental switch that L’homme’s leaving had nothing to do with me. I did not loose my mind, I did not go crazy, all I am guilty of is of not being able to maintain him in the lifestyle of ease he had become accustomed to. Surprisingly, eventually even he realised his ongoing threats to sue me for that, were wearing a bit thin.

Is it true then, that in the final analysis, when financial discomfort replaced financial comfort, it gave rise to all L’homme’s unease and he fell prey to disease and he lost his mind and he went crazy and with callous unconcern and with total lack of empathy for my feelings, he simply had to leave?

My poor darling ill at ease, riddled with disease, L’homme!! And the saddest part for me, is the constant refrain in my head: Oh my love, my old, my sweet, my gentle love. From year to year as all the seasons fall, I love you more you know, I love you … still

(The Princess happily sharing a day of forced bed rest.)

Crossing bridges


lundi, le 07 septembre 2009

Today The Shrink asks me how I felt about talking to L’homme and seeing him. I tell her that I’m pathetically proud that I managed to voice a condition of my own. I tell her that it was the most exotic food for my soul to feel his arms around me.

I tell her that my head and my heart went into full-scale nuclear warfare. My heart defended giving in to his demands because that is the person I am, my head accusing that I should have turned his demands down and sent him away, the way he did with me.

She asks me to make a list of what is better for me without L’homme and what worse for me without him. I doodle in my journal and come up with:

I stare at the page with some disbelief. I close my journal and walk away.

I sense very faintly that I may fear to let go of L’homme, I fear to really SEE all his colours, to acknowledge them and to admit that many of his colours are simply not good enough for ME. Is this what happens when you start shifting from not good enough to the cutest, the best, the most beautiful, the most wonderful, the most precious and most miraculous gift you were when you were born?

(On our barge trip through the South of France last year, we had to steer under many beautiful little bridges. I wonder whether it is time for me to start burning bridges, building bridges or simply crossing bridges.)

The plug that broke the camel’s back


dimanche, le 06 septembre 2009

Last night I did an unbearably stupid thing.

There I was, moving things around to cram myself into a corner to take, what I expected to be, a great artistic photograph. Camera in hand, I crossed my legs and dropped to the floor. Only to scream out in the most excruciating pain.

I’d been focusing so hard on the picture I wanted to take, I didn’t notice the power cable and dreaded three-prong plug of the heater I had just moved, right in the path of where I was about to sit. And with my full body weight, I dropped down on the three-prong plug, right on my coccyx.

Today I cannot move without the pain shooting through my body.

I remember a January long ago when I’d also hurt my back. L’homme was kind and caring in those days. He was concerned and supportive. Most days he’d go with me to the chiropractor, each night he’d pass me pain killers so that I could carry on working. Eventually I landed in hospital, on a valium and anti-inflammatory drip, for forced bed rest.

On the first morning in hospital I opened my eyes to find two beauticians next to my bed. My first thoughts were that it was just more of the most wonderful valium hallucinations. But I was wrong. L’homme had sent them to give me a French Manicure.

To this day it stands out in my mind as the kindest, sweetest, most gentle thing L’homme had ever done for me. And I loved him so.

This time there will be no French Manicures, no passing of pain killers, no accompanying to the chiropractor, no concern. At least not real, and if I stumble across them, it will be from pain hallucinations.

Today I cannot move without the pain shooting through my body, I cannot see through my eyes without the tears welling up and I cannot feel with my heart without being overwhelmed by sadness.

(The plug that caused the pain, the remembering, the yearning and the longing.)