Rispa Frances

Heart of the Rose

2012-02-12T13:53:00.001+02:00

dimanche, le 12 février 2012

The music: Since being a little girl, I’ve always thought the key to unlock all answers lies somewhere in the lyrics of great songs. Being on a quest to create my own universe, there is no greater inspiration for me than this, narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier, one of my most favourite actors of all time.

The photograph: Being mildly inspired by The monk who sold his Ferrari, I’m going to be The nun who bought a Ferrari. I don’t really care much for Ferrari’s but I do love quirky convertibles of years gone by. To grow a strong and disciplined mind, I am savouring the heart of the rose.

Number Five

2012-01-02T23:30:00.000+02:00

lundi, le 02 janvier 2012

I have now successfully procrastinated myself to the end of the second day of yet another year.

A part of me is adamant not to merrily go down the waterslide of this year and, when I come through the last bend and suddenly see the inviting cool blue water in front of me, have a mild anxiety attack because I didn’t really appreciate the view on the way down and I didn’t really make the most of the ride.

As I am swimming away from the ride on 2011’s waterslide, I’m looking forward to doing some things differently in 2012.

One can only re-write the same story so many times before it becomes dreadfully boring.

To desire change is one thing, to make change happen, quite something else. Similarly, getting inspiration for change is one thing, being sufficiently inspired to change, quite something else. I’m pretty good at looking for inspiration and not very discriminate about where my inspiration comes from, as long as it has no religious undertones.

So that got me wondering what 2012 may hold and how on god’s sweet earth am I going to extract the best from it? Surely it must lie in the numbers? That’s all a year is, after all. Just a sequence of numbers. As a researcher, I know that numbers can often tell a fascinating story, you just need to know where to look.

Very loosely, according to the principals of numerology, the year 2012 reduces to the Number 5. I immediately ask my Bestest Friend, Aunty Google, what this means.

She tells me that Number 5 is the most flexible of all numbers. I like that. She also tells me that Number 5 makes friends easily, is versatile and multi-talented, upbeat and inspirational and a good communicator and motivator. Does not only have great verbal skills but is also very dynamic, persuasive, adaptable, versatile and curious, courageous, bright and quick-witted.

Number 5 is an explorer, an adventurer. Someone who wants to experience all of life, who likes to perform in front of audiences and likes to do several things at the same time.

Ah! It’s day two of spending time with Number 5 and it sounds like it’s going to be a great year!!!

Then I dig a bit deeper. The whole of me can be reduced to number 1. Given my penchant for attracting every broken winged pigeon and over investing in them, I wonder what the future holds for Number 5 and I.

My Bestest Friend tells me that we have an easy compatibility and seem to be a natural fit. It doesn’t get any better than that!! Yay!!

But I will keep my eyes open for Number 5’s darker side. That finding it difficult to commit to one relationship is one of Number 5’s weaknesses, doesn’t bother me in the slightest. It’s a year we are talking about here, not someone who is going to share the bed with The Princess and me!

And I will be weary of Number 5’s difficulties to finish projects, lack discipline and order, impatience, restlessness, ability to be easily distracted and impulsiveness. Those sound way too familiar!!

In keeping with the theme of five, I have already spent five long days lacking the discipline to tie up the loose ends of 2011 and clean the slate for 2012. And now I can procrastinate no more. Tomorrow it’s back to the grind stone.

So, in my own personal protest against China’s colonialisation of Africa, I’m going to boycott Mahjong until the Dalai Lama is granted a visa to travel to my country.

And I’m going to focus on the strengths of the relationship between Number 5 and me.

Here’s to a fabulous 2012!

(The music: One of my many favourite John Lennon songs and particularly appropriate for this time of the year.

(The photograph: My five darling bundles of velvet having their Happy Xmas dinner, well out of The Princess’ reach.

Nothing to give

2011-08-18T17:04:00.000+02:00

jeudi, le 18 août 2011

L’homme, today I bring you nothing. Not a brightly wrapped gift, not a smile, not a sigh. I can’t even find wishes for you, neither good nor bad.

That is what you always wanted, is it not?

But you live in my heart and in my mind every single day. It is just that today I have nothing to give.

(The music: I think Adele is unbelievably talented for one so young and I do love this song.

(The photograph:This morning I bought tulips for My Organised Friend and tonight I am cooking us dinner.

Farewell

2011-08-16T15:06:00.002+02:00

mardi, le 16 août 2011

I saw you on Sunday. Your frailty hidden by your pyjamas matching your ocean blue eyes. Your hands gently clutching onto the story that was running away from you.

You were charming, you were witty, you were caring. You were so quintessentially you.

Last night you took a deep breath and set your spirit free. To roam to places unknown. To play with the angels.

Today you gifted us with pure perfection: a windless winter’s day, the sun’s rays making diamond sparkles on the sea and the whales waving their tails in the bay. Or was that your hand with sparkling diamonds waving us a last goodbye?

Wishing you a perfect life in perfect places. Thank you for the indelible marks you left on my life. For all the many reminders where I will always be able to find comfort just for knowing you.

Fais de beaux rêves.

(The photograph: A really bad photograph taken with my iPhone of the whales in the bay on the day after you left us.

Tour de France, Tour de Force

2011-07-25T19:33:00.009+02:00

lundi, le 25 julliet 2011

Le Tour de France, La Grande Boucle. My annual three weeks of dreaming, of wishing, of hoping. Of reflecting on what was, on what could have been and on what will never be. Of being inspired, being transported, being amazed.

I don’t miss a pedal stroke, a gear change, a tournesol brightly following the path of the sun, a chateau grandly alluding to an era gone by, a church steeple pin-pointing to heaven, a mountain peak majestically bursting through the clouds.

When this year’s race started, I didn’t have a clear favourite to support, not a rider, not a team. The first week was drawing to a close. The Tour had rolled off the Passage du Gois at low tide, wound through the oyster beds of Bretagne, passed under the watchful eye of the magnificent Le Mont Saint-Michel and was hurtling past the Chaînes des Puys through the Massif Central towards the Pyrénées.

And I wasn’t sitting up yet.

Then there was Stage 9. The last day of the first week. The last day before the first rest day. The Tour rolled out of Issoire at noon that overcast Sunday. Standing up through the sunroof of his post-box red Skoda, Christian Prudhomme dropped the white Depart flag and 187 of the original 198 riders set off on the up-and-down profile.

The feeding zone was just over a third of the way in, the intermediate sprint point 30 km before the finish, and seven categorized climbs lay scattered over the route. But, on that glorious Sunday in La Belle France, the Tour erupted like the Puys did 10,000 years ago.

The Peloton came flowing down Le Puy Mary, the first of three Cat-2 climbs, faster than red hot lava. Around a sweeping left bend just over halfway through the stage, someone had lost it. In an attempt to avoid the carnage on the road, Vinokourov was catapulted into the forest, fracturing his femur, forcing an early exit to what would have been his last Grande Boucle.

Then came Hoogerland’s tour de force into the prikkeldraad (barbed wire fence) and into the Polka Dot jersey and into every sport headline and straight into my heart!! Fletcha crawled out of a ditch and the driver of the French TV car that chose to hit the riders over a tree, sped off!

The lead group of five was now reduced to three.

Sanchez snatched the stage win from Voeckler (leader for the Europcar team), but later that afternoon, Le Chouchou stepped onto the podium and was draped in resplendent yellow!! A Frenchman in yellow – I had found what I was looking for!

A badly bandaged and emotional Hoogerland stepped up for the Polka Dot jersey amid wild applause from the crowd. You get gutsy, you get determined and then you get Hoogerland! A head count in Saint-Flour showed that the brutal Stage 9 saw seven riders abandon. Fletcha and Hoogerland had picked themselves up and ridden themselves into the history books of La Grande Boucle. For the first time since Henri Desgrange’s motley crew of cyclists left Montgeron on 1 July 1903 had the white-on-red number of the prix de la combativité been awarded to two riders on a single stage.

Now I was sitting up!

In the second week the riders were eased into the Pyrénées, and though the high drama was saved for the 100th visit to the Alpes, the usual suspects were all lined up: Col du Tourmalet, Luz-Ardiden, Col d’Aubisque and a stage finish on the Hors Catégorie Plateau de Beille. There is nothing level about the 15.8 km, average 7.9% gradient climb to the top of this plateau!

And every day I would fear that Le Chouchou would lose yellow, and every day he hung on. Pulling his mouth, sticking his tongue out, digging deep! Everyone had flashbacks to his ten days in yellow in 2004. Everyone knew the risks he would take to keep the coveted jersey. Everyone knew the blood flowing through his veins was now yellow. And the French went berserk! And Le Chouchou did not give up one second of his lead over the torturous, barren Pyrénéan peaks! Was he older now and wiser than then?

I was now on the edge of my seat.

The first day after the last rest day the sprinters led La Grande Boucle towards the Alpes. Le Chouchou gave up four seconds of his lead. But now it was Evans biting at his ankles. The climbers pulled the train into Italy past the bobsleigh and luge tracks of the 2006 Torino Winter Olympic games at Cesana Pariol. The engine pulled the Tour over the Cat-1 Sestrières where the games’ Alpine skiing events were held on the dizzying slopes. The dash to the finish at Pinerolo under a shady canopy of trees was insane. Le Chouchou rode like a man possessed. But he over-cooked a sweeping right corner and briefly left the road. He righted his machine and then did exactly the same thing on a sweeping left turn, ending up in a strangely empty parking lot. Thankfully the gate was left open! But his antics gifted Evans twenty seven seconds. But he did it for his team, he did it for his country, he did it for yellow. And I could have sworn he did it for me.

The road back into France was a murderous 220.5 km. The intermediary sprint point came early in the day and, job done, the sprinters could hang out in the gruppetta while the grimpeurs fought it out over the two Hors Catégorie climbs of Col Agnel and Col d’Izoard. After a short respite, the 100th year celebration of the race in the Alpes snaked up a 23 km climb at an average 5.1% gradient to reach the top of Galibier for the highest stage finish in the history of the tour. Stage 18 was to be the Queen stage of this year's La Grande Boucle.

It was here that Le Chouchou’s true colours were nailed to the mast: his grit, his determination, his guts, his willpower, his unfaltering resolve never to give up, never to give in. When he pushed down on the pedals one last time to cross the finish line on Stage 18, he had Andy Schleck sitting a mere, miniscule fifteen seconds behind him!

Déjà-vu? In 2004 Le Chouchou snatched the maillot jaune off the shoulders of Lance Armstrong in Stage 5 in Chatres in the shadows of the pristinely preserved Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chatres. He was resplendent in yellow through the Vendee and on the flight into the Massif Central. He wore the maillot jaune at the stage finish in Saint-Flour – the same town where he grabbed it this year. By the time the Tour reached the summit of Plateau de Beille seven years ago, it was Le Chouchou who stepped up at the presentation ceremony to receive the traditional lion, a happy bunch of yellow flowers and the much desired maillot jaune. The climbs on Stage 13 in 2004 were virtually identical to those of Stage 14 in this year’s race. In 2004 Armstrong had reduced the gap between himself and Le Chouchou to a narrow twenty two seconds at the top of the Plateau de Beille. Voeckler managed to maintain that gap on the way to the Alpes after the rest day in Nîmes that year.

Then, as now, Le Chouchou proudly wore the yellow jersey on his shoulders to the Alpes. But way back then, Armstrong took the jersey back on the first day that the tour went over the steep mountain passes. When Stage 15 ended in Villard-de-Lans, Lance was back in yellow. Le Chouchou’s ten days of glory were over. The elastic had well and truly snapped. Voeckler finished in 8th position in the Classement Général that day and was not in the top ten when the clock stopped in Paris. But he had become the true darling of the nation that hosts the most amazing bicycle race every year. And Armstrong was in line to become the first person in the history of the tour to wear the maillot jaune onto the Champs-Élysées for the sixth consecutive year.

What was going through Voeckler’s mind this year on the back of that motorcycle he’d hitched a ride with down to the team bus at the foot of Galibier at the end of Stage 18? Was he thinking that he was wrapped in yellow for the tenth consecutive day as in 2004? Was he thinking of 2004’s twenty two second time difference and 2011’s fifteen second time difference? Was he thinking that on the descent of the Galibier the next day that he’d probably be able to see Villard-de-Lans where he relinquished the maillot jaune way back when? Or was he simply thinking about the leader’s bunk in the back of team bus? Whatever he was thinking, at the end of La Grande Boucle’s Queen stage, Voeckler was my King.

Stage 19 in this year’s race was a grueling stage. It was a short stage of 109.5 km, but it included the Cat-1 Col du Télégraphe, with a slight descent and little time for recovery before the climb up Galibier kicked in. Galibier offered a long descent to the picturesque little town of Bourg d’Oisans where a sharp right turn started the climb up Alpe-d’Huez, through the twenty one switchbacks. Each marked by a sign listing its elevation and a name or two of a previous stage winner.

I was now up on my feet.

I willed Le Chouchou up Col du Télégraphe. He was dropped from the main contender group just before the summit. He maintained the small time gap. His faithful team mate, the all-rounder Pierre Rolland, was with him. In an awesome dislplay of greatness, Voeckler told Rolland on the climb of Galibier: ‘Seize your chance, don’t worry about me’. Le Chouchou danced on his pedals up most of Galibier on his own. No team mate left to offer respite, no fellow-rider to work with. I was jumping up and down like Didi the Devil. With 8 km to go to the summit of Galibier, the lone Voeckler was only thirty seconds behind his main rivals. But then it seemed as if the elastic snapped. My heart went out to Le Chouchou.

Pushed near to the limits of human endurance, riders started tumbling over the massive Galibier and plummeting down into the Romanche Valley. Le Chouchou can go downhill. He can go downhill fast. When the riders regrouped just outside Bourg d’Oisans to swing right up Alpe-d’Huez, the man resplendent in yellow was right back in the bunch! Unbelievable!!

The attacks on Alpe-d’Huez didn’t only come early. They were relentless. Eventually the defending champion, Alberto Contador, fellow Spaniard Sanchez and the youngster, Rolland, got away. It was a do or die battle up the winding road. In the final twist Rolland managed to shake the Spaniards off his wheel to cross the line on his own. In one fell swoop the Frenchman was awarded not only the prix de la combativité for the most competitive rider, but also the white jersey for the best young rider. A jersey he would wear to the podium in Paris.

Late that afternoon, the Polka Dot jersey would fittingly be pulled onto the shoulders of Sanchez, an Euskatel Euskadi rider, a team renowned for their abilities in the tough mountain stages.

And at the top of Alpe-d’Huez Le Chouchou was out of yellow and down to fourth place in the Classement Général, also a position he would keep when Le Grande Boucle turned up the Champs-Élysées. When the day ended, Andy Schleck was draped in the maillot jaune, with brother Frank behind him in the General Classification and Evans in third place. With one stage to go the race was far from over.

Despite feeling utterly exhausted, as if I had run up Alpe d’Huez cheering Le Chouchou on, I was deeply satisfied. Out of yellow and off the podium in my beloved Paris, Voeckler was MY champion. When he realised that he wouldn’t have the legs to carry him through the switchbacks, he set the guy whose job it was to look after him, free. For ten days team Europcar had the eyes of the world focused on the yellow jersey and with Le Chouchou’s magnanimous gesture, the team was still represented on the podium on the last day of the race in the white jersey. The mark of a true champion.

The last real racing stage was a grueling 42.5 km individual time trial from Grenoble, through Vizille and Gières, back to Grenoble. But Voeckler was not going to lie down. He may have relinquished yellow, but he was not going to give up his fourth place. He rode the time trial of his life. For only the second time in thirteen encounters did he cross the finish line ahead of Andy Schleck, albeit not far enough ahead to claim a podium position. Evans, a consummate time trialist, not only leap frogged Frank and clawed back the fifty seven seconds he was behind Andy when he rolled out of the starting house, but he finished the stage nearly one and a half minutes ahead of Andy.

As the maillot jaune was pulled over Evan’s red BMC jersey at the end of Stage 20, the race was effectively over. Its only the outcome that still needed to be decided was the green jersey. In the final sprint on the Champs-Élysées that jersey went to Cavendish.

Yesterday I could sit back and watch the procession roll into Paris, past La Tour D’Argent, swinging across the Seine over Pont Royal just before the Musée d’Orsay, popping out of the tunnel at the feet of the golden statue of Joan of Arc before turning left onto Rue de Rivoli and sweeping across Place de la Concorde and finally down the magnificent Champs-Élysées.

La Grande Boucle is much, much more a mere bicycle race for me. It is more than the close to two hundred professional cyclists fighting it out annually on a rigorous course around l’Hexagone. It is more than the riders locked into a three week high stakes poker game with a new hand dealt each day. Some days for the sprinters, some days for the climbers, but every day for the team to sneak a look at their cards and to strategise and to play their hand close to their chest. Bluffs often pay off, as it did for Armstrong in 2001 on the winding road of the most hallowed mountain of the Tour, Alpe-d’Huez. Sometimes they don’t.

It is more than the human suffering, human spirit and human ability where the frontiers of endurance are crossed every day. On this level bluffs mostly don’t pay off. In the early days riders resorted to alcohol to dull the pain, but this was soon replaced by performance-enhancing drugs. A number of deaths and near deaths occurred on the Tour as a result of doping over the years, the most notable the death of Tom Simpson on the slopes of Mount Ventoux in 1967. Since 1965 performance-enhancing drugs have been illegal in France and the Tour saw the first anti-dope testing in 1966.

The Festina Affair of 1998 began when a soigneur for the team was caught in possession of illegal drugs which lead to race directeur at the time, Jean-Marie Leblanc, expelling the team from the tour. Today dope testing for every rider of a professional cycling team is in place – during the season and in the off season and is done by surprise to unsettle those who considered getting involved in systematic doping. Some reckon cycling is the ‘cleanest’ professional sport.

For me, Le Tour de France, La Grande Boucle, remains three weeks of dreaming, of wishing, of hoping. Of reflecting on what was, on what could have been and on what will never be. Of being inspired, being transported, being amazed. For me, it is one of those things where the whole is larger than the sum of its parts.

Le Tour de France 2011 – Le parcours.

Some music musings: The most heard tune in my house every July is Musique podium official du Tour de France,

The photograph: No sooner had the France TV car sped off after knocking Fletcha and Hoogerland off their bikes on Stage 9 or this photo of the ‘prikkeldraad’ admonishing the driver appeared on the Internet.

Happy Birthday

2010-02-25T23:30:00.003+02:00

jeudi, le 25 février 2010

Today was My Mother’s 92nd birthday.

A toast to you, the most remarkable, amazing woman whom I admire so incredibly much and whom I adore.

Thank you for your love, your caring and above all, your ability to accept things you may not approve of or be able to make any sense of.

(Some music musings: My Mother’s all time favourite song: La vie en rose. ‘And I wish for you that the rest of your life be spent in a world where roses bloom and the angels sing from above for you, every day.’)

(The story in the photograph: To celebrate My Mother’s 90th birthday, I took her, L’homme, and myself off to the city I adored. At a beautiful venue overlooking the sea, we had a wonderful dinner party with family and friends.)

Sitting in Fridges

2010-02-24T23:45:00.003+02:00

mercredi, le 24 février 2010

And there I was, sitting in the fridge, minding my own business. I’m not going to bother to tell the joke, it hardly is a joke, but I did adopt the line.

So there I was, the new year rolling over me like a tank over a poppy field and the best I could do was to maybe, and only just maybe, drag myself from the comfort of my bed to the comfort of my couch, book in hand and The Princess in tow.

I didn’t have the energy, the inclination nor the desire to start pulling myself towards myself as I’d promised myself I’d do in the new year. And I was doing even less about trying to dig us out of the messy financial hole we were left in. But I justified it all with my non-belief in new year’s resolutions.

I avoided The Princess’ questioning eyes, turned a page and promised her that the next day things would be better. ‘Things have a way of getting worse before they get worse,’ I reminded her, with a wry smile and wiping a tear, L’homme used to say.

Just over a month ago the phone rang. That in itself wasn’t really odd. The bank was phoning me daily to enquire about my plans to get my accounts in order. I evaded their questions as deftly as I did The Princess’ inquisitive eyes. This was, however, a call from My Employer. I cringed. I have been hearing that whooshing sound of deadlines somewhere in the distance, but I’ve been treating them with the same disdain as the bank’s calls and The Princess’ stares.

The meeting went the way meetings with employers go: good in a bad kind of a way. They’d been thinking, now that The Shop was no longer a part of my life, didn’t I want to spend more of my time playing with them?

I vaguely said I’d consider it. I didn’t want to seem desperate. I frantically made sums in my head. ’How much can I charge for how much of my time?’ And then the snag came. In the way that there always is a snag in a meeting with employers. I’d have to work from the office. I dug my highest heels in. Firmly. It just wasn’t possible. I couldn’t leave The Princess home alone. I badly disguised the real reason with excuses of the 21st century and remote connections and electronic communication and mumbled something about being available for the odd meeting at the office, but an eight-to-five day was just not on the cards.

The rest of the lunch discussion was about everything but work. We parted agreeing to think about our respective needs.

Back home I showed The Princess the bullet hole in my foot. I told her that I thought I may just have shot myself. But I told her I took a bullet for both of us. For my sanity and for hers.

A week or so later another call came. They’ve considered my needs. They’re desperate. The account is in such mess, I could work from Outer Mongolia if I wanted to, if I could just please find a way to work on the account. I wanted to know whether the South of France would do, but I said it sounded reasonable to me. I’d get back to them the next day.

I put the phone done and shrieked with delight. I hugged The Princess and for the first time in many, many months allowed my body to soak up the relief as it washed over me. I braced myself for the meeting over remuneration. My Employer is known to squeeze blood from a stone. I’m useless at negotiating financial reward. I’d made some sums and arrived at an amount that I would consider generous, but before I put my demand cards on the table, they announced that they would be paying me 30% more than what I had calculated. It took every ounce of restraint to smile sweetly and nod in agreement. I was sure that it was obvious how my bum was settling in the butter.

Since then the heat under the frying pan has gradually been turned up and my bum is beginning to sizzle in the butter. But I sit in the comfort of my own home, with The Princess on her Ottoman right next to me and I’m meeting deadlines, ridiculous and less so, with a deep gratitude to My Employer who, unbeknownst to them, has given me the best life line I could’ve wished for.

Not only can I feed the money hungry wolves, but it is amazing how an avalanche of deadlines can focus a wondering mind. Tonight the bank texted me to tell me that I have been richly rewarded for my sterling efforts. Tomorrow night we’re having some friends over for dinner. The Princess, The Felines and I need to celebrate that we’ll survive, for the next few months, at least!

(Some music musings: I love Paris is my current reminder to meet this week’s deadlines. On Monday I can start planning my trip in May to the most beautiful city in all the world! )

(The story in the photograph: Despite time having joined the endless list of scarce commodities in my household, I have managed to keep an odd eye or two on the Winter Olympics. I can barely believe it is four years since L’homme and I enthusiastically watched Curling in the early hours of the mornings at a time when I thought my soul’s mate was here to stay forever. Just based on their outfits, the Norwegians deserve Gold this year.)

Tonight I was asked

2010-02-02T02:15:00.006+02:00

mardi, le 02 février 2010

How did it came about that you live in a city you so easily declare you don’t care for much?

Easy, said I.

On a Friday night, with lightning dancing on the sea that lapped the shores of the city I adored, we sat cross-legged on the balcony of my apartment. I told, the yet again unemployed L’homme, that the long-suffering company I work for, has offered me a substantial increase to move to a city I didn’t care for much. I voiced my my reservations. I knew the city they wanted me to move to. I had lived there before, I didn’t like it then. I couldn’t imagine that I would now.

Without skipping a beat, blinking an eye, or even taking a sip of wine, L’homme wrapped me in his convincing arms: ‘I’m your Ruth. For whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge.’

I melted in the euphoric embrace of L’homme’s lie. I was comforted by the warm kisses of his deceit. I was swept away by my innocent belief. In that single moment I burnt all that was dear to me on the altar of us.

For us I phoned the removal company. For us I moved. For I was committed to us. But before the removal company arrived in the city we now called home, L'homme became Ruth to the bars, Ruth to the wine. He was where he wanted to be. He no longer needed to lodge where I lodged.

Tonight I walked to my car in the pouring rain. I defiantly raised my face to the lightning dancing in the sky. I allowed the warm kisses of the raindrops to play on my cheeks. I allowed them to disguise my maloncholy. I allowed them to give me strength.

Back home I wonder whether L’homme still has a Lamb to care for and a job to go to. Should I care? I think not. C’est la vie.

(Some music musings: I’ve never denied my devotion to his music, but I recently acknowledged my infatuation with the man who closes some of his concerts with wither thou goest.)

(The story in the photograph: I stole the photograph. I admit it. But it was that exact lightning playing on that exact sea, that night I thought that all was as it was meant to be.)

Thousand kisses deep

2010-02-01T23:20:00.002+02:00

lundi, le 01 février 2010

Thousand kisses deep
~Leonard Cohen

You came to me this morning
And you handled me like meat
You’d have to live alone to know
How good that feels how sweet
My mirror twin my next of kin
I’d know you in my sleep
And who but I would take you in
A thousand kisses deep?

I loved you when you opened
Like a lily to the heat
I’m just another snowman
Standing in the rain and sleet
Who loved you with her frozen love
Her second-hand physique
With all she is and all she was
A thousand kisses deep

I know you had to lie to me
I know you had to cheat
To pose all hot and high behind
The veils of sheer deceit
Our perfect porn aristocrat
So elegant and cheap
I’m old but I’m still into that
A thousand kisses deep

And I’m still working with the wine
Still dancing cheek to cheek
The band is playing Auld Lang Syne
The heart will not retreat
I ran with Diz and Danté
I never had their sweep
But once or twice they let me play
A thousand kisses deep

The autumn slipped across your skin
Got something in my eye
A light that doesn’t need to live
And doesn’t need to die
A riddle in the book of love
Obscure and obsolete
Till witnessed here in time and blood
A thousand kisses deep

I’m good at love I’m good at hate
It’s in between I freeze
Been working out but it’s too late
It’s been too late for years
But you look fine you really do
The pride of Boogie Street
Somebody must have died for you
A thousand kisses deep

I loved you when you opened
Like a lily to the heat
I’m just another snowman
Standing in the rain and sleet
But you don’t need to hear me now
And every word I speak
It counts against me anyhow
A thousand kisses deep

The ponies run the girls are young
The odds are there to beat
You win a while and then it’s done
Your little winning streak
And summoned now to deal
With your invincible defeat
You live your life as if it’s real
A thousand kisses deep

I’m turning tricks; I’m getting fixed
I’m back on Boogie Street
You lose your grip and then you slip
Into the Masterpiece
And maybe I had miles to drive
And promises to keep
You ditch it all to stay alive
A thousand kisses deep

Confined to sex we pressed against
The limits of the sea:
I saw there were no oceans left
For scavengers like me
I made it to the forward deck
I blessed our remnant fleet
And then consented to be wrecked
A thousand kisses deep

I’m turning tricks I’m getting fixed
I’m back on Boogie Street
I guess they won’t exchange the gifts
That you were meant to keep
And sometimes when the night is slow
The wretched and the meek
We gather up our hearts and go
A Thousand Kisses Deep

And fragrant is the thought of you
The file on you complete
Except what we forgot to do
A thousand kisses deep

~Leonard Cohen : Live in London

I have fallen in love with this concert. With it’s heartache, it’s pain, it’s joy, it’s delight, it’s sheer, sheer genius. With sincerest apologies to Mr Cohen, I’ve made some gender changes to his poem.

(The story in the photograph: It has been raining so much of late that everything creeping, crawling, flying or simply able to move, has moved indoors. This moth was sitting on my window, staring at the grey outside.)

I wonder

2009-12-24T11:23:00.004+02:00

jeudi, le 24 décembre 2009

Last night I sat outside under the palm where L’homme used to sit for hours. I wondered where he was, I wondered what he was thinking, I wondered what he used to think all those hours he spent sitting under the palm.

I burst into tears because, in spite of everything, I missed L’homme, because I was sad for My Witty Friend, I was sad for The Jeweller - her mother passed away the day we held a memorial service for My Witty Friend’s husband. The Jeweller didn’t make it back in time to see her mother one last time. She passed away while they were at the airport.

Then I reminded myself that there is no point in being sad over L’homme. He never really cared, he lacked compassion, he lacked understanding and more than anything, he lacked the ability to commit to our relationship through thick and thin. When not even the alcohol could compensate for all the lacking, he turned nasty, mean and malicious.

I sighed, I wiped my tears, I looked up at the stars, I sent comforting, supportive whishes to My Witty Friend and The Jeweller, I went inside, I put on some happy music and started to make my house pretty for Christmas Eve dinner.

(The story in the photograph: The Princess,to my absolute delight, loved the beach. I wonder what she was thinking as she stared out over the largest body of water she had ever seen.)

I’m back

2009-12-21T07:19:00.004+02:00

lundi, le 21 décembre 2009

I spent much more time with My Witty Friend than I originally thought I would. I thought I’d go down for a week or two. Alas, seven weeks later, The Princess and I made our way back home again.

I didn’t blog because I didn’t want to. I told blog stories in my head every day. I didn’t blog because I didn’t really have the time and because I was confronted with experiences and emotions that I needed to internalise, to sift through and to make my own before I could share them.

And then, when I was on my way home, L’homme, with his usual inimitable timing, upset my entire little apple cart. I am truly aghast at this man’s total lack of compassion, of caring, his boundless stupidity. With one phone call he eradicated all the kindness and tenderness and forgiveness I had honed towards him. And he replaced it with anger.

I can’t unreservedly say that I am pleased to be back in the city where I live, but I am pleased to slowly but surely find my rhythm again.

Having booked a trip to my beloved Paris helps me to deal with my anger towards L’homme and is a good incentive to get the rhythm going.

(Some music musings: Driving down to My Witty Friend, I couldn’t get my iPod to work. Thankfully I had grabbed all of about three CD’s as I flew out the door. I spent hours listening to the obligatory ’Sympathique' and to Dylan’s Together Through Life. Many a day when The Princess and I walked along the beautiful mountain paths, the opening lines of one of my favourite ditzy songs on this CD, found their way into my head:

I get the blues for you baby when I look up at the sun
I get the blues for you baby when I look up at the sun
Come back here, we can have some real fun

Well it’s early in the evening and everything is still
Well it’s early in the evening and everything is still
One more time, I’m walking up on heartbreak hill
~Bob Dylan : Shake shake mama

(The story in the photograph: The Princess is dumbfounded that grass can grow so tall in just over seven weeks. She’s wondering whether she possibly shrunk!)

Beautiful Cards

2009-10-19T21:44:00.004+02:00

lundi, le 19 octobre 2009

(The story in the photograph: My Witty Friend’s incredibly talented 17 year old daughter made me the most beautiful card.)

A Room with a View

2009-10-17T23:07:00.002+02:00

Winter Wonderland

2009-10-16T23:25:00.000+02:00

Taking a break

2009-10-15T22:50:00.001+02:00

jeudi, le 15 octobre 2009

It was a wet, rainy day. The sun came through late afternoon. My Witty Friend, The Princess and I grabbed the opportunity for a walk in the mountains. It was the most heavenly thing I had done in a long time.

(The story in the photograph: The Princess was as elated on her walk today as she was when she was just a little pup.)

Happy Trip

2009-10-14T23:21:00.001+02:00

mercredi, le 14 octobre 2009

OK I admit, this post is purely for NaBloWriMo browny points. It was a 13½ hour drive, it was exhausting, I’m exhausted BUT the best thing I could have done!

New Shoes

2009-10-13T23:50:00.001+02:00

mardi, le 13 octobre 2009

It’s just one of those things. New shoes always remind me of Leo in Twin Peaks. That’s just the way things are.

Today my car got two new front shoes for our trip tomorrow. This time she has French shoes. I have a good feeling about that.

The Princess has her bags packed. She’s in bed already. She promised that she’ll drive the long, boring parts of our journey!

Best I go and join The Princess in bed. Tomorrow is going to be a very, very long day.

(The story in the photograph: The last time The Princess went on a road trip, I burst both the front tires on my car. On a Sunday, with nowhere to buy new tires. Needless to say, when the second tire burst and with the spare already replacing the first burst tire, we had to be towed to our final destination on a flatbed truck.)

In a nutshell

2009-10-12T23:56:00.001+02:00

lundi, le 12 octobre 2009

… that is more or less the kind of day I had!

(The story in the photograph: The picture tells it all.)

Trip planning

2009-10-11T23:15:00.000+02:00

dimanche, le 11 octobre 2009

My Witty Friend’s husband is really not doing well. She’s asked me to come and spend some time with her. For moral support, to help with the household chores, to do taxi runs for the kids and to have someone to sip a glass of wine with in the evenings.

The Princess’ hearing abilities never cease to amuse me. When she’s asked to bring her ball in the park, she’s as deaf as a door post. But mention ‘The Princess’ and a trip to anywhere in one sentence, and her ears perk up immediately. Her immediate concern is whether this means that she is being saddled with the arduous task of cat-sitting or whether it means that she can kiss her furry friends goodbye and go on an adventure. She established very quickly today that she’s going on a trip to where she’s never been before.

My Witty friend lives in the town where I went to varsity. It’s about a two hour flight from the city I live in, driving there takes about twelve hours, if not more. Flying down means I need to find a house- and Princess-sitter, which is easier said than done, especially at short notice and especially if I don’t know for how long. Driving down means the Princess gets to go on the longest road trip she’s ever been and My Bountiful Friend will do daily cat-calls to make sure that food and water bowls are filled to the brim.

I miss L’homme every single day of my life, but more so on days when I have to plan for unexpected trips and there’s a home and animals to take care of. If he had been the man of his word he wanted me to believe he was, I could’ve caught the first flight out and spent as much time with My Witty Friend as she needed. Secure in the knowledge that my home was being lived in, that The Princess was being cared for as she is accustomed to.

Alas, L’homme turned out to be as fake as he didn’t want anybody to believe he was. So now I have to make difficult decisions and sacrifices on my own. This time round the flying-driving decision was not an easy one. I’m still not sure that the driving decision is the best one, but it’s the best decision I could make today.

Tomorrow is going to be a hectic day with work in the way, the obligatory long distance car checks and a myriad of arrangements to get in place. Oh and some sleep somewhere along the way would come in handy! On Wednesday The Princess and I hit the long, long road.

(The story in the photograph: When I took The Princess out earlier this evening, I was just overwhelmed by the delightful Jasmine fragrance that filled the air.)

A Breather

2009-10-10T23:45:00.000+02:00

samedi, le 10 octobre 2009

It was pure bliss to wake up this morning to the sound of birds happily chatting away in the trees. For most of this week the shrill screeching of electronic devises has woken me to tell me it is time to get out of my feathered nest and get my nose to the grind stone.

This morning I could stretch out, turn around, cuddle behind The Princess’ back and wonder what the birds were discussing. The Princess gave a big, lazy yawn and thought they were probably discussing where the juiciest worms were to be found. I reckoned they were discussing flight paths of the day.

I had a long, pampering bath and was sipping some soothing tea when My Bountiful Friend called. I hadn’t seen her in about three weeks either. This whole work thing really has this strange ability to get in the way of life!

The Fairy was having playmates over and My Bountiful Friend was dying for some adult conversation. I was simply dying for conversation. We chatted like great friends do who haven’t seen each other in a while. We were both talking at the same time. At any given point we each had at least four stories going. I don’t think we successfully managed to finish one of them. We did get around to discussing matters of life, of death, of the heart.

My Bountiful Friend made us the most wonderful Oeuf Cocotte for lunch. With a tummy tingling with delight and heart full of soul food, I headed back late afternoon for The Princess’ walk.

This evening I have been keeping one eye on the Internet and one eye on the TV. I’m tracking The Athlete’s performance in the Ironman World Championships. I have huge admiration for her single-minded determination and discipline. Not only does she have a very demanding corporate job, but she still finds the time participate in very demanding endurance sporting events and often wins her category. Truly inspirational stuff! Her swimming time has been on par with two years ago, but she’s burning up the track with her bicycle!! Way to go, my super human friend!!

Watching The Presidents Cup without L’homme is not quite the same. But it’s just one of many ‘without L’homme’ things that I’m getting used to. Watching it on my own is at least better than not watching it at all!

To all NaBloWriMo participants: One third of the way done! Two thirds to go!

(The story in the photograph: The Story Teller is delighted that it’s weekend. That means she gets to curl up on her favourite bed and explain to humans how work should be approached!)

Comforting Casseroles

2009-10-09T23:52:00.001+02:00

vendredi, le 08 octobre 2009

My current favourite casserole: lamb and yoghourt! I made it for The Artist’s birthday some time ago and it was such a hit, that I thought it would be a great dinner for The Lawyer and family.

The Lawyer’s wife came out of hospital yesterday, but the young Scotsman still needs to grow and gain some weight. I saw photographs of him tonight. I didn’t think it was possible that a baby could be so tiny! But he came off the ventilator today and is doing just fine.

I decided it was necessary to take some time out of my hectic schedule and play in the kitchen. The problem with me and cooking is that I never stick to a recipe. I believe recipes are meant to be the inspiration and from there you make a dish your own. Today I decided to make the casserole more of a meal in one and added some rice noodles.

I love the richness of the lamb and the slight sourness of the yoghourt. For freshness, I added liberal amounts of chopped mint and dill. It made a wonderful supper with a crisp, leafy salad.

(The story in the photograph: The lamb and yoghourt casserole and I made it home just in time to post this before the day is over.)

Attention Withdrawal

2009-10-08T23:32:00.002+02:00

jeudi, le 08 octobre 2009

Even The Princess is suffering from attention withdrawal. She can’t work out why her daily walk has suddenly turned into a short jog through the park. There’s no more lingering at the dam where she loves to swim, there’s no more indulging her hide and seek games in the water flowers.

I keep telling her that she is still very special, that I still love her very much, but it’s this avalanche of work. These numbers and graphs and all things boring that need to be turned into words. I keep telling her it will pass, hopefully soon.

She can’t work out why she now spends so much time in the big bed on her own. Maybe with a cat or two to share her space. But there’s no more me for much longer than an hour or two at the oddest hours.

The tragedy when work gobbles up life! But this too shall pass, hopefully soon.

(The story in the photograph: The Princess playing her private ball games in the water flowers.)

A Dull Girl

2009-10-07T23:21:00.001+02:00

mercredi, le 07 octobre 2009

All work and no play makes Rispa a dull girl. Late to bed and early to rise, does not make her wise! I find myself buried under an avalanche of work. Which is not necessarily all in all a bad thing – far less time for gut-wrenching agonising.

This post is really just not to fall behind on daily NaBloWriMo posts.

(The story in the photograph: Some pretty flowers to brighten a hard working day!)

Polka dot bear

2009-10-06T23:53:00.002+02:00

mardi, le 06 octobre 2009

Last night The Lawyer’s wife gave birth to a very little boy. This young Scotsman is bound to grow into an explorer of note. Two months before his scheduled date of arrival, he decided it’s time to leave the comfort of the womb and step into the big wide world!

I saw The Lawyer tonight. He reports that mom and son are both doing fine.

(The story in the photograph: Fortunately I saw this adorable little polka dot bear a week or so ago and could not resist buying it. Did I maybe suspect that the young Scotsman was going to be an early riser like his father?)

Anniversaries that I hate

2009-10-05T11:55:00.002+02:00

lundi, le 05 octobre 2009

It is that time of month when the bitter anniversary comes around again. A week or so ago I thought it would be a good idea to invite my nearest and dearest friends for supper tonight. Those who have been so relentlessly generous in their support, their understanding and in the lending of their ears. Those who have been feeding me plates piled high with nourishing soul food. I thought I’d treat them to my French favourites, as a tiny gesture of heartfelt appreciation: Oeuf Cocotte and Magret de Canard.

But as today dragged nearer, I realised that I’m nowhere near strong enough to cook up a storm in my kitchen when the only storm I’m aware of is the storm raging in my heart and my mind. I’d be far more inclined to, in true ’Like water for chocolate’ fashion, shed tears in my delicious, well-balanced bitter sweet berry sauce. With an unattainable love in mind, I’d risk transferring my love, my feelings and my memories into my favourite dishes. I may end up with a dinner table of guests deeply melancholic or, heavens forbid, my culinary delights may inspire someone to leave my house naked with a revolutionary soldier. Not that I had a revolutionary soldier in mind to invite, but you never know what lurks in the hearts and minds of those I know well.

At least I get to visit The Shrink today. She asks me how I’ve been. I tell her stupid. I tell her I dropped a book off for L’homme at his place of work last week. I tell her I gave him access to some of the things I have been writing since he left. I tell her that the book was intended to explain my writings, to provide some insight on where I was coming from and where I am hopefully heading towards. I tell her that my writings about L’homme are not embellished, it’s the brutal honest truth of my life, my heart, my mind without him.

I tell her I always prided myself in never saying things about L’homme behind his back that I wasn’t prepared to tell him to his face. I tell her that I have lately been feeling that I am now discussing him with others and I am not telling him about it. I tell her that morally or ethically it has been tugging at my conscience. I tell her I had no choice, I had to give him the book and tell him what I was writing, to appease the voices in my heart and in my soul.

I tell her this sparked some e-mail exchanges between L’homme and I. He would fetch the book and he has always wanted me to write and now I am doing it and, as he expected, doing it very well. A blanket folds warmly around my heart.

I remind him that I have always written in the times without him. I have years of experience of gut-wrenching writing. He tells me he has read some more and finds it squirm worthy, but he won’t hold it against me. A blanket folds warmly around my heart.

Later he lets me know that he has read even more of what I have written. He thinks I write beautifully and that he is increasingly not looking good in what I have to say. He tells me I don’t come across as being bitter and bitchy. A blanket folds warmly around my heart.

I want to reply to him that I have never been bitter and bitchy where he is concerned. I have been wanting and needy, Nora and Timid Trudy, hurt and angry. I have been searching in every corner of his mind, in his eyes, in his touch, in the words from his mouth for intimate love I have found it not. I don’t reply.

I tell The Shrink that even later I get another message from L’homme. He says that my writing is not about him, it’s about me. And that it is addictive reading. I tell her that I burst out laughing. I tell her that only a true, blue-blooded masochistic narcissist could derive so much pleasure from reading something so squirm worthy! A blanket folds warmly around my heart.

That is why I love L’homme so very, very much. Oh my love, you have an uncanny ability to, with very few words, make me laugh at something I perceive so serious, so painful. With few words and a healthy dose of laughter, you can make me feel that everything will fine, it will be light, it will be bright.

The Shrink asks me how I’m doing with my list of things that are better/worse for me since L’homme has left. I tell her that I actually did re-visit my list the other day. I tell her I had nothing to add, my list still looks like this:

On a cold summer day I walk back home. At least my heart is wrapped warmly in the blankets L’homme gave me. It pumps my blood somewhat more easily through my veins, to my mind. I think back on the past four months. I think I may have shed some of my anger, but not my sadness, my love, my longing.

I wonder whether L’homme celebrates the anniversary with wine, women and song. I wonder whether he realises it is an anniversary at all. I wonder whether any of the uncomplicated sex he has found has already turned complicated, has followed the path from liking too much to wanting and needing. To making sacrifices, to buying gifts, to spending money, to taking trips. None on L’homme’s expense.

If this were true, would I be jealous? I think not. I will be hurt because of the ease with which L’homme can eradicate thirteen years. But for her I will mainly feel pity. It will just be a matter of time before she, too, gets hurt.

(The story in the photograph: In celebration of My Mother’s 90th birthday last year, I whisked her, L’homme and myself off on a journey on ‘The Most Luxurious Train in the World’. They make the beds beautifully in the evenings with soft blankets to cuddle under warmly while sipping sparkling wine and watching the moonlit countryside go by. A truly unforgettable experience.)

Secondly battling with words

2009-10-04T13:45:00.000+02:00

dimanche, le 04 octobre 2009

Now in my room

Oh my Love
I found You again
I went out
for a pack of cigarettes
and there You were
I bowed to everyone
and they rejoiced with me
I lost myself
in the eyes of a dog
who loved You
The heat lifted me up
The traffic bounced me
naked into bed
with a book about You
and a bottle of cold water
~Leonard Cohen

Recently I started battling a bit with the word ’love’. Not quite the same way as the long, ongoing battle I have had with the words ’honour’ and ’respect’. It has been a more subtle battle.

When I tell L’homme that I love him, I know what I am saying and I understand the meaning of the word. I know, I understand the meaning of loving The Princess and all her many furry friends. I love good food, I love beautiful art, I love burying my nose in a good read, I love listening to music that touches my soul, I love Paris and I love France. In each of these instances I know what love means. I know what it feels like, what it tastes like, what it smells like.

But often on these pages I have lamented that, from L’homme, all I asked was love. All I wanted was for him to love me. As I would say this, a thought would scurry across my mind quickly, wondering what exactly I meant by that but not finding the time to linger or ponder. I wasn’t certain beyond reasonable doubt how this love would feel, would taste, would smell. I had this niggling sense that it sounded somewhat corny.

So I started battling with the love I so desperately wanted from L’homme. Recently it struck me that the love I was looking for would feel, would taste, would smell intimate. The more I mulled it over, the more I became certain that I wanted L’homme to love me intimately. Not only in the sexual sense of the word, but also in the familiar sense, the private, personal sense, the thorough sense, the close sense, the essential, intrinsic sense, in the sense found only in very close, very special relationships.

In that special way in which your eyes would momentarily lock across a crowded room and tell a fleeting heartfelt tale of love, of commitment, of involvement, of presence. In which a touch would convey the warmth of love, of commitment, of involvement, of presence. In which body language would bubble over excitedly with stories of love, of commitment, of involvement, of presence. In which a hug would enfold the intensity of love, of commitment, of involvement, of presence. What I wanted, was for L’homme to be intimate with me, in every sense of the word, also in the sexual sense of the word.

But L’homme could not do this. L’homme fears intimacy as much as he fears love, fears commitment, fears involvement, fears being present. Above all, he fears fear itself. To make it easier, he pours another glass of wine, lights another cigarette, searches for another girl on the porn site that promises uncomplicated sex.

L’homme would kiss me with his eyes searching past mine for what was happening behind me, he would mostly make love to me in a way that he couldn’t see my face, he would talk to me with his body turned away. I would feel saddened, I would feel hurt. I now understand why. His absent presence was not intimate.

Driving with The Princess for her walk today, I hear a local artist’s rendition of Pink Martini’s fabulous song ’Sympathique’. I bought the CD at a concert held on Mother’s Day. L’homme stood in the queue with me to have it autographed.

Long ago I knew the smell of love,
a million roses didn’t smell as sweet.
Now a single flower in my way makes me sick.

I don’t want to work,
I don’t want to lunch
I only want to forget and so I smoke.
~Pink Martini : Sympathique

I simply adore this ditsy little tune. Whenever it played in the shop, L’homme would merrily sing along and translate it for me. Occasionally he would take me in his arms and dance with me. I now understand those were occasional intimate moments, as intimate as L’homme was capable of being. From now on, when I say all I wanted was for L’homme to love me, I will mean that all I wanted from him was intimacy.

(L’homme and I are both Leonard Cohen fans. The inscription in front of the book reminds me that I bought it for us as holiday reading just before our trip abroad in 2007. In the beginning of last year, The Poet was between accommodations. He stayed with us for a few weeks. My and The Poet’s friendship got off to a rocky start many years ago, but over time we have settled our differences. Today I enjoy The Poet’s company. Here The Poet is reading the book. The Princess is comfortably snuggled up next to him, reading stories of her own through his glasses.)

Firstly battling with words

2009-10-03T23:12:00.003+02:00

samedi, le 03 octobre 2009

I’ve looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It’s love’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know love at all
~Joni Mitchell : Both sides now

There are some words I inherently battle with. The first time I can recall hearing the words ’honour’ and ’respect’ was as a tiny little girl, sitting not quietly in church next to My Mother. The stern, strict and very learned minister spoke with sweeping gestures, the long arms of his black priest’s robe sweeping across the pulpit. He’d urge the congregation to follow the Ten Commandments. He’d urge me, specifically, to ’Honour thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long.’ I’d crane my neck to glance admiringly at my father sitting amongst the elders, I’d look up lovingly at My Mother sitting next to me. Their eyes fixed on the minister. I’d think how much I loved them and that my days were already long, especially on Sundays. Just sitting through the sermon was longer than an eternity could then be, especially at the age of seven or five.

The minister would warn how fire and brimstone, the agents of divine wrath, would be visited upon those who do not obey. I played with the pretty silver buckle on my new pink shoes. I accidentally bumped my psalm book. It noisily fell to the floor. I slid off the hard wooden pew to pick it up. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the fire and brimstone of My Mother’s hand firmly gripped my upper arm. She yanked me back onto the bench next to her and hissed that I should sit still. That I’m such a naughty child. That I am so unruly.

I instinctively knew my day had just gotten longer. Playing with the pretty silver buckle on my new pink shoes I’d thought that I honoured and respected. Suddenly, after honouring and respecting, comes fire and brimstone. After sitting through many similar Sunday sermons, I eventually formed an understanding of the words ’honour’ and ’respect’ and both had, indelibly imbedded in them, a healthy helping of fire and brimstone, a good dose of fear.

To this day I look at people strangely when they say that all they want is a little respect. I have no desire to be respected. For, should someone respect me, they would, by inference, also fear me. I really do not want to be feared. I would more like to be considered and once considered, judged on the merits of who I am. For, I am sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes kind, sometimes cruel, sometimes happy, sometimes sad but I am always me.

As of late, I have been battling a bit with the word ’love’. About that I will tell you tomorrow.

(Storm clouds gathering on a late summer afternoon.)

Nomenclature

2009-10-02T23:46:00.001+02:00

vendredi, le 02 octobre 2009

Brave is still hobbling along on crutches. It seems like an eternity has passsed since he was knocked off his bicycle and it seems like another eternity is going to pass before he will be back on his own two feet. Literally.

Brave has sent Lovemore to help me out in the meantime. He is tall, thin, neatly dressed and laughs easily. Not quite as heartily and infectiously as Brave, but still. I like people who laugh easily, they generally deal with sorrow better.

I wonder what his parents were thinking when they gave him his name. Did they think they would need to love him more than others? Or did they think that he would love more than others? Or did they think he would simply love more people and things to do justice to his name? Did they instinctively know the importance of love?

Lovemore tells me he won’t be able to work for me next week. Nor the next two weeks for that matter. He is going to his homeland to visit his family. Selfishly I immediately think of my garden. It’s is again facing neglect with no-one to Edward Scissorhands the bushes into shape. Then I realise the sacrifices Lovemore has to make to spend the largest part of the year away from his family, his loved ones, to earn a meager living in a foreign land.

I give Lovemore his wage. I give him a little extra and tell him to have a safe journey. Tell him to take care of himself. A broad smile spreads across his face. He hugs me spontaneously. I think how easy it is to make a little difference to somebody else’s life.

(Life coaches and the like often pose the question: ‘If time and money were not the issue, what would you like to do?’ Right now I’d like to be in the city I like best, with a metro ticket in my purse, the cobble-stoned pavements beneath my feet and a street café close by.)

Losing my life line

2009-10-01T11:40:00.002+02:00

jeudi, le 01 octobre 2009

What a party! In celebration of her 50th birthday, The Jeweller pulled out all the stops. The garden was bathed in flaming torchlight, beautiful bunches of St Joseph Lilies were everywhere to be seen. Smartly dressed waiters walked around with trays of flutes filled with the driest of French Champagne. Then the snacks where handed round. An endless stream of the tiniest, bight-size delicacies.

My Witty Friend was the instigator of the party. She lives in a town about a two hour flight away, but her husband’s illness prevented her from making the trip. He’s not doing well at all. In fact, I think the end of his suffering is near. The Jeweller tells me that she has strict instruction from My Witty Friend. In her absence, I should have her quota of wine for the evening as well.

I seek out some old varsity friends. The wine flows, the snacks are devoured and the years that lie between us, are talked away until it feels like we are again sitting around a table in the quaint, leafy town where we attended varsity. Except back then the wine was much cheaper and the snacks were primarily crisps and peanuts. Only on very special occasions we may have had some dips to go with the crisps. But the chatter and the laughter is still the same. Thinking of My Witty Friend, I take another glass of red wine from the tray.

This morning I pressed the snooze button on my alarm clock many more times than I could afford. Waking up after an evening of drinking for two was not going to be easy. Clearing my head was not going to be possible.

I drag myself to my laptop and stare at the screen through the steam coming from the tea cup in my hands. No mail is downloading. This is too good to be true, the hangover gods must be on my side. But then I realise no mail is going out either. Then I discover that I have no connection to cyber space.

I make a frantic phone call to my service provider. All is in order. I make a frantic phone call to my ADSL supplier. Nothing is in order. There have been road works to some major throughway not far from where I live and the cables have been damaged. Sorry. No telling when they will be repaired. I stutter a few buts, try to explain about deadlines that I need to meet. I get told to check every half hour or so. I can tell my appeals are falling on deaf ears. Without bothering to explain about my pounding head, I put the phone down. I stare at my screen in disbelief.

I open a report I need to write. I battle to find the words through the red wine haze in my head. I have some more tea. I make something to eat. I stare at the screen. I start typing, but use the backspace key a lot. Eventually I make some progress.

Driving to the office late this afternoon with the finished report saved on a memory stick, I realise just how dependent I have become on the line that connects me to the outside world. Not only to earn my daily bread, but also for recreation.

Walking The Princess helps to clear my head. But I’m delighted when we bump into her best friend. All the ball throwing and ball picking up with a fuzzy head was becoming tedious.

I linger longer than usual with The Princess while she has her supper. I feed the fish and water some plants. Back at my desk I check my line to the outside world again. A solid green light appears on my router, mails start tumbling into my inbox, the remains of my hangover drift out the door. Delighted I pour myself a glass of wine and start bashing away at my keyboard.

(Our barge broke down on our trip through the South of France last year, a few hundred meters from a restaurant with really fantastic food. The wine, however, more resembled the cheaper variety we used to drink in our varsity days.)

Fedora Man

2009-09-30T08:19:00.007+02:00

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

2009-09-29T12:08:00.003+02:00

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

2009-09-28T23:20:00.003+02:00

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

2009-09-27T23:30:00.002+02:00

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

2009-09-26T20:45:00.000+02:00

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

2009-09-25T22:45:00.001+02:00

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.

2009-09-24T23:55:00.006+02:00

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

2009-09-23T23:15:00.002+02:00

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

2009-09-22T22:30:00.001+02:00

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

2009-09-21T20:50:00.004+02:00

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

2009-09-20T23:50:00.005+02:00

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.

2009-09-19T21:55:00.000+02:00

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

2009-09-18T23:20:00.005+02:00

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

2009-09-17T23:30:00.002+02:00

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

2009-09-16T23:55:00.008+02:00

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

2009-09-15T23:00:00.001+02:00

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

2009-09-14T22:45:00.002+02:00

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

2009-09-13T23:55:00.010+02:00

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

2009-09-12T21:30:00.003+02:00

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

2009-09-11T22:45:00.017+02:00

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

2009-09-10T23:55:00.003+02:00

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

2009-09-09T23:55:00.013+02:00

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

2009-09-08T22:30:00.008+02:00

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

2009-09-07T22:15:00.000+02:00

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

2009-09-06T19:20:00.003+02:00

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.)

The windmills of your mind

2009-09-05T21:50:00.007+02:00

samedi, le 05 septembre 2009

When you knew that it was over,
Were you suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the colour of her hair?
~Alan Bergman

A bitter anniversary. It is three months to the day that L’homme walked out on me, without a word. Three short months that have changed the course of a lifetime plotted over thirteen long years.

In December things got a bit rocky. L’homme upped and left, allured by the fool’s gold of the dark night, on a five day bender. When the hangover set in, he came back. And through a cricket test series, we found closeness and connection again.

L’homme found work a day or so a week and things become lighter. He became more enthused about a friend’s software program on the surface and started dreaming about the riches he was going to reap and the kindness he was going to bestow on me. He’d tell me that he’d buy me a house in the French countryside, I’d tell him that all I want is for him to love me. He even felt that all was well in our relationship, albeit that ‘his’ bar was simply surviving from month to month.

The bar was never his, but that detail he was not going to divulge to those not in the know. But as the bar was not his, he also didn’t know to what extent the bar was floundering from month to month, to what extent it was draining what little access I had to money. To what extent I needed him to take responsibility for himself, and how I, for the first time in our lifetime together, needed him to ease some of the household financial burden.

At the end of February we attended a relative’s wedding and an epileptic fit thrust new possibilities upon his software project. But the software project remained limited to a few phone calls a day, endless ‘meetings’ in bars and little promotional effort to match the potential it held.

By early April L’homme spoke kinder about our relationship to others. He described our lifestyle as that of an old married couple. But meanwhile back home, there was a direct correlation between the glasses of wine, the pages of online porn, his absenteeism in the relationship and a household spiraling deeper into a recession. The wine, the porn and the absenteeism increased while the money ran out. But if he saw us as an old married couple, surely his absenteeism would soon become more attentive?

By mid-April our vehicle with our sensitive relationship in it, battled up steep and rocky mountain paths, with no 4 x 4 capabilities. And I yanked the steering wheel this way and that, and L’homme fell more and more quiet, became more and more distant.

The most bitter, hurtful conversation of our lifetime together was had. He voiced his regrets, that he had no desire for me, that he had always been absent from the relationship and his biggest regret of all, that he could not be better for me.

In the same conversation he also told me that I had no choice but to endure this, to endure his lack of desire, to endure his absence and to endure the way he treated me, because, should I decide to end it, he would sue me. And he would sue me to maintain him in the lifestyle he had become accustomed to, the lifestyle I offered him.

I limped away from that conversation heartbroken, angry and hurt beyond comprehension. For months I’d been trying to wriggle from the burden of his dependency, to get him to take responsibility for himself, and he rewards me by taking total control over me. By threatening me with legal action I cannot afford, he ensured that I had to abide by a life with him, with his lack of desire and deepening absence.

And so our vehicle with our sensitive relationship in it came dangerously close to a precipice. I slowly and carefully negotiated the downhill.

In early May L’homme goes away for the weekend. Leaving me alone, scared and confused. He realises he doesn’t have the infrastructure to leave, ever dependent on not the person that I am, but the lifestyle that I offer him, albeit now stripped bare of all luxuries. And for light comic relief he is the clown of Friday night’s party.

A few days later he announces that we are about to get divorced, that we are buckling under the stresses and strains of life, that he said things in the heat of the moment that he shouldn’t have and all of this the result of economic pressures. And he has the warped insight that we could maybe patch it all back together again if he one day made some money.

On Mother’s Day, my mother, as countless times in my life before, rescues me. She invites L’homme to join us at a concert. He sits next to me, he holds my hand, he hugs me from time to time, he buys me a little black cat. And tears roll uncontrollably over my face. At least for now I have all I have fought for and asked for so desperately these past many months. I feel a vague closeness from L’homme, a glimmer of his presence. And with his closeness and distant presence, I could move forward, I could move on.

A few days later our fortunes turn. L’homme gets fulltime work. I jump up early in the mornings, load The Princess in the car and take him to work. At lunchtime we take him home cooked meals and though things are still shaky, I revel in yet another corner we have turned.

I now do not have the burden of L’homme on my back for financial well-being, I can feel somewhat less guilty about his financial predicament. I can breathe lightly again, not deep, satisfying breaths, but shallow, short breaths. We will survive the recession, we will break through to the other side, hand in hand, arm in arm and we will grow old together.

L’homme admits that he feels much better about himself, that he treats me better and that things are going better. Not great, but at least better. And for me, better is good. He again talks of us as a couple, of us as together. He tells others about our love of France and things we have in common, the fact that we are both snobs, him intellectually and me stylishly and intellectually and that’s why we’re together.

But then I realise L’homme is only going to use his financial gains to satisfy his ego, his life in bars with no relief to the household pot and the kindnesses he has bestowed lightly on me, has only been to justify his self-indulgent lifestyle. On a Friday night at the end of May I tell him about a meal of favourites I’m going to cook, only for him not to come home at all and to stagger in from the bars in the early hours of the next morning, with the meal of favourites dried out and cold.

Tired, beaten down and exasperated by the fighting, the struggling of the past few months, I simply fall silent. And in my silence I search for new approaches to bridge this gap.

I stumble across a therapy program that offers:
‘What we need to understand is that conflict is supposed to happen. This is as nature intended it. Conflict needs to be understood as a given, a sign that the psyche is trying to survive, trying to restore what went wrong, to get it’s needs met and become whole. What you have experienced during the romantic stage of your relationship is an indication of the potential of what your relationship can be like.’

I have never in my life been as happy as I was during the romantic stages of my relationship with L’homme and if this is the potential of what our life together can be like, this is what I want.

But then, before I can share this with him, he announces that he is going to move out. Just like that. Later that night I ask him to hug me. And I cling to him with the same desperation I did on Friday.

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
~Jacques Brel

(And as Charles Baudelaire knew, my and L’homme’s world only went round by misunderstanding. Wind turbines totally fascinate me, even though they aren’t as pretty as windmills. It’s one of those contradictions – a man-made thing that blemishes an exquisite landscape, but I find them very gracious and elegant. And I wonder what the windmills of L’homme’s mind generate.)

Lingering liabilities

2009-09-04T23:33:00.005+02:00

vendredi, le 04 septembre 2009

Not long after Wonder Woman arrived this morning, L’homme is on the phone to find out whether the two of us had cast all our usual chores aside in favour of single-mindedly and with determination search for the invoice he so desperately needs. I tell him our search yielded no result, no invoice.

And then the old, familiar L’homme jumps to the fore. The L’homme that lives the parasitic lifestyle, completely devoid of remorse or guilt, who will, with superficial charm, manipulate resolutely to fulfill his own self-indulgent needs. He now needs a favour from me.

I listen in stunned silence. I make a clumsy and vague attempt to tell him that, tragically, he has always discarded the person I am in preference for the means and abilities I have to pamper to the needs of his parasitic, self-indulgent lifestyle.

I need to provide him with written and authenticated proof of my independence, my competences, my capabilities and, in so doing, cover up a lie about his, in order for him to secure a loan to repay the debt he has incurred watching girls masturbating sensuously, desperately seeking uncomplicated sex and relentlessly pursuing a life of make-believe. Now he needs me to substantiate the unsubstantiated belief he holds of himself, that he is reliable, dependable, stable, honourable and upstanding and for this he expects me to lie with the same glibness, guiltlessness he knows so well. As always, he is expecting me to create a reality for him that he is wholly and totally incapable of creating for himself.

And all of this I need to do on his terms. I must fabricate stability for him and leave it in the mailbox. He couldn’t possibly face me, The Princess or the home we once shared.

I am torn between my self-flagellation of the past nearly three months of the ease with which I have always given in to L’homme’s demands and a desire to leave his needs unfulfilled with the same callousness, coldness and cruelty he always reserved for mine. But for me to do the latter, I would have to prostitute my soul for him, yet again. And L’homme has never had any use for the prostitute in me.

The compromise? I’ll give L’homme what he wants, I’ll create a reality he has never dreamed of doing for himself, but to get that reality, he will have to meet with me, eye to eye.

He ends the call without the courtesy of a goodbye, why should he? He’s about to get what he wants and if I did imposed any discomfort on him, he’ll ease it with bars, booze and the broads that hacked his band or not even notice it at all. Again, I am his meal ticket, he my lingering liability.

Giving in to his needs, I wonder why he is turning to me. Where are his so-called friends, where are all the sensuous girls that landed him in this predicament in the first place? Or would he be complicating sex by standing truly naked in front of them?

He arrives to get what he needed. The Princess rushes out to meet him. With dog-like innocence she assures him of her devotion, her forgiveness, her adoration. I walk up and give her the space she needs.

L’homme steps forward and folds his arms around me. I cling to him and am overwhelmed by a warmness, a comfort, a familiarity that flows through my body. Every fiber of my being soaks up the world of make-believe of L’homme.

I give him what he came for. I demand a trade-off. Creating a false reality for him, means he is indebted to me for a future need I may have of him. He agrees. I smile wryly. In a bitter argument we once had, L’homme told me his honesty was only momentary. I then pointed out that his honesty carried no weight, had no meaning, because once the moment had passed, so would his honesty. He then snapped that he had expected more intelligent thinking from me. Funny that, I expected more honesty from him.

We hug again. I softly kiss his neck, I draw the smell of him so deep into my nostrils that I hope it would live there forever. I walk him to his car. I babble to hide my emotions, to make the moment last.

And as he drives off, I know so does the undertaking he made to be available if I needed him.

As the garage door closes behind me, my intense emotions of the past few hours overwhelm me. I tearfully walk into the kitchen. Wonder Woman turns from the lunch she is busy preparing and gives me a hug.

Of the hugs I got today, I know hers is the more sincere, but for now I trade sincerity for the world of make-believe I create in the arms of L’homme.

(L’homme reminds me of a Meatloaf song: ‘I want you, I need you, but there ain’t no way I’m ever going to love you. Now don’t be sad, because two out of three ain’t bad.’ Except he only wants me and needs me to support his life of self-indulgence. Barging on a canal in the South of France, I would dream under the equidistant trees and bright yellow sunflower fields of a life I could create there for L’homme and me.)

Thieves of the night

2009-09-04T05:10:00.002+02:00

vendredi, le 04 septembre 2009

In the early afternoon I came home after running some real or perceived errands just to find an armed response vehicle in my drive way. I checked my phone to make sure that I hadn’t missed a call from them. I talk to the armed security guard outside my lounge window. He cannot give me sufficient proof that there had in fact been an alarm activation that he had responded to.

Annoyed I make sure he leaves my property and walk into the house, very surprised to find The Princess happily sleeping on the double bed, blissfully unaware of the stranger on the property, blissfully unaware of the anxiety in my voice talking to the security guard a mere five meters from where she lay.

When The Princess and I came back from the shop in the early morning hours, she pottered around for a while with the mysterious things that dogs do and I distractedly fiddled with a bit of this and a bit of that, slightly unnerved by having spoken to L’homme earlier for the first time in nearly 3 months.

Eventually we stop our pottering and fiddling and wander off to bed. With huge big sighs, she cuddles up next to me and I wonder whether she read the ‘Puppy size’ e-mail over my shoulder according to which the more you love, the bigger your sighs. I read for a while before turning out the light.

And in that split second between dream and sleep I have a vivid flashback to the man with the balaclava and the gun and the man with the dreadlocks and the screwdriver that stood at the end of our bed about two years ago and who stole my and L’homme’s Christmas in Paris.

I sit up and prick my ears but all I hear is The Princess’ rhythmic breathing. I slowly lie back, my entire body taut. Then I hear a possible cat making human like noises somewhere on the roof or is it a human making cat like noises? I double check that all the alarms are set, that the cage is locked. I try and convince myself that my fortress is impenetrable, but my mind just cannot get a grip on that thought. The leaves in the tree rustle and a cat loudly plonks to the ground. I listen to the silence but my body refuses to release the fear, my mind refuses to accept the knowledge that we are safe.

Is the me living on my own more scared, more paranoid, more petrified of the deafening sound of a single gunshot that so easily can slice through both legs and leave the stench up gunpowder forever clinging in one's nostrils? No, while L'homme lived with me, I stared down the barrel of a gun on three occasions and my house was burgled once.

As with most other things, I wholly depend on myself to diffuse the fear and paranoia. What I wanted and needed from L'homme was to fulfill a very reasonable expectation in the context of a functional relationship, I needed him to love me, I needed him to be present in the relationship. It occurs to me whether, while he calls himself a functional alcoholic, he is not possibly a dysfunctional human being?

With brown and paranoid eyes I sit on the edge of my bed, peering through the cage over L’homme’s empty chair, into the garden covered in the soft grey light of the full moon.

And I know tonight sleep will not come.

(Caged in by burglar bars, by trellis doors, by fear, by paranoia, guarded by a sleeping dog, this photo was taken at 04:28. When the light came, I could get a few hours’ sleep)

It’s the broads that hack your band!

2009-09-03T23:55:00.008+02:00

jeudi, le 03 septembre 2009

This afternoon I was feverishly trying to rustle up some park playmates for The Princess. I heard a text message beep on my mobile phone. I thought it would be confirmation of a play date.

It was a text message from L’homme. I fumbled with sweaty palms to open the message. No words of undying love, no words of regret for the way in which he left, no words of gratitude for what I had done for him in the past, no words of praise for handling his departure with dignity and decency at every juncture. No, he urgently needed an invoice which he thought had been mailed to my address and he needed me to leave it in the post box for him. Just that.

I slipped into my walking shoes, flicked through the pile of mail stacked on the kitchen counter on my way out the door. The Princess was already sitting outside, anxiously waiting for our daily trip to the park.

It would appear that this year spring had arrived with all her luggage in tact. She is not going to need to plunge us back into the grips of winter to fetch some forgotten essentials. The trees in the park are busy covering their branches with their crispy new clean green leaves they carefully hid from the bitter winter cold. And the fruit bearing trees are proudly waving their arms, covered in their best pink blossoms.

Back from the park, I gave The Princess her supper and chatted to her while she ate, as is our latest custom. Not that she says much through the hungry mouthfuls.

I made more of an effort to find the invoice L’homme so urgently needs. It was nowhere to be seen. I decided that I’d ask Wonder Woman about it in the morning and gave it no further thought. Wonder Woman is the amazing person tasked with, essentially, running my household. I think she has a better idea of what is going on in my cupboards and my life than I have.

At the shop, The Princess curled up comfortably on her Ottoman, fast asleep. I buried myself in some paperwork that had been piling up so high that it now required my urgent attention in order not to topple over. The shrill sound of a call coming in on my mobile breaks the peace.

It was L’homme. I stand accused that I didn’t react to the text message he had sent earlier. It wasn’t that I wanted to stonewall him, I tell him, and that I would check with Wonder Woman whether she had perhaps filed it under ‘U’ for ‘Urgent attention: L’homme’. I didn’t even bother to ask him whether he was aware of the postal worker strike. He should be, but he needed something and he needed it urgently and no small time strike was going to stop him from getting what he wanted.

In the days before he snuck out of my house under cover of The Princess and I walking in the park, he had entered into a contract for a laptop, complete with built-in web cam and 1 Gig of broadband, for what sounded like a real basement bargain deal. Now his bills for broadband used had grown exponentially. His claimed broadband was being hacked and the total cost thereof was by now reaching astronomical proportions. He’s got the editor and the consumer desk of the largest newspaper in the country working with him to expose this injustice that is being inflicted upon him.

The longer I listened to his ranting the broader my smile grew. My broadband is mainly used for e-mails, playing innocuous online games with friends near and far, posting daily blogs and reading blogs of interest and 1 Gig hardly ever lasts me longer than nine days. There is no downloading of music or movies and I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than watch live streams of girls sensuously masturbating or raunchy sex scenes with canned breathing!! Let alone wanting to chat to friends here or there with the eye of the cam beaming my face or my crotch into cyber space. I am many things, but narcissism has barely found a foothold in my vocabulary, let alone my character. The same cannot be said for L’homme.

But what amazes me the most is that L’homme, the armchair specialist on every topic from art to x-rated websites, so firmly believes that he is the one being scuppered. ‘Really, L’homme, you so often claim ownership of intelligence, I honestly expected more intelligent thinking from you than to think that your broadband is being hacked. You hacked your own broadband by broadly hacking into porn sites, by hacking into live streams where broads sensuously arouse you.’

It deeply saddens a large part of me to realise that he has probably spent more money on roving through cyber space with the one-eyed cam of the web and with his hand on his one-eyed trouser snake than he has probably spent on me in our lifetime together. A small part of me revels in the financial discomfort caused by his escapisms of choice. But the pain suffered from financial hardship is in no way comparable to the pain suffered by a heart, body and soul torn apart.

Now he claims to be sorry for putting me through the search of an invoice for him. I tell him that this is the absolute least of what he is putting me through. I can adequately cope with rummaging through my unopened mail. He tells me that he doesn’t want to hurt me. Not once, but three times. If that is what he truly doesn’t want to do, why does he do it? I undertake to report back tomorrow on Wonder Woman’s findings. And as so often in the past, I shake my head in amazement at how diametrically opposed L’homme’s words and actions are. He says he doesn’t want to hurt me, but he’s going to dive straight in unreservedly and do it, regardless.

Of course he is, he depends on me to take his phone calls, he depends on me to assist him with his problem. Scarcely a month ago, he bluntly ignored a text message and mail from me, both solicited by his actions. He could not scrape together the common garden variety decency to thank me for wishes on his birthday. But I do think that the cumulative effect of many years of abusively heavy drinking is increasingly shrinking the areas of his brain where higher cognitive faculties are found to such an extent that he actually thinks that his behaviour is beyond reproach. He will with the same eloquence defend his ignoring of me a month ago as he would his depending on me now. The thought does cross my mind that is probably a good thing that he started life out more intelligence than most, half way through his life he is being overtaken by most.

I walk back into the shop with a wry smile and a myriad of feelings flowing through my body and mixing somewhere near the pit of my stomach. My ears somehow register that La vie en rose is playing. As I sit down I can so clearly see myself lying down on a romantic bed of red roses with the thorns pricking my heart. And I look up at the beachfront couch where L’homme is not sitting and a thorn of emptiness, of longing and missing pricks my soul.

But there were always three of us in our relationship: me, L’homme’s words and L’homme’s actions and by times it got uncomfortably crowded.

(A photo taken in the park today of the beautiful pink blossoms. I want the pretty flowers to formulate a belief deep somewhere inside of me that they are a sign of better times to come.)

Strange how things happen

2009-09-02T22:45:00.003+02:00

mercredi, le 02 septembre 2009

For weeks now I’ve been sitting in a virtually empty shop, playing virtual games with friends near and far to while the time.

No sooner had The Princess and I arrived at the shop tonight, and the crowds start pouring in. And no, this is not courtesy of establishments that recently closed down, it’s a group of Belgians touring the county.

They marvel at The Princess lying so gracefully and regally on her Ottoman, happy to be patted and stroked by all who walks past. Out come the cell phones, the cameras and The Princes smiles widely at all the attention.

My Famous Friend loves referring to The Princess as a super model – exceptionally beautiful, but equally dim. I don’t whole heartedly agree with him, but I sometimes think he may have a point.

I remember a trip abroad and I was snapping away at L’homme, definitely with a lens, but possibly verbally as well, in a train on the way to nowhere or from somewhere. L’homme remarked to fellow passengers: ‘I’m famous, I’m the most photographed person.’

That may hold true when I run out of objects to happily snap away at in places afar. But back home, The Princess is far more famous and far more photographed, by me and all who enter the bar. And she is my super model, dim or not!

I’m infinitely relieved to see the number of cocktails being passed over the bar. As the glasses are poured fuller, I see my debt to my liquor supplier running emptier.

(A French Dane in a bar opposite Tour St Jacques taken on our first day in Paris in July 2008. The Belgians in the shop tonight taking photos of The Princess reminded me of myself taking photos of dogs when The Princess is far away.)

Celebrating a new season

2009-09-01T23:55:00.004+02:00

mardi, le 01 septembre 2009

Today is marked on the Southern hemispheric seasonal calendar as the first official day of the season that signifies a time of rebirth and renewal, a time to grow and to prosper.

Behind cottage pane windows on a once quaint street in the once bohemian suburb that I live in, lies a sophisticated lounge venue for open-minded people, rich in decadence and full of live.

Today is marked on the calendar of my life as the first official day on which I am taking the soon to be announced steps towards a life season without ownership of the keys to the doors of the sophisticated lounge venue behind which lies as much my heart, my soul, my dignity, my pride, my love, my hate, my joy, my tears, my dreams, oh and of course, the obligatory sums of money as I unreservedly gave to L’homme.

Today I sent out deliberately worded invitations to everybody who had left their names in the guest book of this establishment to join in the celebration of a new season. L’homme’s name is carved indelibly in the guest book of my life. He was not there on the night the doors were first flung open many years ago, nor was he there on the night the doors were shut firmly for the last time.

Today my need for L’homme was desperate. This significant day I most desperately needed to share it with him. I needed to hear his voice, I needed to cling to his body in desperate embrace, like the night he announced his departure. I needed to draw strength from him. Whether it be from his clumsy, incompetent ability to provide comfort or from his inimitable ability to provoke anger.

When opening night drew to a close those many years ago and I lay unseen on a couch, filled with dreams and possibilities of what was to come, I heard L’homme’s voice in the doorway. Resplendent in all his colours. I closed my eyes and drew warped comforts from his presence.

Later I discovered that while I was absorbed in my opening statement, L’homme had found his muse that not only held the promise of uncomplicated sex on a regular basis, but would also mean less time in bars for him in the hope of getting laid. The muse I was not.

When The Princess and I arrived tonight to open a symbolic night of closure, filled with the realities of what had come to pass, I thought I saw L’homme peering from behind sash windows. Resplendent in his same colours. I momentarily closed my eyes and drew warped comforts from his distance.

And I strongly sense that while I was absorbed in my closing statement, L’homme had probably found a muse again that holds the promise of uncomplicated sex on a regular basis. This time she has to be in a bar or maybe somewhere afar or distanced by the deceiving cam of the web, because I see more of his car in front of a bar. The muse I am not.

The once quaint street has fallen prey to neglect, the once bohemian suburb to gratuitous crime.

The once sophisticated lounge venue for open-minded people has fallen prey to neglect, the once decadent life to gratuitous decay.

(This photo was not taken through my artistic lens, but it none the less is a statement of light and of being light.)

Buying bargains, again!

2009-08-31T23:35:00.003+02:00

lundi, le 31 août 2009

This morning I set out to go and see The Shrink with a bunch of flowers under my arm and freshly baked muffins in my hand.

In the good times, L’homme and I often discussed how we battled to live with each other but how we couldn’t live without each other either. I’d joke and tell him that if he left me, I’d get myself a shrink to see me through.

When I hadn’t heard from him for almost two months after he stole out of my house with the trained stealth of a commitment phobic in his disguise as a cat burglar, I could no longer bear the pain and suffering. I took myself off to a shrink on my doorstep. And we’d agreed that this had to be an outcomes based process, a process that I could learn and grow from.

In the empty hours after L’homme’s departure, I’d gone through various notes and scraps of writing over the past few years. The underlying theme of my dilemma was always feeling insecure and self-doubting, essentially because I never felt that I was good enough. I’ve now lugged this baggage with me for way too long. This is also the baggage that mostly prevented me from looking at L’homme objectively, of dealing with him from a position of strength and it caused me to want and need his love and presence too much, much more desperately than necessary or healthy.

Last week The Shrink forced me to open a can of worms that spiraled me way past depths of despair, straight into hysteria. When I literally thought my body and being was going to be dissolved by the anguish, I saw a larva amongst the worms slowly morph into a butterfly. I gained a sudden and startling insight into myself. Now I need to start the arduous task of reprogramming the misaligned beliefs about who I am and what is real to form the real me and my real realities.

The not good enough me swam easily and freely in the stream of insecurity, of self-doubt, lacking confidence, but knowing where to hide and mostly go undetected. I now need to take an amazing journey upstream, against strong currents and rapids like a bright red, beautiful salmon to the spot where I was born, so that I can spawn the new me, resplendent with the wisdom, venerability and acceptance I often sensed, but mostly surprised.

I take flowers and muffins to The Shrink, to thank her for opening the can of worms and to remind her that she needs to guide me on my journey. Only once I’ve completed this journey, may I review my deep and true feelings for L’homme and reconsider whether possibilities of a future together remain. For now he has been moved to simmer on the back burner. 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

On my walk home, there’s a fleet of security vehicles and the odd police van parked outside the neighbour’s house two doors away. The day time burglars were disturbed before they could make off with too many earthly possessions. But fear grips my heart and paranoia hastens my step home.

On my way to meet prospective buyers at my shop later this afternoon, I buy the newspaper. When I see the advert for a bar for sale, it occurs to me that it is such a ridiculously cheap bargain, I think I should buy it!

Fumbling with the shop’s locks, I notice that the source of overbearing and hugely annoying noise from the establishment next door is being unplugged, loaded on the back of a trailer and being silenced forever. I sigh a huge sigh of relief and feel mildly guilty about my continuous role in the closing of the business, particularly now that I am taking steps to sell my own.

When The Princess and I arrived at my shop this evening, I am surprised to learn that even the buzz that used to be on the corner, has moved on. Suddenly I instinctively know that the dealings I am busy with are the right ones. I’m just wholly unprepared for the emotions that come tumbling out when the purchasers I met with earlier in the afternoon, confirm that they will be taking my shop over.

It will be the closure of a huge chapter of my life, but, like the bright red, beautiful salmon, I will make the amazing journey upstream, against strong currents and rapids…

(Bargain properties for sale in the South of France I once dreamed of buying. The dream is still there, but has been moved to the back burner plate next to the one L’homme is simmering on.)

Jealousy, paranoia et Les Femmes

2009-08-30T21:10:00.004+02:00

dimanche, le 30 août 2009

I will openly admit that I am a spendthrift with little parallel. And I spend on myself, on L’homme, on extravagant holidays, on exclusive weekend getaways, on luxury train journeys. Spending for sex, for love, for closeness, for acceptance, for approval, spending out of control to sooth the pain caused by the emptiness left by spending for all the wrong reasons.

Not long after we came back from France in August last year, it was evident that the spending spree had to be curbed and quickly. My shop was now licking up the cream in dollops that it once spread lavishly on my life. And access to funds was diminishing fast.

I had no choice but to thrust L’homme from the shelter of his wage the shop used to generate into the cruelty of an economic recession that offered little to aging white males with gaping holes on their resumes. And I expected him to accept this enthusiastically.

And disrupting the rhythm of the comfort I had provided him over the past more than two years, drove him straight back to the only rhythmic comforts he knew how to create for himself. The comforts of booze, of bars, of porn and of searching for uncomplicated sex. And then L’homme started putting his plan in place for his sudden, malicious and surreptitious departure from my life in June this year.

In mid-April we had a fight were L’homme debased me with one sentence: ‘I have no desire for you.’ My knees buckled, I steadied myself into a chair and tried desperately to control my raging emotions. He continued to accuse me of being paranoid about what he does and about continuously suspecting him of chasing after other women. And all my ancient insecurities about never being good enough, never being sexy enough, never BEING enough, fell nakedly to the floor, staring back at me, accusingly.

Am I paranoid? Yes, I do sometimes have bouts of paranoia, but about one thing and one thing only: about being assaulted, about being attacked, about being slapped through the face continuously by someone wanting money from me and bearing a gun. That is the beginning and end of my paranoia. I’m paranoid about being a victim of crime.

Am I jealous? Yes, I can be jealous. But only with reason, only when my insecurities are laid bare.

When I met L’homme, he boasted about the more than 150 women he had slept with in his then short life. With all his charm, his worldliness, his experience, I imagined him to be quite the lover. For the first two years I knew him, we didn’t have sex, we were just friends, a façade I managed to maintain, despite being in love beyond reason. But when together, we were always very tactile. And I can’t recollect how we managed to drink so much wine, smoke so many cigarettes and tell so many tales because I cannot remember us not kissing, not hugging, not touching each other. He’d come to visit and we’d roam the streets, hand in hand, arm in arm. And we’d fall asleep, mouth to mouth. But then one day he brought another woman along. They hanged on to each other, hand in hand, arm in arm. And I realised I was not as special to him as I’d thought I was. It hurt, but we were not involved and I hid my pain.

When the job he had was no longer viable, he moved to his parents. From there I got mails from him, telling about girls he had uncomplicated sex with and girls he wanted to have uncomplicated sex with. It hurt, but we were not involved and I hid my pain.

And then 18 months later, L’homme moved in with me. He was an aspirant author, writing his debut novel. I rushed out to buy him a computer, complete with legal software. At night I’d lie in bed and dream dreams of one day, maybe, while he was pounding away at his keyboard and pouring experimental concoctions of alcohol to awaken his muse.

It was at this stage that I should have realised that I liked him way too much for my own good. And that after liking comes wanting and needing that’s when somebody gets hurt. I fundamentally understood that people were neither heroes nor villains, they’re just human beings. They make mistakes, they fall in love. But I was far too naïve and infatuated to realise that I had fallen for one of those ‘I’m only human’ guys who go cadding after every sex pot who gives them the eye. And that after knowing the count of women he had pursued. But that I thought that was only exaggerated boasting. How on earth do you keep track of more than 150 different sexual encounters in any case?

And a month later he declared his love, laid out his conditions for the relationship, refused to give into any of mine and consummated the relationship with drunken sex. In the beginning we’d go to strip clubs, go off in search of girls, three-somes being one of his then fantasies. And we’d make love when we got back home, never really finding the right girl. And the sex was not the kind that I thought it would be, it did not make dam walls burst, the earth shatter nor the Eiffel Tower topple over. But being a conventional girl and sexually inhibited, I never had the courage to speak out, but had a strong desire for more passion, for more daring, for proving to this worldly, experienced man that I could shift my boundaries.

A year later we moved to a different city. The trips to strips clubs continued, one night dragging another couple home with us. His inability to perform set alarm bells off, but I ascribed it to the amount of alcohol we had both consumed. And that night I felt vulnerable and his distance was tangible. And I felt our by now shaky intimacy had been cheapened.

Shortly after moving into the house he liked and I paid for, L’homme started staying out late in bars without me. With the history of always searching for other women together, I was sure this is what he was now doing on his own. Our sex life had for all intents and purposes come to a grinding halt. Sitting on the kitchen counter one day, I plucked up the courage to discuss this with him. He glibly replied that he couldn’t have sex with me because it always looked as if I was six months pregnant. And all my ancient insecurities about never being good enough, never being sexy enough, never BEING enough, fell nakedly to the floor, staring back at me, accusingly.

We went to the Sewing Machine for sex therapy, the first of a few abortive joint counseling efforts. But before the real therapy had begun, L’homme had moved out of our home and into the bars, the streets, chasing skirts and pursuing promises of uncomplicated sex and getting the uncomplicated sex he so desired and finding women who desired him so much, they drop their pants as soon as they came through the door. This is not a figment of my imagination or wonderings of the jealous mind. This is fact. As told to me by friends, both his and mine, by himself and gleaned from his own writings at the time.

We once had an arrangement for him to house sit the many felines we had chosen together while I was off on a business trip. My house was being renovated by a wanna-be builder L’homme had met in a local whore house. On the day L’homme was meant to arrive, I got a call from him. He was in another city and had misread the dates or times or both on his train ticket, I don’t recall, but he would not arrive as agreed. It later transpired that he had followed a potential French love interest there for a few days of fun in the sun, the promise of uncomplicated sex and, it would surprise me not, the hope of a life back on French soil.

For the next four years we did not really live together, but saw a lot of each other. He often stayed over on weekends and every now and then would move back for a month or more. We had a closely distant, distantly close relationship. When L’homme was desperately ill, he’d move in, depending on me to nurse him, when his financial situation was precarious, he’d move back depending on me to tide him over, when he was hungry, he linger for a while depending on me to to cook him a delicious meal. When he was well, when he had two coppers to rub together and when his tummy was full, he’d leave as suddenly as he arrived.

L’homme was dependent on me for the comfort, security and stability I provided. And I did this unreservedly, because I love him.

Through all of this L’homme told some of his friends that the two of us were one day going to grow old together. And to the many who didn’t like me, he’d say they just didn’t know me. And through it all he always had profiles on internet dating sites.

In June 2005 I took L’homme to France with me on my Lucy Jordan holiday. I rented a convertible and drove through the streets of Paris with the warm wind in my hair. In the weeks before we left, but after I’d already bought and paid for the tickets, he behaved strangely. Some nights he’d be kinder and gentler. Some nights he’d be biting and angry. On these nights he’d tell me he’s no longer going to France with me. On the kinder and gentler nights he’d make holiday plans with me.

On the flight over L’homme managed to secure each of us a row of seats, an unheard of luxury in cattle class. Somewhere between dinner and passing out, he pleased me under the flimsy airline blanket. With pleasure rippling through my body, I knew it was the closest I’d come to joining the mile high club.

On our holiday L’homme was often distant, often aloof. Sex was unglamorously reserved on one or two occasions for tacky cabins in sex shops, always with some lesbian porn on the screen, L’homme zapping through the scenes with his toes. Most nights L’homme wanted to retire to bed early, very uncharacteristic of him. On the flight home I sat in a row of my own, shedding tears for a holiday which I had intended to pull us together, but felt had torn us apart.

Back home we somehow managed to keep the closely distant, distantly close relationship going. In September I’d booked a trip to a Eurocentric hotel in Mozambique. In the lead up to our departure, the ‘I’d love to go, I’m not going’ battles continued. Two nights before we were scheduled to leave, I pressed him for an answer and the truth came spilling out.

For months, since before our trip to France, L’homme had been hopelessly, utterly and intensely in love with his boss. On the Friday night in Maputo, we chatted through most of the night, him explaining the anxiety his infatuation caused and how, through sheer will and with brilliance of mind, he managed to overcome it. I tried to explain the hurt and confusion his actions had caused, but he ignored that in favour of his own perceived brilliance at beating the infatuation. The Sunday we had messy sex in the Eurocentric hotel before heading back home.

Three months later L’homme announced out of the blue that he was moving back in with me. Ostensibly to look after me and care for me, particularly after a recent burglary I had. He told me he loved me, he showed me that he loved me, he told me we were going to grow old together and he told me that no-one had ever been as good to him as I had.

I was deliriously happy. Oh la, la, my boyfriend’s back!! The shop was doing much better and life all of a sudden had meaning and prospects and I took his hand as he led me up the garden path. Only later did I realise that his decision to move back in with me was partially based on the fact that he didn’t like his digs at the time. But I was too happy to care. And those three long, hard years of desperately clinging onto a business through good times and bad times only to see L’homme on most nights, had finally paid off. I was so deeply content. I thought we had turned a corner and that no amount of hardship, would ever tear us apart again. And I never admitted to him that I never would just have closed the doors of my shop as I often said I wanted to do. In his time away from me, I knew as long as I had the shop, I would get to see him. Get to spend time with him. I would never close a door on that.

But in August last year we came back from France and the rot slowly but surely started to set in. There were always the bars and the booze, but now the porn started creeping in. Being forced to make decisions like a cat on a hot tin roof to avoid bankruptcy, I became needy of L’homme. I needed to feel his love, to experience his caring, to discuss options to hang on to a semblance of solvency. But L’homme was becoming increasingly distant, increasingly withdrawn. There were increasingly fewer sober moments to discuss matters at hand and the not so sober lashings out at me, increased. And my frustration grew. And the liking too much was turning into wanting and needing and it was evident that soon somebody was going to get hurt.

In these months I wasn’t concerned in the least that he was actively seeking uncomplicated sex in bars. In fact, in the past three and a half years I hadn’t given this a vague thought. By now his sex drive was so numbed by the effects of alcohol that it had been reduced to a vague possibility in the mornings only and then only with the help of little blue pills on the rare occasions that he drew enough desire from the girls on porn sites and felt obligated to penetrate me. On other occasions when he wanted to avoid the after effects of the little blue pills, I’d see him wank in the shower. And I wanted and needed. And by now he was again searching for uncomplicated sex, virtually, hidden under a Scrabble game he was pretending to play. It was complicating my life hugely. And all my ancient insecurities about never being good enough, never being sexy enough, never BEING enough, walked nakedly around the house, staring back at me from every corner, accusingly.

What L’homme never understood was that giving into my wanting and needing of him, of giving into sex with me, would uncomplicate my life and in turn, his. It would set me free of his dependency on me. And I was not able to articulate this then. And I increasingly could only see myself as the ‘Welcome’ written on the mat at the front door that L’homme wiped his feet on with every exit and entry and the glittering eyed, arms wide open, uncomplicated girl I once was, was gone.

What I didn’t understand then was that if L’homme had given into my wanting and needing in a really difficult time of our relationship, he would have had to overcome his fear of commitment. Pretenses of committing in good times is easy, it’s uncomplicated, because good times are by nature less demanding. Committing in tough time is what puts commitment to the test. Because then you need to stick with what you committed to. And when I put pressure on L’homme to act out the commitment he so easily verbally gave, the stable doors flung open and the horse bolted.

So, was I jealous? Yes, in the in-between times there were times that I was. You be the judge whether I had reason or not. Towards the end, I had enough work, business and financial problems of my own and only wanted and needed his love and these emotions ran so deep, that jealousy had no foothold. In the final analyses, jealousy was the furthest from my mind.

(This painting is lifted from a book L’homme gave me for Xmas in 1998. His inscription reads: ‘Dearest Ris, only dearest Ris, your beloved, L’homme.’ I love this artist and I have a painting by him we both referred to as ‘a painting to dream by’. This particular painting is called Les Femmes and the inscription beneath it reads: ‘You won’t find an image of yourself in running water. It’s the still waters that allow you to rest and find yourself.’)

A pink, play Saturday

2009-08-29T22:40:00.004+02:00

samedi, le 29 août 2009

How time is fun when you are having flies? The last Saturday of every month means that my Bountiful Friend and I set off to a market in a nearby village.

My friend is large in every way; she stands tall, she carries more weight than she should, she gives with all her heart, she cares with all her soul, she cooks with all her passion, her presence will never go unnoticed.

My mother usually meets us at the market. We buy freshly baked ciabatta, a large assortment of fabulous home made cheeses, a healthy slice of imported French brie, the most divine olives and pickles and choose a comfortable table to wash down our feast with ridiculously large glasses of wine. Under the trees we discuss life and love and things we hold dear. From the speakers perched in the branches we hear the sounds of French café songs. Every so often I wipe not unnoticed tears from the corners of my eyes.

Today it’s warmer and the branches are turning light green with tiny leaves waiting to burst open. And in an attempt to bring some colour back into my life, I’m wearing a favourite soft pink cashmere jersey.

The Actress arrives with her daughters in tow, the one soon to be wed. Excited conversations about venues ensue and the engagement ring sparkling in the afternoon sun is celebrated with the happy clinking of generous wine glasses.

We walk between the stalls and marvel at the wares on display. At the curry and rice stand I linger a while and buy a few bowls for supper nights to come. This curry and rice is far superior to the church bazaar variety L’homme used to love.

Later we pack up our baskets and head off to a nearby wedding venue for the bride to be to inspect. The venue is aptly named Ducks after the many feathered creatures to be seen pecking on the lawns. Over the entrance hangs a sign: ‘In China, the duck is a symbol of happiness and fidelity’.

I ponder this walking over the lawns to the quaint chapel. Both L’homme and I love the French duck dishes of Magret de Canard and Foie Gras. We had happy times eating both of these, but fidelity?

The lawns beyond the chapel stretch down to the river. Very cleverly disguised by tall reeds are a number of the most beautifully decorated cottages, completely secluded and private. And I think that if times were different, I would happily have whisked L’homme here, for a few days of sensuous fidelity.

I turn on my heals, kiss my mother goodbye and hug her a bit longer than usual and come back to the reality of an empty house and an obligation towards The Princess.

(It’s the season where bulbs are in bloom and I could not resist buying some tulips the other day to brighten my house and to bring a smile to my face.)

Flowers for my witty friend

2009-08-28T19:20:00.001+02:00

vendredi, le 28 août 2009

Today was a contemplating day.

I received another mail from my Witty Friend’s husband. In an earlier mail he paid tribute to his wife, and described her wit as ‘the ability to have an original response to events or to see humour instead of tragedy everywhere’. I couldn’t think of a more fitting tribute to her myself.

My Witty Friend’s husband is dying of cancer. About two months ago he embarked on a remarkable journey where he started documenting his life narrative and the key insights and lessons he gathered along the way.

In his mails he generally gives factual updates on his disease and treatment. And then discusses at length insights and learnings he gained on his path of developing a philosophy of life. He unreservedly discusses the highs and the lows and the everydayness thereof. He has thrown himself wholly and completely into the process of living and dying.

He takes a critical look at life. At its opposites, its contradictions, its night and day, its male and female, its yin and yang. And he warns against the box-like thinking these dichotomies may bring about, in favour of transcending the opposites and experiencing life in a more nuanced way, in all its complexity, in all its beauty and ugliness.

Long after I read his mail, his summary of insights gleaned from Thomas Moore’s Dark Nights of the Soul, stay with me: ‘Without a philosophy of life, you may be swamped by your emotions and believe life is meaningless. Today, people live by superficial values and naїve ideas. Instead of pursuing deep and solid pleasures, they lose themselves in light entertainment and general unconsciousness. In small portions it is worth pursuing for relaxation, but as a way of life it can lead to extreme passivity. It may seem painful to think and reflect, but bringing your own intelligence to bear on everyday experiences can add an essential dimension that gives it own kind of pleasure.’

I draw enormous inspiration from what I perceive to be his almost unbearably difficult journey. I stand in awe of his strength, his perseverance and his determined will to find brightness in what the dark nights bring and to live in the face of dying.

And whilst the dark nights my soul has been experiencing since L’homme flicked the light switch with an assassin’s cold-hearted efficiency, is in no way comparable, I am determined to embark on a journey where I too can, ultimately, experience life in a more nuanced way.

Some time ago L’homme told me he couldn’t come back to me or stick out the dark nights of our relationship, because he needed to find himself and his own feet. I wonder whether his soul is experiencing dark nights and what insights he finds there, and whether they bring brightness.

But today I bring flowers to my Witty Friend, who with her wit, her optimism, her unfailing positive attitude, must be experiencing some dark nights of her own soul. And I want her to see some beauty when she opens her eyes.

(I was pleasantly surprised to thoroughly enjoy a visit to Amsterdam some years ago. I thought I’d be on my way to Paris after a day or two. I marvelled at the many, many flower stands and have heaps of photo’s to prove it!)

First summer rains

2009-08-27T23:30:00.003+02:00

jeudi, le 27 août 2009

As so often before, I am once again wrestling with a deadline.

Changes were recently made on my computer in order for me to sit in front of the fire place in the comfort of my own home and to remotely access servers at our offices. And also to receive annoying office related e-mails such as ‘The sandwich lady is downstairs’. I’ve been battling to access these servers the last two days.

I couldn’t give a hoot about the sandwich lady, nor who is on leave or in the loo, but I do need to access some statistical software on one of the remote servers to get a better grip on this deadline that is gaining strength. This morning I manage to log on to the server for long enough to run the data. I’m impressed at the vastly improved capacity of the new version of the software and I slowly gain the upper hand on the deadline monster.

But then I realise I cannot export the data once it’s been manipulated. I send off frantic e-mails and feverously make phone calls. Only to discover I need to install a patch on my computer for the software to execute the export and this patch is way too big to be mailed to me or for me to download remotely.

The deadline is gaining strength and building up steam, ready to whoosh past my ears. Sometimes I love the whooshing sound deadlines make as they go past. But this is really a non-negotiable deadline.

I manage to outsource the data exports. Waiting for the files to arrive in my inbox, I contemplate patches that I could install to export the unbearable pain in my heart.

My mobile phone rings and my Famous Friend makes lewd propositions about food and drink at our favourite local a few blocks away. I convince myself that light comic banter with a caring friend will be the perfect tiny patch to install to momentarily relieve my heart of some of its pain.

Chatting heartily over a pizza with the obligatory glass of red wine, the skies start to darken. A single crack of thunder releases the first drops of summer rain from the burdened clouds. We marvel at the relief to the parched earth and watch as the downpour washes the dust of a long, cold, dry winter away.

This winter of my discontent was undoubtedly the longest and coldest that I had yet experienced in the city I call home. Physically and emotionally.

Driving home I’m reminded that my car’s wiper blade snapped off a few weeks ago. Best I get that sorted out before the late afternoon thundershowers arrive in full swing.

My inbox is bulging with huge files and I settle down to catch the deadline before the sun’s morning rays touches my lawn.

And I hope for the rain to wash the pain from my heart.

(A rainy winter’s day in Paris December 2004.)

The frog is back!

2009-08-26T23:50:00.007+02:00

mercredi, le 26 août 2009

The Princess, her friend The Owl and I are all huddled on our favourite couch. The Princess has nuzzled her nose comfortably on my lap, The Owl weighs heavily on my lap, nuzzled close to her canine friend and I’ve nuzzled my nose in a paperback I cannot tear myself away from. Brel is lamenting a love lost or found or dying or waiting to die.

A sudden shrill sound hits three divergently attuned ears simultaneously. I run a quick mental check: we are beamed in, we are locked in, we are caged in, yet there was an unmistakably unfamiliar familiar sound. The Princess lifts her head and utters a lip smacking yawn, or smiles beautifully as my friend, the Global Investor, would say, and keeps an eye on the outside darkness. The Owl lazily repositions her claws for better grip, and peers outside with eyes that can see in the dark. My eyes dart from my book and with a stiffened spine, stare wide open into the dimly lit garden.

There was something familiar about the sound. It wasn’t a feline calling a human doorman to let him or her in. This is not Egypt, nobody is going to leave a baby in a basket …

Oh my god. Spring has not even sprung and the goddamn frog is back!!

One of the household chores L’homme had taken upon himself was to care for the once upon a time splash pool, now fish pond. In the days when we still spoke, he’d often say he cannot leave me because I would not take care of the pond. I would forget to feed the fish and I wouldn’t manage the filtration system and the pond would turn murky and pea soup green.

How right was he not? Well, the pond is not exactly pea soup green yet, but it is far more murky than it used to be under L’homme’s charge. But I haven’t yet mustered the strength to gain any semblance of clarity in my own mind, let alone a pond! And now, with no-one tending the pond, a tadpole or more has again managed to grow its pond side legs and is beginning to exercise its vocal cords in anticipation of summer nights to come.

This god and man forsaken pond has the ability to produce frogs with vocal cords that drown out all sounds that man can produce. No surround sound has managed to rise above the incessant croaking.

And involuntarily my mind drifts back to a New Year’s day that seems so long ago that it must’ve been before ‘Once upon a time …’

I had taken myself off to Paris, maison de mes rêves, for Xmas and days thereafter, because I could, because a hard year had drawn to a close and because I wanted to discover a Paris just for me. L’homme and I were living apart, but talking. While I was dressed in layers of winter, playing hide and seek with the cold, he was staying in my house. And as is his want when distance creates a playground of make-believe, there were many late night phone calls, many pretences of kindness many ‘wish you were here’ conversations.

He contacted The Ex-French Girlfriend and a night out was arranged. I do like her a lot, not only because she is beautiful and oh so French, but because she is kind, gentle, caring and seems to have escaped L’homme unscathed. And I so wish our means of communication was less challenged. I did sacrifice the best part of a day searching for an affordable present for her soon to arrive first born that fell way short of the riches she is accustomed to, but in the search I criss-crossed Paris. The wefts and wafts of shop in and shop out, too expensive and too cheap, strengthened the fabric of the Paris of my dreams.

On New Year’s Eve I had to leave la maison de mes rêves as just that. Savouring every last minute, I sat on the hand of Henri de Miller’s sculpture of l’Ecoute and whispered unmentionable dreams and desires to the ear to the ground and eyes turned to the heavens, before going for a nostalgic farewell dinner in a restaurant L’homme had introduced me to years ago. I nearly missed my flight.

In one of the many long distance phone calls, all on my expense, off course, L’homme had undertaken to meet me at the airport. In-flight, there was something liberating about sipping French champagne, drinking toasts to New Year’s lost and found, dreams left behind and dreams ahead.

I was greeted by a severely hung over, severely sleep deprived, severely irritated L’homme. Disheveled, shoe laces undone, unshaven, unclean, his own celebrations on his breath and in the stubble of his beard. My arrival was everything I had imagined it not to be. The bright light of a New Year’s day and face-to-face stripped the Emperor of his colourful cloak of long distance make-believe charm.

Back home spades and shovels, skimmers and brushes and chairs were in disarray around the pond. The purpose? ‘I tried to kill the frog, but he got away’ L’homme sheepishly answered.

L’homme, the court jester, who in a few words could make all anger, fears and trepidations evaporate and re-install a world of make-believe, of pretend and of maybe …

The braai fire was lit, we had New Year’s sex, as always, on the couch. An inconvenient place to linger, to savour the moment of closeness, of gentleness, to lie spent in each other’s arms, savouring the aftershock brought on by eruptions of pleasure, inhaling the sweet smell that only climax pushes through the pores and to mumble oh so sweet nothings. An inconvenience that suited L’homme.

The functional sex was over, the meat was on the braai and Paris was far away and another year was ahead and to endorse that everything was the way it is, the frog croaked loadly.

(Did I know when I taken photo’s of the fish pond earlier today that the frog would croak tonight? My favourite white fish glistening in the sun and swimming in the watchful reflection of the angels.)

Bien joué!!

2009-08-25T21:25:00.004+02:00

mardi, le 25 août 2009

Ah, The Princess!!

No, no, no, she is not the cutest little girl with curly brown hair, the longest dark lashes, and easy smile, dainty and so girlish in her hand embroidered little voile dress from Portugal.

The Princess is regal, the most gentle of giants. She’s a hound of the Dane variety. And I am often amazed at just how very much I love her and how much joy a four-legged companion can bring.

In the early days after L’homme abandoned us, she was very protective of me in the park on our daily walks. She never strayed too far and galloped back regularly, just to check that I was still walking, still upright and that I hadn’t crumbled into a tearful heap as she had seen me do at home a lot.

These days she’d walk next to me, comfortable to have my hand resting on her back. She’d suddenly glance up at me, flashing the white of her gentle brown eyes before bolting off, toy in mouth, chasing after the imaginations of the canine mind.

Yesterday she managed to loose her last tennis ball in the tall grass. Today I bought her a new purple squeaky toy. She adores squeaky toys. She trots around like a Lippizzaner on show day, the first prize rosette firmly in her mouth and when she senses that she’s drawn the attention of fellow walkers, she throws her head in the air and squeakily tightens the grip on her prize. And for an encore, she rushes noisily into the tall reeds, jumping around boisterously, before peering out, just to see if her audience is still captivated.

When she was younger, she usually lost her toy in the tall reeds. But she’s realised that going back for it, frantically searching for it and triumphantly jumping onto the grass, toy in mouth, elicits wild and rapturous applause from me. She now almost always retrieves her toy and then proudly falls into step next to me.

Halfway through our walk today, she spotted her younger Dane friend. As usual, they ran towards each other like young lustful lovers, rearing up on their hindlegs and embracing like Grizzly bears in mock battle before falling to the ground and galloping off neck and neck in a high speed chase, slipping and sliding on the dry winter grass.

The Artist and I parked off on a bench, deep in discussion about the vagaries of life, our Danish charges playing hide and seek in the tall grass behind us. The unmistakable bark of Danish hounds snapped us back to reality, only to see The Princess sheepishly coming out of the tall grass, not with her purple squeaky toy in her mouth, but with her blue bag of treats stuck on her nose!

We laughed, clapped and thrilled and continued our walk.

On our home journey, the only traffic light we encounter on our daily trips, turned amber just as I hit the intersection. With gay abandon I yelled ‘Bien joué!!’ over my shoulder to The Princess. To her for having a fun day and surreptitiously sneaking off with her bag of treats, and to me, as a reminder of L’homme’s praise when I managed to narrowly beat the red light. I laughed heartily. She flapped her yowls and ears in the wind speeding past the window and to join in the fun, let out a loud ‘aboi’.

(The Princess contently asleep next to her current favourite toy – a little black cat. L’homme bought the little black cat for me on Mother’s Day this year with the words: ‘It would not be the first time a little black saved us’. On my mom’s insistence he joined us for the day and I mostly clung desperately to his hand and cried openly. Others were amused at how emotional I was about French music. I was distraught about how shaky our relationship was, delighted that he had joined us and utterly clueless about how to get things back on an even keel. The little black cat’s luck did not even last three weeks.)

Being a gargoyle

2009-08-24T21:05:00.001+02:00

lundi, le 24 août 2009

I have just realised that most of my adult life has been a farce, in a burlesque kind of a way.

A part of me simply wants to die. Now. No more.

A part of me rejoices. Rather realise this now than not at all.

But that means I have to rebuild a whole life. And that may just be too hard.

Or it may be an enormous amount of fun!!

I feel like a gargoyle. Though the primary function of gargoyles is to act as waterspouts to divert roof water away from the base of walls, they have also been thought to ward off evil.

I’m more of a mythical gargoyle. I now need to find a new diversion for the water of my life and I need to scare off many beliefs held before. But like gargoyles, I do come alive at night when everyone’s asleep and I fly around, but mainly I protect the vulnerable me, the little, litlle girl.

(The richly decorated Tour St Jacques in Paris’ 4th ‘rondebolletjie’ with gargoyles against the beautiful blue, blue Paris summer sky. Taken on 16 July 2008)

All about a dress, funny that!

2009-08-23T17:25:00.010+02:00

dimanche, le 23 août 2009

I have this dress that has been hanging in my cupboard for more than two years. I cannot recall ever wearing it. However, I do recall a day I wanted to wear it very, very well.

It was our first night in Paris in September 2007. We were getting ready for dinner with The Ex-French Girlfriend and L’hommes friends we were travelling with. I put the dress on, asked L'homme how I looked and he told me I couldn't wear it. He told me I was being ridiculous, it was not appropriate for an informal dinner.

I was crushed and devastated.

This was our first overseas holiday since we had 'renewed our vows' so to speak, with L'homme's decision to move back in with me in December 2005. We'd worked hard, we'd been through a lot of trauma, our 2006 overseas holiday literally got stolen from us. And through all of this we told each other we were going to grow old together, we told each other we could never find anyone better to be with. At times we hated each other, at times we loved each other. And in my mind we told each other all these things, knowing it would not be a smooth ride, but we'd enjoy the journey none the less.

I'd stopped smoking towards the end of 2006 and gained the obligatory nicotine substitution weight. I successfully beat my nicotine monster into oblivion with food and lots of it and it showed. But for this holiday I wanted to look good. For L'homme, for me. We deserved it. I virtually starved myself, lost a lot of weight, refreshed my wardrobe and packed for a dream holiday. We were going to have fun, laugh a lot, eat good food and have great sex. Away from the crime, away from the pressure, away from the fear.

But then my simple, elegant long black dress was not good enough. I was not good enough, was what I heard. I was ridiculous, was what he said. My money was good enough to get us to Paris, but I was not good enough to be there. Not with L'homme. Not with The Ex-French Girlfriend. Not with his friends. I was an embarrassment to him.

Yesterday I had a great feel good day. I bathed by candle light for the first time since L'homme left. I pampered myself. And I put on my simple, elegant long black dress.

I allowed myself to admire ME in the mirror. I indulged in ‘Love in Paris’ perfume. And yes, this time I really was overdressed for the occasion, but I felt great. I felt tall, I felt slim and, more importantly, I felt good enough.

There are many buckets on my journey of healing that need to be looked at. I had many of these buckets when I met L'homme. Many of them were nearly empty. Some of them he emptied for me.

But last night I added a bit to the 'I'm not good enough' bucket. I had a fantastic evening. I was witty and funny. I came home feeling great. More than that, I felt desirable. I took off my simple, elegant long black dress. I climbed into bed and played sensuously with myself until ripples of pleasure flowed through my body again and again. L'homme never saw me have multiple orgasms, but this is about a simple, elegant long black dress. Another time about our sex life.

I whispered 'faire bons rêves' to L'homme. And with a smile on my face, I slept with the angels.

(This is a photo I took in Paris on 04 Aug 2008 of a girl who was on the bus on her way home after work. Presumably with her lover. I thought she looked gorgeous, ever so French chic. L'homme asked her if I could take a photo. But her dress reminded me that in Paris one is never overdressed, never inappropriately dressed, no matter what the occasion.)

Some light shining through

2009-08-22T14:33:00.008+02:00

samedi, le 22 août 2009

I woke this morning and for the first time this week I could breath. I could see some light shining through the storm clouds of my mind.

Last Saturday night L'homme mailed me a poem. Oh my love, my old, my sweet, my gentle love, a pseudonym fit for you. Your name is of old German origin and means 'free man' and that you have always been. No commitment, no involvement, free, always, always free. The English meaning is simply 'man'. So, you've become The man.

In the days when I was hopelessly in love with L’homme, he often used to write me poems. He'd ask me to give him a word, he'd work that into a poem. And I'd think he was so clever, so witty, so creative, so smart. I cherished these poems, as silly as some of them were. I thought this all too quaint. Ever so romantic.

I hadn't received a poem from him in years, and then on Saturday night it landed in my inbox. And funny, this one poem, in an odd kind of a way, summarises the relationship. The subject was: 'Do not reply to this' The poem itself quite Browning-esque: 'How do I miss thee - let me list the ways'.

And that's the way the relationship was. Always the discrepancy between words and actions. Always extremes. Words of love, care and growing old together were there, and meant everything to me. Except they were not acted out. And then doubt would creep in, insecurity would surface. And any request for action to match the words, would meet the most brutal rejection. Physically and verbally. And now he takes the action to reach out, but at the same time blocks me out. Funny that. It feels as if that is the way it always was. Pulling me near, pushing me away.

Tuesday was L'homme's birthday. I ached for him with all my being. His poem opened a way for me to send him a mail. It bared too much of my soul. Silly, silly me. L'homme can still use the same flimsy hooks to catch me, to reel me in. But with curt responses and silence, he cuts the fishing line and leaves me struggling in the water, bleeding from a hook in the mouth. I wonder whether he ever read the mail. I wonder if any of it meant anything to him.

And so the storm raged in my body with all its might for a whole long week. But today is calmer. I know I still love him. And I suspect he still loves with his limited ability to love. Is it still true that we can't live without each other, nor can we live with each other?

Who knows? L'homme has his own crutches, coping mechanisms and pharmacy for self-medication. He has the bars, the booze, the recently aquired webcam laptop, the porn, the cyber sex (and surely some real sex too with the help of little blue pills). All things play-play, make believe and chaff-chaff. The smooth talker, the charmer, into a panty, into a heart, into a purse.

And he will smooth talk and charm his way through the bar, he will play-play with the pussies, chaff-chaff the heart strings and spend-spend what's in the purse until only the coppers are left.

BANG!! L'homme senses commitment, he senses involvement, he senses contribution, he senses responsibility. He senses real-real. BANG!! BANG!!

POOF!! And he's gone. POOF!! Like magic! It was all just play-play, make-believe, chaff-chaff and smooth talking!

What, did I mention truth? Oh, yes, that. Well, that was also, just, well … I meant it in the moment, but the moment has passed …

Sorry for you with your dried out pussy, sorry for you with your broken heart, sorry for you falling apart, sorry for you being such a mess. It was all just, well ..

Ahoy, ahoy, this is not a drill!! You're gonna die, but I'm outta here ...

L'homme, the armchair specialist, the master wordsmith, he CAN deliver words with so much feeling, with so much conviction, he has years of practice. Part of play-play, make-believe, chaff-chaff. He truly feels very, very little for so very much.

He claims he cannot come back to me because he needs to find himself and his own feet. I'm bemused by that. L'homme, free man. He always came and went as he pleased. In and out my life, in and out my house, in and out his cave.

But today is calmer. There's some light shining through the storm clouds of the week that was.

And, my love, if the money didn't run out and I didn't need to feel your love to fill the void, would you still have left? I'm digging deep to let him be. Who knows, if I dig deep enough, I may strike gold.

Ah, but today there's a bit of light shining through the clouds. I'll go and frolic with my hound in the park. And today I will laugh at her antics, give her a big hug and dish out biscuits even if she does not bring the ball back. There's lightness in my step!

(This photo was taken at Emmarentia Dam on 18 Oct 2008. I love photo's of clouds. Well, actually, I love clouds.)

C'est une tout autre histoire

2009-08-21T22:30:00.007+02:00

vendredi, le 21 août 2009

This is dedicated to everybody who has ever fallen head over heels in love with the wrong right person, ever had their heart torn apart, their soul trodden on and had to claw their way back from the crushing disappointment of unrequitted love. This is dedicated to those who arrive with offerings of soul food, intended to heal and to nurture, to nourish and restore, made strictly according to best kept secret recipes. Some are exotic, rich, fragrant dishes, some are the finest of French classics, some simple peasant food, some a slice of toast buttered with love in all four corners, some hot and spicy, some comforting old favourites and some refreshingly foreign and new.

But why is this a very different story? This story is no different to a story millions have heard, lived, hurt and healed over time. But this time I want it to be a different story for me. The emotionally difficult relationship I was in, was brutally, cruelly and maliciously ended for me on 5 June 2009. By then it had spanned more than 13 years.

Now it's time for me. I want to heal, I want to grow, I want to escape the emotional neglect, the emotional rejection, the emotional abuse. I want to be whole again, I want to love again, I want to live again.

I like the fact that the French translate a story, albeit an account or a tale, with the word 'histoire'. To my 'anglais' ear it sounds like history and this is what I want this to be - a documentation, a history if you will, of a voyage to me. It is intended to be the photo journal of Rispa Frances. And I hope to grow as great as my Dane and as soft, furry, independent and content as my many cats.

Rispa Frances is an obvious pseudonym, chosen for very personal reasons. Rispa then an anagram for Paris and Frances meaning 'from France' or 'Frenchman'. I'm an incurable Francophile and have a deep love of all things French, but I have a severe disability to master the language. So Rispa Frances will tell my tale.

Rispa works for me. With time she may become Ris for short. Ris de veau is right up there with Magret de Canard, Foie Gras and Crème Brûlée as my favourite French dishes and 'ris' is laughter. Laughter, good food, good wine and good company - what more could a girl want? Just a bit of love will do nicely, thank you!

(This photo was taken from Pont Alexandre III, the most beautiful bridge of all across the Seine. I love the look and feel of this photo. It is dreamy, romantic and a bit old-worldy. It struck me the other day that another anagram for Paris is Pairs. I never experienced Paris with L’homme as us being a real, involved, committed pair. For me, Paris and I are a pair. My soul is happy there.)

The Inspiration

2009-08-20T23:10:00.006+02:00

jeudi, le 20 août 2009

Today I met an artist who embarked on a daily project some time ago. Looking at her creations, I was fascinated. I thought about the many projects I've attempted, the many dreams I've had. I'd think about them, consider them, kneel down in the starting blocks and then just walk away. Many of my projects have never even got out of the starting blocks. Some faltered at the last hurdle. Some were badly managed and maintained and neglected and failed in the end.

But today I met someone who does one thing each day. And has been for some time.

This inspired me. To do a little something every day that is creative and that I enjoy ... How great is that?

I've always wanted to write. I've always wanted to take great photos. So, this is a journey in words and photos. Some will be new, some will be taken from my archives. But they will all have meaning to me.

Some of it will be gut wrenching agony, some lashing out in the extreme anger only hopelessness and loss can produce, some will be crumbling under the weight of introspection, a desperate attempt to make sense of all this madness, this insanity.

But I hope that as I embark on this journey, there will also be healing. That I’ll be able to climb from this deep, dark, festering pit to a place up high from where I will have the most amazing mind expansive view and the lightness, the softness, the kindness I once so used to love.

This photo was taken on 24 July 2008 in the South of France. It was the end of an unforgettable barge holiday and our last night on the barge. We moored at Le Ségala and I took this photo. I'm very fond of this photo. I consider it to be one of my best photo's taken to date. And that on a moving barge with no tripod.

The inspiration for me is, like the tournesol, to keep facing the sun and like the bee, to keep busy, to collect nectar and to make the most delectable honey. A bit like the Miel de Forêt we had with cheese at the Michelin starred restaurant, Pascal Borrell, in Maury. Do you remember, dear?