I must make a decision about where to live and die because I am a woman without a country. Where am I most at ease? By myself. I am in a house that I am slowly changing to suit me but as I grow older the worn steps on three flights will become more difficult. Also, I am too far away from family and close friends... I delay these thoughts once again.
How beautiful it is to get up and go out. (Otherwise, I doodle my mornings away.) How beautiful it is this morning. The sun is shining but not too strongly. I slept a good seven hours because I took a sleeping pill last night - a luxury that I only allow myself when I have something important to do.
Today, Wednesday, I meet Virginie to write. And here I am, at peace, writing at a quiet table inside the Arcades bistro across from my friend before I return home to attack my French taxes. I would like to change, to become more productive. You are productive, Yvonne. And I am, I am but I bounce from one thing to another. I've written about this before. It's me. Is it so bad?
I am bad when I have visitors or most visitors. I'm incapable of anything. Do I talk too much? No. I love my house and yet, the sky is blue and the sun is shining and I want to go somewhere beautiful. I would like dreaming time and perhaps I can find it on my terrace if I buy a beautiful umbrella and pour a crisp white wine. Under this thought creeps a reprimand. You didn't take your vitamins this morning, fucking pills. I don't want to need additives. My body has served me well up until now but these days, it's yelling at me to pay attention, supplement my diet. And I do. Most of the time.
Read, play, play and stop the guilt trips. It is still weird being by myself. Love. Will anyone love me again, want to hold my old body - fiercely - kiss my lips? I have my doubts. Is it that I think I am unloveable? Love after Love, a poem by Derek Walcott leaps into my head:
The time will come
when, with elation...
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread, Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Today, a week later, I meet Virginie in Gaillac at the most beautiful patisserie, Pignou. Earlier this morning, I wrote out a quote by Leonard Cohen: "I greet you from the other side of sorrow and despair, with a love so vast and shattered it will reach you everywhere." In a week, it will be three years since Rob died. For the last two nights, he has been in my dreams, laughing at my antics and anger.
Virginie and I, first discuss our angst. This woman, thirty years younger than me, feels much the same about life as I do. I decide to pick up where I left off last week. Is it that I think that I am unloveable? I am not sure. As I write this my stomach does a somersault. An affirmation? My body is betraying me. Is it betrayal? I smoke. I drink wine. I forget to eat. I am lazy. For the most part, I do not enjoy the company of others. (Virginie feels the same.) Is it because part of me is missing? I never acknowledged the importance of Rob's presence. The comfort. The knowing that if something went wrong, he would be there for me. He took care of things that I didn't want to do...
I am afraid of where I am going with this writing. I remind myself that this writing is for myself, no one else. But I feel a need to tell. Still, these pages can disappear. I would like to amalgamate all my notebooks so I can find past thoughts but how can I do this when the minutes pass and I cannot accomplish what I need to do. How can I change things and find precious time? How can I concentrate? I do not have to run. I can walk or even crawl. "[I] do not have to be good/ [I] do not have to walk on [my] knees/ for a hundred miles through the dessert repenting./ [I] only have to let the soft animal of [my] body/ love what it loves."
Love is what I need - to be touched, not to be afraid. Do not be afraid, little one. As certainly as certainty dims, you are on your way out. And yet, there is still a bit of time. I think of Langston Hughes lines (I have always loved these lines, they have given me courage on my occasions):
Hold fast to dreams/ For if dreams die/ Life is a broken-winged bird/ That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams/ For when dreams go/ Life is a barren field/ Frozen with snow.
Poetry. How it hits me, crawls into me, offers me a softness, a way to walk even when I feel my legs ache.
How do I keep my dignity? By making sure that I always have my own space even when I travel. By sitting on a balcony in Greece and - if I must, smoke but most importantly - write because this is the one place, I find my purpose, my excitement.
Under these thoughts, slips thoughts of Michael. Can I find the right words to give him strength. Can words change one's life?
I need an epiphany. I love the feeling when suddenly I am hit in the gut and head with a new idea, a leap, a certainty. Some epiphanies take weight from my body and I feel lighter, happier and sometimes they last. At other times, they fly into the heavens and the lesson has to relearned once more.
Such is my world, at the moment. And my original question returns: am I loveable? Yes, but under this affirmative, there is still doubt.