what am i supposed to feel? no. what am i supposed to be doing? i didn't mean to run away this time. i actually just wanted a space, a dissconnected space. a space for myself. but the timing. the awful timing of things.i wanted to come here by train. i'm always flying and wishing i came by train. when you travel by train you go from center to center. you feel the distance of the journey, the rumbling of the carriage over land and water. you arrive thinking yes its about time i've arrived.
but an airplane is a curious thing. you travel out to an airport, a space itself that feels abstract. not as much as her sudden absence feels abstract, but still distanced, unreal, strange. you go out to a place outside of a city full of people waiting only to rush at the last minute to board. and maybe there are problems with security, and you're rushing only to wait again. until you board, and in the air in two hours or less you are thrust into the heavens thnking. remembering.
he said : its all a bit irrelvant that now
he said: if we learned anything about this its how incidental certain things are.
he asked: why are you going there then?
i agree,
yes I think so,
i don't know.
I walk down rue de belleville thinking every chinatown is a bit like every other chinatown. i walk side streets towards the republique thinking hollywood only ever shows the pretty parts of paris, this american idealised dream of paris. it never shows the grimey bits and ghetto bits or the edge you feel from some of the men. the way some of the men strip you down with their eyes, not flirtatious, not at all. more like, directly invasive. i tried to tell him but he didn't understand. he said, you must like that.
I walk through the streets of the marais listening to language lessons . i meant to set it to french but even my ipod is confused. french and then german and then english. it starts mundane. in theory stays mundane but as it goes to conversation it , it grows existential in tone, in its delivery.
Tomorrow will be...?
Is it usually?
Will it be warmer tomorrow?
the speaker female, calm, hopeful, uncertain. hopeful.
Will it? Will it?
we are not invincable. its crazy that this was ever a new thought. but i know i treat my body as if it is. i push it past its limits and why? a silly theory of mine from teenage days, the worse you treat your body the less it demands. the more it can take. but no thats a lie, all it leads to is a loss of conversation with your body. a complete lack of clarity of how it functions. what it wants. until it suddenly breaks down, shouts out, says: You can no longer speak, or breathing is tricky, or pains or noises, or maybe you can't run, or maybe you have to lie down, until it tells you otherwise, sometimes long after you'd like. its drastic, but its the only way to get my attention, so many times i've said, how can i tell the difference between the flu, a throat infection, or maybe just a hangover, or maybe i've just smoked too much.
why do i do it to myself? why?
but its his story to talk about bodies. i don't talk about bodies, my body, her body. but now when i walk down streets that more than anything make me feel overwhelmed, in the way, unecessary, i think of her body when i last saw her. i think of its lightness in my hands as i held her, helped her to stand up, to walk her to the restroom. the standing wiht her in the cubicle. the difficulty for her to even.. even... standing there, trying to be normal about it. somehow i was, because being with her i forgot myself. she was more important. i waited for her to tell me when she was ready for me to walk her back again. at least there was something now i could do for her.
somehow she got a little strength when back in bed. she was telling us about boys in school and skipping school. getting drunk at sixteen. caught wiht him on some go cart thing. she got expelled. even then i said. you were that kind of girl even then. and the three of us smiled.
before she went to bed she told us that physical contact was good for her. so we each took a foot in hand and massaged. and i teased her, said oh lady, i always wanted to get you in bed but not like this. he played along ahhh now she admits it. she disoriented, but happy, face questioning, eyes like a child. what? you're joking right? and i said. oh darling, i guess you'll never know
she laughed. and it was a beautiful sound, but not at all like her ussual throaty laugh. it was a new laugh with the same lightness of her new frame. musical, glassy, like hanging chimes. i kissed both of her cheeks, and maybe her mouth., i can't remember, but she hugged me after, we had to do it gently as she was so frail. we watched her fall asleep. she'd used up all her energy for the evening. we would be the last visitors that night. in my head, I planned to see her again. I had no idea it would be the last time.
but any memory or eulogy doesn't seem right now. i find myself in a new place. i know there were reasons to come here but i lost them on the way. tomorrow i think i want to spend all day getting lost. understanding, or maybe allowing myself to not understand it at all.
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