I've hit a wall. I keep writing, but it's getting progressively crappier. Crappier and crappier. I read it and think, ah a seventh grader is writing for me! I could draw a map of Africa in seventh grade. I was very proud of that.
This story however, is not swelling my chest with pride. More like mild revulsion. At least it's mild. I just can't seem to get into it… So sad. I am so ready to write. The muses aren't even mocking me. They are discreetly watching and have averted their eyes.
I'm writing this in Doc Chey's. I am waiting for my friend D. to join me for dinner. D. must fight the traffic, but this was her choice. Doc Chey's is wonderful, but occasionally I am here when they are cooking a dish or two that has a combination of smells that reach a pitch of warm manure. Blech. I shall bury my nose in my ginger raspberry tea. Much more pleasant.
For those of you eager to hurt, here's an excerpt of my painfully childish story:
Descending into the train station, I am struck with how high and how steep the stairs. This is not a city in which to be old, infirm, and unwealthy. I think of all the elderly people who must climb these stairs to go anywhere, to return form anywhere. I love walking the subways of Paris. The white tiled corridors opening into caverns often filled with music - beggars who provide canned or live music, buskers with radios, cellists taking a break from studies. I have even passed an American with a guitar and a fervent desire to be anywhere but home. The smell of the cavernous platforms is unique to Parisian subways - burnt paper, burnt rubber, age. On a good day. Mix that with sewer, urine, and body odor on a hot summer's day and, well, there you have it. Late autumn is a good time.
The fact that the Métro travels on wheels is fascinating to me. They are like long, multi-car buses. How many tires a year are consumed by Parisian public transportation? Ack. To think of all the garbage that is produced by, for, and because of public transportation is enough to make you cry. The sheer volume of humanity and it's by-products. But that is too much to think on now. Too tragic.
It is a perfect day. Even with the traffic and the post-work crush on the sidewalk. It is easier to feel love for a place when you are about to leave it. I wonder what Rob thought on his last day. I know that he loved us, I just can't imagine what else he loved. Where does one's love or respect for life go? How does it get chased from daily experience? Rob had talked to me about his world view, but I was never able to understand.
There is so much to appreciate and love and to experience. How does an aware person utterly lose sight of the world around them? I can see being brought to your knees by the evil, the hatred, the vicious unkindness that surrounds everyone and makes up some people. But to let that keep you down, to let that erase the possibility of joy. It is too sad, too unknowable for me.
There is no guilt because there was nothing I could do, but what I did. A decision like that is made from within. People often lament at a suicide “why, why”, but there is no understanding the why. There is something wrong with the brain, the chemicals, that causes someone to take their own life. There are those who live in utter despair, daily wondering what is the point of life all while having a life many would envy. There are those living a life where all hopes are thwarted, all attempts to rise are squashed and yet they continue and smile and thank their god for each day they wake.
Rob was not an ingrateful person. He was kind and generous, and concerned about making the world better. By all accounts he had a life worth living - family, a job he loved, friends to have fun with, no great trials of finance or love. Still, he was never able to be more than complacent. Most of our childhood he was quiet, contemplative and a little sadder than most kids. Most of his time was spent alone, even when he was playing with us. He would be the criminal we hunted, the evil scientist who chased after us with water balloons filled with his latest “evil brew”. His sport of choice was running. His greatest voiced desire was to hike the Appalachian Trail - alone.
The doors to the hotel are always clean. It is a pleasure to approach them.
¶ö
The desk clerk was sweet when I told him I would be leaving. I imagine he fancies me and his giving me his number was proof positive of that. Please call me if you return, jolie Madamoiselle. I just might. He's cute, too.
It's interesting the way we see a place just before our departure from it. Things are more extreme - we see the dirt under the rug or don't see the smudges on the wall. For me, leaving this hotel, I don't see anything but lovely. This is the best time of day to take the stairs - the last of the sun shining at angles through the windows, their ironwork leaving playful shadows along the climb. Vague feelings of what it would be like to take the stairs in the late 19th century - the voluminous skirts, tight corset making the journey longer and slower, the gentleman's arm on which to lean, the soft feel of his silk and wool jacket. Of course, in these scenarios, I am always a lady of some means and independence. It is easy to lose yourself in the mind's games when surrounded by physical history.
No comments:
Post a Comment