Unraveling the Snowball

I wandered off down memory lane last night, a little trapdoor under the carpet, a rabbit hole again. What started it off this time? Somehow reading about the scene on Ludlow St in 2005 led to me thinking about 1994, and tap tap tap a few minutes later a face, a memory, oh my gosh it’s you, and you, and you… Another half-written memory, another playlist revisited and another story to tell.

Writing this book is HARD. I hesitate between telling myself that I have been waiting to get all of these pieces out of my head, journals, and off of my laptop forever, and telling myself that no one wants to read hundreds of pages about me. That’s a little boring, no? But really it’s not all about me… I’ve lived in some really special places at some really special times surrounded by some really special people, so maybe someone would be interested enough to buy a copy, to read a few pages?

I keep adding and deleting and realizing that a story is missing and another is too much. Some years I wrote a lot more than others, and I keep finding loose sheets of paper, scribbles in a park on a lunch break, emails to myself from 2001 or 2015, and notes and post-its stuck to postcards. I have to decipher them, connect the dots… Where was I, who did I love, what was I listening to? Was it vodka, whiskey, coffee, or sobriety? Was it film, digital, phone, or all of the above? Was it Doc, Frye, or barefoot?

Do I publish 600 pages of stories, memories, moments in time? Do I divide it into two? Chronological? Random order? Poetry sneaking through the pages? With Spring Comes Hope was straightforward: a beginning and a place to finish. Of Hearts and Sea Glass is a brick, a cloud, and a marble, or maybe a snowball, rolling, rolling, rolling, collecting layer after layer of thickly packed snow.

You tell me… Are you interested in England? In France? In Israel? In NYC? Are you interested in music scenes, depression, sex, drugs and rock n roll? Are you interested in heartbreak and happiness, facts, autobiographical fiction, real people with fake names? Are you interested in the ocean and the stars, writers and dreamers, lost souls and barefoot wanderers? Are you going to be upset if you recognize yourself? Are you going to be hurt if you don’t appear? Couldn’t give a shit either way? My writing is often impulsive, spur of the moment, a sudden image flashing from my memory unraveling a string through time, words rushing to get out, to convey that one moment. It’s that song that takes you right back there, every single time, a punch in the gut while it rains stars over your head. When it happens I have to drop everything and grab what I can, writing, typing, dictating, because once the string has unraveled she floats off downstream, just another pearly drop in the water.

I stood on the beach in Nahariya in 2003, and the streets of Oakham in 1995. I walked through Place Grenette so many times I could still do it with my eyes closed, the same way I walked down Orchard St in 2005 or in 2014. I have stepped into the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the Pacific, and my beloved Atlantic, toes touching sand, fingers shielding my eyes as I looked out over the water to the end of the world. I’ve walked up mountains and through deserts, lived in the biggest of cities and the smallest of villages and places in between. I have loved many and probably been loved by many, often letting it all flit through my fingertips. And right then, typing those words, Catch starts up in my head, and immediately the feeling of sitting in the passenger seat next to my best friend, zooming down the New Jersey Turnpike towards our skyline, cigarette smoke and dreams, wind tying our hair into knots. Our freedom was the city, nooks and crannies filled with stories upon stories upon stories. I still smell the Bakers Oven across the street and dream of soft éclairs and baguettes from the boulangerie next to Stendhal. I try to treasure all of these memories, because I am so afraid that one day they will all disappear into a black hole.

Are you interested? Am I writing this for me alone? For you? For my children? For no one in particular? I don’t know. But it will be done soon, another month or two of editing and it will be done, as long as I know where to start it and where to cut it off. Words for days, stories for years, it will all come together soon.

In the meantime, if you want to help me choose a cover for Of Hearts and Sea Glass, as well as read some previously unpublished snippets over the next few weeks, add your email to my mailing list (see below). I don’t email often, but I promise it will be worth reading when I do! <3

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Where Is Home?

Where is home? I don’t know, it has changed so many times over the years. Sometimes it changes over the space of a day. You know, home is here, or home is there. Home is everywhere! But where is home really? I spent many years wondering this, yearning for somewhere else, nostalgic, homesickness just another part of my everyday emotional pool. I put my hands in, try to wash it away put there she is, wrapped around the reflection of the New York skyline or the Vercors mountain range. I close my eyes and there it is, my old boulangerie, the smell of freshly baked baguette right there in my nose. Or sometimes it is the bar on Orchard Street, the sounds in the walls when you walk open the doors, cool air, dried glass rings, the comforting smell of old beer that never goes away. Other times it is the churchyard in England, moss-covered tombstones, and names that have long since been forgotten by most. And then I imagine myself walking barefoot down the hill to the little beach on the Mediterranean, a mile or so from Nahariya, a few more from Akko. Home was leaving one home and landing in another, even when I had never been there before. Home was a suitcase in one hand and a cigarette in another, $200 in a bank account and a new life wherever I laid my head. Home is and will always be where I feel safe, happy, and with those I love.

The smell of rain on the warm pavement in the middle of the summer, a couple of swallows flying for cover into the eaves above my bedroom window, and the sound of the breeze rustling through branches and leaves, that is home. England in the summertime is home. Right there in the village where there is one main road and a few smaller ones, and two churches, the bells ringing on Sundays in time for the morning service. England is also the little room at the top of the building, with the grand staircase leading down to the rest of the apartment, cooking smells coming from the kitchen, the fire crackling in the living room. Home is the warm, thick quilt on Nana’s bed, watching television in the evening because I was allowed to stay up later than my sister. England is also living in London on next to nothing, writing poetry on my lunch break in Putney by the river; dreaming of Israel and California while wandering through the streets of Streatham. England is my first home, the home where I was born, and where I have returned to many a time. England is the comfort, the warmth, but also the grey and the dark. England is living as a working class family under Thatcher in the 80’s, but England is also rolling hills of green beauty and old, old pubs with real ale.

The unseasonably warm breeze cutting through the November air, leaves falling red, yellow, brown to the ground, but still t-shirt weather when yesterday we were in winter coats. Home is the Mistral whistling through the mountains into the valley, a city where the blue sky is tainted by brown pollution, nestled down between different mountain ranges. Vercors, Chartreuse, Belledonne: that is where I am from. France is nights spent sitting on the statue of Berlioz singing songs with a bottle of rose in my hands, hand in hand with my best friend, running through the cobbled streets causing havoc. Home is ivresse, home is warm bread and brie, ravioles baked in the oven, and countless espressos sitting outside en terrasse, no matter how hot or cold it is. Home is the relentless snow in the summer, and the snowcapped mountains in the winter. Home is opening your window shutters every morning to be greeted by the foot of a mountain, looming up into the sky, faces in the rocks, trees that turn with the seasons, somewhat oppressing, mostly a safety blanket. Never a real sunset on the horizon, sometimes I missed that, but those beautifully dramatic thunderstorms made up for it twice over. Dancing in the rain, happy faces, a kind of freedom from everything. Home is teenage years and metal and grunge and goth and friendships that last forever. Home is the most beautiful language in the world.

The smell of 5am in the spring, early morning jogger passing late night last caller, city that never sleeps: that is home. New York City, the place where so many dreams go to die, where so many dreams go to shine, is my home. A decade of decadence, a decade of wonder, of ups and downs and squiggly all arounds: a home that I never expected, but the home that I always craved. So many boots worn into the ground, uptown, downtown, Brooklyn, Queens, bridges and tunnels and subways and ferries. I can still find my way there blindfolded, the city sounds music to my ears. City sounds at night put me to sleep now, silence keeps me awake, ears craving the soothing sounds of sirens and cars, loud beats and voices travelling below my window. Home is the smell of laundry, bakery, trash, and stale beer all on the same block. Home is where love waxed and waned, and finally fell straight. Home is where my daughters were born, where the eldest took her first steps, and where life took a different turn. New York City: city where I lost and found myself over and over again, falling, crawling, standing up and walking tall. Home that haunts my dreams and my daydreams. Homesickness is the strongest with this one.

And now, home is here in this little city, capital of such a big state. Boiling hot in the summer, damp in the winter, wedged between desert and mountain, I suppose it is home. Home because we have a home, and home because my family is here. I still wander the streets like a stranger, one foot on, one foot off; looking for places we can make our own. We live in the bustle, but it is quiet, and we walk everywhere, every day. Past the Capitol where laws are passed and protests are held, through the gardens where each tree proudly displays a name and a history, up, up towards the real bustle, figuring out where we belong. I have known Sacramento on and off for 17 years and she appears to be struggling. Growing, but not fast enough, streets a mess of new and tumbledown, not enough room for the residents, K Street an image of the US that no one wants the world to see. Old Sacramento has my heart; the rumble of the wooden sidewalks as the stroller rolls over the slats, Evangeline’s beckoning us inside, memories of centuries lingering in the alleyways. I learn to love you, new home, the place where my son was born, but we will not be staying, our plans have many more horizons ahead of them.

Laced in between those homes are other homes, temporary stays that became more permanent, and forever etched into my mind. Barefoot walks to the edge of the moshav, running around the kibbutz at night… The little house in the suburbs, the place where I learnt what prejudice really meant, being spat on because I wasn’t blonde and didn’t speak Dutch. Biking to school, rain or shine, learning a new language in the space of weeks, months, little brains like sponges, watching, absorbing, listening. I still smell the Prasad in India, the overpowering smell of flowers on the tomb in the early morning, a perfect quiet, no one to bother me while I wrote and sketched. Sterilized water in containers outside of the rooms, perfectly crafted vegetarian meals, and people from all walks of life, a moment in time, ships passing through the night. That balcony in Barcelona, summer moon shining through my cigarette smoke as I listened to Cat Stevens and dreamed about coming back home, because those streets reminded me of home, of France home. My life is formed by a pattern of homes, all tracing backwards and forwards, down hills, over mountains, with many, many flights between them.

One day we will make our home somewhere else again. Another country, maybe one I have never resided in before, maybe one that I already call home. The wind has a tendency to turn and cast me off into all types of directions, heart first, the rest following right behind. If there is one thing I have learnt it is to never wait for something to happen, instead one should grab ahold of it and not let go.

An Unfinished Story of People, Places, and Music

I sift through the oversized box, full of band shirts in different shapes of wear and tear, tour shirts with the date emblazoned on the back, women-sized shirts bought at merch stands, old, old shirts from decades ago, bought with money I scrimped and saved ahead of time. Widened neck holes, arms cut off, some teeny tiny that barely fit over these breasts I have since grown, kept out of nostalgia and memories and a faint hope that once my breastfeeding days subside I will comfortably fit in them again. Band names that no longer exist apart from in memories of basement bars and long nights, good looking guitarists always shredding my heart into pieces. The soft feel of the material between my fingers, the smell of bars and booze, Chanel no 19, coconut and cold vodka still in my mind, conjured up through the long-lasting lavender softener scent.

Music you own me, you are the rhythm of my memories and haunt my future, hold me up and pull me down, bring me back and push me forward. The Siouxsie shirt that went from office stress to DJing til early in the morning at Midway, fence down low so the sunlight wouldn't bother us. Years gone by and I can still taste the air, jager and stolen kisses in the DJ booth up high, Bonnie Tyler for a laugh, the electric slide along the floor. The tiny Secret Machines shirt, so tiny I don't even know how it fit, fills my soul with a swaying happiness, because despite everything it was always going to be OK, right place and right time, a moment in time which would slip away from us, both moving along and thanking each other. The one Cure shirt from back in the day, proper vintage, a perfect gift from a perfect friend, a mutual love of The Cure framing a friendship, an appreciation of the deeper impact of music drilling it deeper.

The pale green Sonic Youth tee, the eye staring, knowing, watching, a time of sitting back and listening, observing and not participating, a time of sunshine and beaches and sobriety, where the drunken stories were no longer my own bit those others told me. Barcelona wanderings leading me to moonlight ramblings from a balcony I will never see again, chain smoking with one hand, furiously writing with the other. The black Interpol t-shirt, purchased many, many years after my first Interpol show, that one in Staten Island, new to NYC, embracing my new life with an old but new friend, a door opening towards Ludlow and Orchard - Darkroom, Motorcity, and then The Skinny and later 200 Orchard. Pianers on Sunday, and so much stomping up and down those streets, heels worn down on my Fryes, eyes bright with anticipation or ivresse or both. The first time I met them, these people I fell in love with through my headphones, I was shy and intimidated, and then it was just all home anyway. The streets, the people, the music. Interpol and Calla and Dead Combo, my Ludlow, maybe yours.

Oh look there is my Spiritualized t-shirt, washed and worn so many times, so many memories of shows, Terminal 5, Radio City, Webster Hall... Hotel Rivington, watching the sun rise over the East River, a glass of red wine in my hand, having meaningful conversations with musicians, wishing I had more to offer, constantly feeling less than others, undermining my own value and feelings, a warrior fighting my own demons, while fighting my own self-worth. Spiritualized, weaving through my life, my firstborn's first show, a little secret in my womb, a pregnancy announcement whispered from one side of the balcony to the other. Come Together, before our lives all fell apart in an explosively wonderful manner. Spiritualized, always a cleansing, beautiful way to raise my soul, my happy music, sealing broken hearts, lifting me towards love. And always with my best friend, together even when we weren't. Surprisingly only one Nick Cave, my love now worn by my true life love, but so many moments in his presence from Lyon to the Beacon Theater, standing over me, that voice that transcends all others, whispering, goading, flipping your stomach inside out, grabbing you by the heart. There is no other, no other like him. The Kills, the one band I have seen more than any other, every time better than the last, never failing to grab me by the guts and shove me in front of my emotions.

And then there are those shirts that are only left in my memories, the original Ride the Lightning, paper thin with age, hash holes along the bottom, Metallica. I finally saw them 18 years later, Megadeth-Slayer-Metallica, teenage dreams coming alive in my 30's, jammed against the fence by the pit, screaming along to old songs with unknown new friends next to me. Strangers but together with the music. Seasons in the Abyss alive and well, lyrics taking me back to my teenage room in France, while standing on the soil of NYC. A 200 franc note blowing down the street, landing at my feet. I kept it for a week in case anyone claimed it and then ran to the shop in the center of town, spending half an hour deciding between two Nirvana shirts, finally opting for the one that wasn't the yellow smiley. My first own music t-shirt purchase, teenage uniform with my mismatched Doc Martens and ripped jeans. The Nine Inch Nails shirt, bought in the US on the Fragile tour, worn into the ground on a kibbutz in Israel, Trent’s voice’s effect on my heart lasting so much longer than his merch.

Hundreds of shirts, all neatly folded in a box, all waiting to be worn again, telling the stories of a lifetime of music, of lifetimes of music, memories dancing to the beat of a drum, twirling towards a crescendo, caught in time. Right there, that high note, Leonard Cohen's smile as he dances across the stage; the smoke surrounding American X, still true today BRMC; Peter, white faced and dark-eyed, once again reunited with Daniel, David, and Kevin, and me standing from that balcony in the Times Square venue, wondering how I had finally managed to make a teenage Bauhaus dream come true. Red wine and Lit, running through the streets of NYC, places that now only exist in my memories and maybe yours. An unfinished story of places, people, and the music that brought us altogether.

Music Keeps the Memories Alive

We used to hang out on the steps in front of the FNAC or the church across the street, clad in different shades of black, black lace and combat boots, waiting for something to happen. Time never seemed to be a rushed back then, boredom a given, but just sitting and waiting was a normal pastime. Waiting for a new album or a new show to be announced, a new person to walk by and capture our attention, a new adventure to pop up. We would nonchalantly complain about how nothing ever happened in our city, about plans to form a world-famous band, and about the best way to get drunk, but always from our church step pulpit, a stop on the way to other stops. No one had cell phones, so the church or FNAC steps were the meeting points. One by one we would gather there after school, rummage through the CDs at the store wondering if we should really spend our little money on the one album with the one song we knew we liked, or save it up for the next big thing? Or should we just club together and buy some hash and smoke it in the park?

Adolescence is a mess, but it contained a real sense of belonging for me too. A bunch of outcasts together on the same plane, taking steps together before the next turning. Music brought us together initially, and then we moved on towards a bigger sense of friendship and love. Some relationships turned sour, some bonded stronger than others, some people left, disappeared, others joined us, a little hesitantly at first, and then became part of us. Us: together, against the boredom, the normalcy, the day in day out trappings of life. Now we are all spread out all over the world, families and new homes, new loves, old flames, friends forever, and friends no more. Sometimes during a conversation over the phone or email or messenger or in person a name will pop up and we will wonder what happened to him or her. Remember that one friend who came out and we just said “oh cool, good for you!”? That must have been so hard for him in such a tough crowd of metallers, and I’m sure he was shunned by some, but it never surprised me or my close friends. I wonder what became of him? Or the girl who said she was a psychic witch with her emerald green eyes that hid so much fear? Did she end up having the child and living a normal life away from the big city and all of the evils that it contained? Or the one with all the violent and extreme “ideals”, did he simmer down or lose himself in hatred? We may have all been in the same mosh pit together or stagedived from the same death metal stage, but that doesn’t mean we all were the same, or even agreed with each other. With life comes certain realizations and we all move in different directions, towards different ideals and dreams.

Many of us are still connected though, through mile long ties and strings that refuse to break despite time and distance and life. We reminisce about days gone by, chat about the present and the future over food and drinks and through the invisible wires of the internet. Months, sometimes years, go by without a proper conversation, but time doesn’t change much, just adds a few more wrinkles and takes away a few more brain cells. These people all had a role in helping me become who I am today, sitting in the same classroom, smoking the same cigarettes, drinking the same beers, and listening to the same music. If you think metal and rock are just brutal noise then think again, it brings people together as tightly as any other music. We needed the brutality and the beauty behind it to convey our fears and misunderstandings and angst. Some got trapped, some were released. For some it was just a phase, and for some of us the music was life and we still get excited about certain bands, and love new ones. We are now the adults in the crowd, the ones we used to look at and say “that’s us in a million years time”.

Do you remember L’Entrepôt, le Rail Théâtre, le Lion, l’Exca, le Champollion? Do you remember le Jardin des Plantes and le Star Rock Café? Piling into a room together, smoking cigarettes and listening to Emperor and Burzum, Kurt Cobain on the walls, Alice in Chains in the cassette player? Do you remember rolling down hills at the Bastille, The Cure playing in your ears from your walkman, drinking wine at Berlioz, and headbanging to Metallica at L’Usine? Randomly hanging out with Oasis at the Drac Ouest, and playing football with Impaled Nazarene in the backyard of the Rail Theatre. Hanging out of car windows, drunk, while coming down from the mountains at 3am, not a care in the world, no fears, just happiness, that elated feeling of being on top of the world with your best friends. So many memories, so many concert tickets and stories and photos stuck into old journals, trapped away in little drawers in my memory.

There are bands I don’t listen to anymore, bands that served a purpose during adolescence, like Cannibal Corpse or Deicide, and others that I will never, ever stop listening to, like The Cure or Slayer. And you know what? This music has brought me together with people in all places that I have visited and lived in… A common interest found here and there, and it was even the basis of my first conversation with my partner, the love of my life. Music creates the strongest bonds and memories and I will always be grateful for the ones that it has created for me… Kurt, Layne, Lemmy, Bowie (and so many others), you may not be here anymore, but you did way more than just make music. And that goes to all of you who are still here, still creating, still inspiring. You may be dark and you may be morbid, but you still make our lives just that little bit better.

Nostalgia tends to fuel me and my writing, I know, but I often wonder for how long these memories will be so vivid, and I worry that one day they will fade away into some kind of oblivion. Music and writing them down keeps them alive.

I've always taken many, many photos, and scanned some of the negatives in a while back. There are many, many more to do, but if you were there, you might be HERE.

Young Heart, Old Soul

Compiling and now editing my next book, tentatively titled Of Hearts and Sea Glass, has been a bit of an arduous process, mainly because it's very autobiographical, and I am naturally a nostalgic person. It stirs up a lot of memories and feelings, some of which I am happy to wander through again, others not so much. I edited this piece this morning, previously published on Life With My Little Duck, a view into my early 20's and some of my travels... 

Young Heart, Old Soul

In my world the devil dances and dares, To leave my soul just anywhere, Until I find peace in this world, I’ll sing a song everywhere I can, Just too young to know anymore. – Tim Buckley, Sing A Song For You

You know, I always thought that you turned 18 and there you were, an adult. All of a sudden the skies would open up with the knowledge you would need to understand everything around you.

Yeah, that doesn’t happen at 18 and it doesn’t happen at 21 either. Nor at 24.

I’ve been walking around the city recently, it some sort of a blur. Sylvia Plath is doing my head in and I can’t run away from her, not until I have finished my thesis anyway. I listen to the same few albums turning round and round on my record player, twirling round and round on the spot and wishing I could just click my fingers and disappear into a void.

I feel so bloody depressed.

Everything is in little pieces, little compartments surrounded by bigger compartments, and I shove each and every little component into its own neat little box, walking through a fog and pretending to reach out, but with no real zeal. I lost most of my spark somewhere between 9/11 and the twentieth time I read The Bell Jar. I go out some nights, wander over to the bars we all frequent, already drunk, and dance round and round, twirling to the sounds of The Cure and Bauhaus, wishing that I could be someone else, somewhere else. Those are paradoxically the moments when I feel the most free, hiding behind my “ivresse”, unafraid of myself and ridding myself of the fear of actually reaching into the future to become who I always imagined I would become.

And then comes that interminable nausea, the one that locks me into myself and gives me panic attacks, so that every time I take a step forward I end up taking two more backwards again. I can live with my timidity, but I can’t live with the inability to count on alcohol to give me the courage I need to be myself. I stand by the river, breathe in the stink and shout into the wind, feeling the bridge sway beneath my feet. Yes, I’ve contemplated jumping off and letting the cold water pull me away, but I don’t even know where I would want to be pulled to. All I know is that all of my life there has been this constant dream of just disappearing, taking off to never return, recreating myself somewhere else. It’s laced into my stories and my poems, dripping from the words I write every day in my journal and I honestly believe that one day it will just happen. I will snap and then be gone. It’s hard to manage the fear of having to compromise and this overwhelming need to shout from the rooftops I EXIST.

I need to get away from here, and I need to leave this cocoon behind. I love my friends, I love them with all of my heart, and I love this country that has become my home, but I need to be able to step out from the shadows and find the path or the paths that I need to take. I used to feel safe here, but the safety is beginning to strangle me, and this depression is getting worse and worse. Every morning I have to mentally prepare myself for the outside world, but the walls have crumbled so much and I don’t have the energy to rebuild them. I am too vulnerable and without my inner strength I won’t make it much further. I have to move away from my comfort zone and take that leap into a new world. What is there here for me right now anyway? Years and years of studying something I lost interest in a while back? Teaching in some random school hundreds of miles away from my home? Or just sitting her, stifling under my self-created and inflicted bell jar?

It really is time to go.

And all I ever wanted was the simple things, A simple kind of life. – No Doubt, Simple Kind of Life

It’s amazing how much difference a year can make. Last year I was treading water, breathing in the same recycled atmosphere, living in the shadows of my mind and wondering why I felt so trapped. Now I am sitting in the afternoon sun on my multi-coloured beach towel, contemplating the shiny Mediterranean and admitting to myself that there are times that life can seem pretty perfect. Or at least not as complicated as I was making it be.

I tried to stick it out back home, and then I tried to move closer to my family again, but neither option worked out for multiple reasons. So, instead of just going to London and aimlessly walking around searching for a job that I didn’t want, I chose Tel Aviv, the Israeli desert and finally a kibbutz up near the Lebanese border. You know what I discovered? I discovered that inner strength that had carried me through my childhood lifting me up again. I discovered that I could be a natural leader instead of pretending to be a follower, and I discovered that while running away may not always be the best solution, it is always an option.

Probably because I ran towards myself rather than away from myself.

I am made for kibbutznik life. I love the work, the freedom. I love the volunteer house and the volunteers. I love our routine and I mostly love that I feel like I can be me here, ME with a big, fat capital M. I can’t stay here forever, and I will never be able to stay here forever, but I can stay here for now and that is all that matters.

The parties, the love, the friendship, the family, the walks to the beach, the train rides down to my family in the desert. Learning and speaking Hebrew and passing for Israeli wherever I go. The market shuk every Sunday after work with the colourful clothes and the serve yourself falafel stand in the centre of town. Dancing in the rain and touring Egypt on $200, memories that I know will be stamped into my brain for the rest of my life. I’m in love, in love with a country, in love with a boy (maybe) and in love with life. This was the jolt I needed to wake me up; this was the change I never really knew I needed.

It’s so warm here, and time passes more slowly, we sit around sipping coffee and tea, smoking endless cigarettes and pondering on life and love and friendships. Friendships are made fast and firm, bonds created over the manual labour and the long nights of vodka and dancing. We are all here for our own reasons, but these are now the people I would trust with my life. I can’t ever imagine never seeing these people again, not talking to them every day or laughing about the silly things that we get up to when drunk. This is the life that I have always wanted, simple, but I also know that it’s only a halfway house really. I can’t stay here, not unless I make some drastic choices in my life, and I’m not ready to make any permanent choices now.

Israel has taught me to accept that sometimes you cannot control the outcome, and as frustrating as it may be, there are other solutions, other places to go, other lives to live. Our world is so huge and full of people, cultures, history and things to learn that I need to use the dead ends in my path as signs to go find another direction. I am no longer scared of myself or of what I can accomplish in my life if I put my mind to it. I am lucky enough to have choices and places to go. I am free, so why create a prison for myself?

In the meantime I will continue to enjoy the warm sand in my toes and the sun on my skin, waking up before dawn and sleeping way after midnight, watching the stars light up the expansive sky, guiding me to the extent of what this world has to offer me.

Always the same, nothing ever changes, English summer rain seems to last for ages. – Placebo, English Summer Rain

Have you ever felt like you make one choice after another and it becomes a chain reaction of sorts, pulling you one way and another? I’m twirling on one toe, pushing myself faster and faster but willing the world to stop for a minute so that I can catch my breath and my balance. London has served its purpose, a place to tiptoe through while looking elsewhere. Every time I lay my head on my pillow I think of elsewhere, every time I write a poem by the river on my lunch break I dream of where I want to be, and every time I walk the same steps back home I wonder how I am ever going to leave. London is comfortable and foreign, we speak the same language but I see further than the end of the day. I’m sure others do too, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life waiting for spring to arrive, year in year out.

I walk over to the corner shop and buy my Sunday papers, reading them in bed with a pot of coffee and a pile of toast and butter, reading stories that I wish I had written, and staring aimlessly at the screen of my new iBook hoping to squeeze just a little inspiration out of my apathy. My housemates are wonderful, there are a lot of comforts in my life here, but it’s not enough. It will never be enough will it?

This is why I am off to New York City next week. I have never been there, I have never really even dreamt of going there, but I am still going there. A new job, a new life and another choice to be somewhere else. Ever since I left France I haven’t been able to find that one place where I really feel I belong or at least that one place where I belong and where I can actually stay. Visas and documents may stop me from staying somewhere, but they won’t stop me from looking for my home.

I’m 27 now and although I have experienced more than many, I still find it hard to believe I am actually an adult. Yes, I arrived in London with no place to stay and no job and within a week I had both. Yes, I have a job with responsibilities and I pay my rent on time every week. Yes, I have orchestrated my own move to NYC with no idea where I am going to live or what to even expect when I get there. Yes, I have traveled extensively on little to no money. And yes, I even managed to get an MA before I left France. But I still feel like that shy little girl is right there, just below the surface, waiting to pop up at any given moment. She makes me second guess every move and makes me doubt everything I say. The only way I can make her go away is with vodka and I still haven’t learnt how to get past that stumbling block yet.

I’m sure there will be enough vodka for me in NYC. I just hope I won’t lose myself in that big beating heart of a city. Or maybe that is just exactly what I need to do?

The Childhood Stories

Over the past month or so I had had a collection of stories published up on Life with my Little Duck starting off during my teenage years, moving into my 20's and then ending today. It was a really interesting trip through thoughts and memories so I thought I would provide a little recap here and link them all in one place for anyone who would like to take a little journey through a few decades and a few countries... Five years ago I started to write a book loosely based on my life/experiences, but I gave up because it was both too close to home and because I didn't think anyone would be interested. I am now putting together several collections of essays which I think will be easier for me to work on and actually finish. In any case, here are the links to all of the stories... Thanks to Ally for publishing all of these stories, as well as many other wonderful and heartbreaking ones. You can see all of the stories from her Childhood Series up on her blog here. 

The Invisibility Cloak - wrap yourself in it as soon as you leave the house...

Survival Modes - high school is a real minefield.

Run, Run Away - everything is just too much and there is no escape.

Young Heart, Old Soul - a different life in different places.

Never Let Go of the Rainbow - a decade in a city that never sleeps.

Everything will be alright
Everything will turn out fine
Some nights I still can't sleep
And the voices pass with time
The Sisters of Mercy - Time To Cry

Immigration Series: Serial Immigrant

This week's story is my own mother's... We have lived thousands and thousands of miles away from each other for many years, but now all live together in sunny California. 

Serial Immigrant

I am an immigrant. I have been an immigrant, and an émigré, for much of my adult life: not because of dire need, or suffering, but from a desire to travel, to experience the world, and to provide a good life for my family. I’d always dreamed of travelling; as a child it was to Canada and France, or exploring the South Pole, as a teen I wanted to work on a kibbutz or travel the desert on the back of a camel; as an adult, to visit the ancient sites of Greece and Turkey and Jerusalem and Egypt and Japan. (I’ve been lucky enough to be able to do all of those, except Greece the South Pole, and while a visit to the Galapagos is still on the bucket list, I’m a little more wary of the cold these days.)

It all began when I was offered a short-term contract in the Netherlands when I was looking for full-time employment in Thatcher’s UK. The idea of spending a few months outside of what had become a depressed and gloomy Britain under Thatcher’s iron rule, in the country of windmills and clogs and Edam, was exciting and liberating. We packed a very few belongings into a mini-bus and took the ferry from Harwich to Hook of Holland, and never looked back. The children went to Dutch schools and my daughters were fluent in the language within a very few months. The short-term contract became three years, we experienced life as Europeans, and then a new job offer came along, from an American multinational with a large site in France.

Nine years in France, a country full of culture and life and history and strong friendships, and then, once again, I’m offered another job—with the same company, but this time, in the mothership—in the USA. Moving between European countries, pre-Brexit, was one thing. Across the world was another. It was a major decision: three children, divorced parents, oldest child already in university in France… but it was another adventure, it felt right, and it was an opportunity to experience yet-another way of life.

I entered the USA on an L-1 visa. That’s a visa specifically for “management transfers”: companies can bring in their managerial staff and workers with specialized knowledge, transferring them from overseas locations to a (new) location in the USA.

My employer provided help with the visa. They also provided legal help to make sure that the green card I applied for, for myself and children, were expedited, because my second child would celebrate their twenty-first birthday a few months after our arrival in the USA. Wait. Why is that important??? Because after 21, a child is considered “just another relative”, and you have to petition for them to join you, and wait years. But what about my eldest child, who is already over 21, yet still in full-time education and supported by me? Oh tough. They’ve “aged out”. No green card. You have to petition for them to join you, once you have a green card yourself, and then wait. And wait. And wait. At least seven or ten or more years.

My eldest was denied a visa to visit the USA for a few months, on the grounds that, “All your family is in the USA and you might be tempted stay.” Well duh… yes, all close family was in the USA. So you deny a child the right to stay with their only surviving parent???”

We found a work-around. My eldest was able to claim Canadian citizenship due to her father’s own citizenship, and then work in the USA on an annual TN visa, which wasn’t without stress. We waited and waited for her green card to be approved. We paid all the fees. Eventually, after several years, the green card was approved… but there would be another seven or more years before “the number would come up”, and the card would be issued. I learned that if I became a US citizen—by this time I was eligible, having held a green card for five years—then the wait for my daughter’s green card would be cut to just a few months.

So I paid all the fees, studied for the exam, and became a US Citizen. I now hold two passports, British and USA. My daughter has a green card, issued a few months after I became a citizen, and can live and work in the USA. The family is together. But am I a proud US citizen? Do I feel this glowing patriotism, and the need to put hand-on-heart when the Stars and Stripes are played? The belief in the right to bear arms? Not for one second… Do I feel somewhat compromised, and coerced into embracing a nationality, just to enable my family to be together? Some days, indeed I do. Resentful? No… I’m happy with the life we have, though I miss the history, the discussions, the cultural richness that is outside the USA. I don’t understand the American money-based mentality that drives everything and blinds people to the fact that there are better ways to manage health care and social welfare and ensure that everyone – EVERYONE – is taken care of. I don’t understand the shoot first mentality. And I really, really don’t want to live in the USA that Trump is proposing. I’m disturbed by the way the world is turning, whether it’s insulting click-bait political lies here in the USA, Brexit votes in the UK that will deny future generations the freedom of movement we enjoyed, and the rise in fear and hatred and intolerance around the globe… Maybe once you’ve seen more of different cultures and languages, you ask more questions, and are more frustrated by a brick wall of ignorance. I don’t know.

Those people who talk about immigration “done the right way”, obviously have no clue about how broken the “right way” is, how it can divide families, how much stress and anguish it can cause, how many years of wondering if your child will be allowed safely through the airport “this time”, or if they will be deported, or worse… and yes, that’s doing immigration “the right way”.

#iamanimmigrant. But I’m one of the lucky ones who had a choice, and tried to make the right decision. Was it? Ask my kids. I think you’ll get mixed answers.

In addition to being a wonderful parent and all-around great person, my mother (Alison Toon) is also a fantastic photographer and you can check out her work on her website, Facebook page and Instagram.

Immigration Series: The Ten Year Wait (Part 2)

If you missed the first half of this story you can find it right HERE.

One Friday afternoon in March of 2005 I received a call from a foreign number. I let it go to voicemail, left the office under the guise of needing a smoke break and listened to an American woman tell me that they had received my resume and were wondering if I would be interested in talking about a project management position within a large translation company in NYC. She also followed up with an email with a little more information. Since 2002 my only concern had been California, I had never even considered another part of the US. Unlike many people in the world, I had never dreamed of going to, let alone living in, NYC. NYC was that place in many TV shows and movies and the place of a tragedy that was forever etched in my brain, but never a place that I wanted to consider my home. But then again, NYC was also a hell of a lot closer to Sacramento than London was. Ever since I had become determined to move to the US my mother had sent my resume out to different contacts in the translation industry and one ended up in the right hands at the right time.

After several phone interviews, language tests, back and forths and a job offer based on the fact that I would receive a TN visa on landing (specialty visa offered to Canadian and Mexican citizens to perform jobs that no qualified American can perform), I handed my notice in and flew off into the unknown at the end of May 2005. Everything was a big risk really, for both myself and the company, but I had a one year visa, a shitty starting salary that was a tiny bit more than the pittance I was earning in London, and a possibility that I may transfer to California one day if things worked out. But then, the moment I saw the Manhattan skyline I knew I had come home. If you have ever traveled a lot, wondered where your roots are or were and wandered the soil of this earth trying to find a place to call home, then you know that feeling, a peace within your soul, a sigh of relief, of knowing that this is it. Home.

The gamble paid off. I worked extremely hard, and for quite a few years I played extremely hard, but for the first five years it still felt like I was on borrowed time. I was reluctant to get too close to people in case I would have to leave suddenly. My visa got rejected the first time I tried to renew it, and I had to do a mad rush to Toronto to try again. Every time I had to renew my visa I felt anxious, at the mercy of some immigration official who could stamp my passport for another year or see through all of the lies and deny me entrance. The company grew and merged and HR began to realize that I wasn’t going to last much longer on a temporary visa and finally gave it one last chance before they would make a more permanent gesture. I suppose everything worked out for them right then because the TN visa was extended to three years instead of one. But by then I was done. I was overworked and completely burnt out, I felt trapped but I also had no real interest in leaving the country.  I continued working in a job I had begun to resent because it was the only way I could legally stay in the country and benefit from things like health insurance.

Leaving and entering the country on a TN visa is always touch and go, even if you still have time remaining on it. The best time was the one where the official checked through my papers and waved me on through. The worst was the time I went to Mexico and we flew back through Arizona. Unfortunately my Canadian passport renewal had been held up and was still stuck in Canada so I traveled on my British passport. As my visa was associated with my Canadian citizenship and not my British I assumed that I would get a slap on my hands, but I didn’t assume that I would be threatened with deportation, told that I was an idiot for traveling on the “wrong” passport, and then after all that fined $800 for not having the right “paperwork” on me (I actually DID have all of the paperwork, including my old passport and my valid British passport)- thankfully I had the money on my credit card, because if I hadn’t been able to pay I would have been detained. They also told me that I was “lucky” because the main immigration dude wanted to send me before the immigration court, but in the end they decided to just fine me. And all I could think about after I ran across the terminal to make my connecting flight that was leaving in five minutes was: I’m very, very lucky. I can’t even imagine how they would have treated me if I had been of a different skin colour and/or nationality. I learnt two important lessons that day: never move to Arizona and never put yourself in a situation where you feel frightened of an official again. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and for over an hour they made me feel like I was a piece of scum on the carpet. Of course, part of that issue WAS my own fault, but at the same time there was no need to treat me like a criminal. It really reinforced my opinion that it doesn’t matter if you have a visa or not, you are still going to be treated like a lesser individual until you have either a green card or a US passport.

My mother checked my green card status in 2010 and we were years and years off, so she filed for citizenship and became a US citizen about 6 months later. About 6 months after that, in the middle of 2011, I suddenly received an appointment to get my fingerprints and photographs done, as well as a request to get a full physical with a USCIS-approved doctor. It was also around that time that I was functioning on auto-pilot at work, depressed, barely able to drag my feet through the door every day. I was messing up left, right and centre, and all I wanted to do was release myself of the chains that I had tied around my ankles, and soar high, find myself and my real desires again. Over the weekend of Hurricane Irene I walked out and never looked back, and by doing so I became an undocumented immigrant, part of the huge underground network in this country. I was done. I didn’t care anymore, after years and years of waiting, of doing the right thing, of watching friends marry other friends and get their statuses adjusted, of convincing myself that I didn’t need to do that, I gave up. I would find work and I would be OK.

I did both. I also began to breathe again. And yes, I paid taxes. I didn’t claim any type of state health insurance, because that isn’t possible, despite what you hear. I used the social security number I had been given with my temporary visa, the same one I still use today, and I continued to live my life, hoping that my good health would hold up and that I wouldn’t get sick, ever. And then, at the end of 2011 I received a letter from the USCIS with an interview appointment. THE interview that I had been waiting for, for so many years (TEN to be exact). I arrived there with snacks and a book and my journal, prepared to be waiting for hours, but instead I was called in within five minutes, my interview lasted 30 minutes, and I was told I would receive their decision in the mail within six weeks.

A week later, to the day, I received my green card in the mail.

I still remember the river of emotions that flew through my body, not being able to breathe, running upstairs to my apartment so that I could burst into tears, of happiness, of sadness, of pure relief. That little piece of ID opened up so many doors again, I could work wherever I wanted, I could study again if I wanted to, and most importantly, I could leave the country and come back, as many times as I wanted. A few months later my beloved Nana passed away, and I was able to go to the funeral and read the eulogy that I had written for her. I was able to hop on a plane in NYC and pop over to Sacramento without worrying about someone demanding to see my visa or immigration ID. All of a sudden I had the exact thing that I had been waiting for since 2001.

It did come with a certain price though, because the only reason that I am not still waiting for my green card today is because my mother became a citizen. Yes, there are perks with being a citizen like the right to vote against men like Trump, but there is also the fact that for the rest of her life my mother will have to pay US taxes, wherever she lives in the world. Something to think about if you ever have to make that decision. And I haven’t even touched upon the money that my mother spent on the USCIS (previously INS) over the years, sometimes even double price because they provided conflicting information on what we needed to pay and where (non-refundable of course). She didn’t have to give up her British citizenship, I doubt she would have become a US citizen if she had to, but there are some countries that require you do.

So, my story is one of many, many years of waiting. There is no grey area when it comes to immigration here, no possibility of talking to people face to face and coming to some sort of agreement. You either choose to be part of the system and become a number, waiting year after year for yours to advance one or two steps, or you do it your own way. If I am asked what I would change if I had to do it all over again I say everything. I used to say that I would only get married if I were madly in love, nowadays marriage is only a piece of paper, and if that piece of paper helps moves things along a little faster, then why not. And before you flame me for saying that, just put yourself in my, or someone else’s shoes for a year, and see what it is like. Telling a 21 year old that she cannot come back to visit her family for a year is pretty despicable in my opinion. And I had it easy. Some of the stories that will be featured in this series are a million times more difficult to digest than mine are. Mine is just unfair, and in the end it all kind of worked out.

Sometimes I wish I hadn’t spent all of those years waiting and waiting because I didn’t live life as fully as I should have. But at the same time I don’t have any regrets because I now have my own family, my own family of immigrants. My children were born here which makes them US citizens, but there will always be that worry at the back of my mind that one day they will be forced to live without me, just because my and their father’s immigration status could technically be revoked at any time. And that is a story for another day and another time…

Next week on Monday I will be posting someone else's story. If you would like to be featured in this series please feel free to contact me!

Immigration Series: The Ten Year Wait (Part 1)

Kicking off this guest post series with the first part of my own US immigration story. Over the next few weeks there will be all kinds of immigration stories appearing on this blog, and if you would like to see your own featured don't hesitate to contact me. This series is in no shape or form limited to the US, I am interested in featuring all types of stories from anywhere in the world.

When I hear people discussing immigration in the US I often hear terms like “the right way” and “the wrong way” being thrown around. Or that someone came here to steal someone else’s job, or on the contrary came to find a better life. It seems that everything is black or white and that there is nothing in between: either you are a “good” immigrant or a “bad” immigrant. So I’m going to tell you a little story about someone who didn’t come here for a better life, who didn’t come here because she was particularly enamoured by the country, and who didn’t come here to steal someone else’s job. Actually this person just ended up here and just stayed here for a lot longer than she had planned to. This story is my story and I feel that it is a perfect example of how everyone’s immigration story is different, how no one’s story is “good” or “bad” and how there is no right or wrong way. Instead of looking at all of the blacks and whites let us look at the greys and pinks and blues and yellows and reds.

I wasn’t the easiest teen, but then again who was? I dropped out of school at the age of 16 because I couldn’t stand being there anymore, but by the age of 18 I realised I actually wanted to be one of the first people in my family to earn a degree. So I sat my Baccalauréat, passed, and went to university. I loved university. French universities have an element of freedom to them and you are treated like an adult, not like an annoying child. Since you are treated like an adult it is also assumed that you will act like an adult (for the most part anyway), so I went to the classes I found interesting, winged my way through my first year exams and passed with flying colours. My second year was a lot more interesting, and the third year, my BA year, even more so. That was also the year that my mother decided to take her company’s job opportunity up in California. It was the year 2000, and while I was super happy for her to go, there was no question about the fact that I would be staying put. My life was mainly in France, a little in England my country of birth, but mainly in France. I had lived there for so many years, going through school and adolescence and everything you go through and more when you are growing up.

I had never even been to the States, let alone move there. I had a couple of close friends in California, but they had their own lives and friends, and I had no intention of starting over somewhere else. France, Grenoble, was my home. I flew over to California with my mother to look for a house before her big move, liked the area, saw NIN in concert, and came home, with no desire to move anywhere except into my new apartment by the train station in Grenoble.

I hadn’t considered how my fourth year, my MA year, at university would affect me mentally, how depressed I would get after 9/11, and also how spending holidays and birthdays far away from my family would take its toll. When I read through my journals from that period I can see how I withdrew myself bit by bit from my usual life, preferring to hole myself up at home, writing about Sylvia Plath for my thesis and listening to Bob Dylan and Tim Buckley on repeat. Something had to give and I decided that I wanted to move. All of a sudden I needed to see something different, not for the first time in my life and definitely not for the last. So, on the spur of the moment I decided I was moving to the US. I spent my last summer in France with my friends, signed my half of the lease over to someone else, packed up my stuff and sent it over to my mother’s, and got on a flight with my cat.

It was September 2002 and I was 24 years old.

You become an adult in the US on your 21st birthday. If you immigrate to the US with your parents and you are under the age of 21 you will automatically fall under their immigration plan/set-up/visa etc. My mother’s work visa was fast-tracked into a green card, and her immigration lawyer made sure that my sister’s was pushed through fast too, so that it came through before she turned 21 (this was before 9/11, a lot changed after that, understandably so). My brother was 16 when he moved over to the US and got his green card pretty much immediately too. I, as an adult child of an alien, had to apply for my own green card with no idea when or if I would ever receive it.

So there I was, in the US, with no ability to work or to get a student visa/pay for tuition (and my tuition in France had been free anyway) and no idea if I would ever be able to live with my family again. Even if I had decided to move with my mother in 2000 it wouldn’t have changed a thing as I was over 21.

I went back and forth using the visa waiver program a few times, applied for a 6 month tourist visa in London and got rejected immediately because I “had too many family ties in the US and there was no guarantee I wouldn’t overstay my visa or coerce someone into giving me a job”.  I flew back to the US right after that and was immediately sent to the second room (if you have ever been there before you know what I mean, I’ve been there too many times to remember). I was yelled at, told that I was obviously working in the US if I kept coming back (I wasn’t, my mother was actually supporting me at that point), and that I was stupid to keep coming back. Then, after leaving me in a freezing cold room for 30 minutes, the official stamped my passport and told me that I could stay another three months, and after that if I came back within a year I would immediately be deported.

To be honest, I really don’t want to know how many “comments” I have on my immigration file. That wasn’t the last time I was threatened with deportation. It also wasn’t the last time I was sent to that “second” room.

I was totally and utterly depressed. I missed my life in France and I wanted to start a new life in the US, but instead I was stuck in limbo, with no real direction anywhere. I spent three months feeling lethargic and anti-social, forcing myself to leave the house, preferring to stay holed up inside with my cat, my books, my music and the internet. The end of the three months loomed in front of me and I kept pushing any kind of decision-making until the next day. Then my aunt, a world traveler who had settled in Israel, converted to Judaism and started a family there on a moshav in the desert, invited me to come over and help her with her two little children. At the same time my mother pushed me to send off my Canadian citizenship paperwork. My father was born in Canada, and while he was back in Britain before he could walk, he retained dual citizenship until he died. At the time if you had a Canadian parent, dead or alive, you were eligible for citizenship, even if you had never been to the country. It was a long shot and we were told could take a year or so, but there was no harm in trying.

I ended up living in Israel for well over a year, a life-changing experience, and came back to the US with more drive, focus and plans up my sleeve, and my Canadian citizenship was waiting for me on arrival. My original plan was to stay in California for three months, go to London and work there for a while and wait for the person I had fallen in love with to join me. The latter part never happened, and for the best as he proved to be as flighty as I always knew he was, but I did move to London and spent ten months there waiting to see where I would go next.

London was both home and away. I had my first “real” job after university (“real” meaning I worked in an office and was doing something that resembled what I had studied to do), I lived in a lovely house with really wonderful people, and I was able to spend time with my family in England whenever I wanted to. It was away because while England is the country of my birth it isn’t the country I grew up in. Familiar and foreign, and London was so expensive and big and hard to actually live in. I had kind of given up on moving to the States at that point and was just treading water in London until I could figure out my next steps (and once I had given up on waiting for the boy to make his way over to England I started to think about my future in a little more depth too). 

To be continued... Part 2 will be featured at the same time, same day next week!

Fiction: A Story of Oblivion

Ah, those years between 18 and 22 when you are supposed to be "sorting your life out"... When your emotions range from euphoric to despair in the space of minutes, even seconds. Another chapter from the book I never finished. Another excerpt can be found on the blog under the title Run, Run Away.

It’s too hard to get out of bed today. I know that the moment I step out from under the covers I am going to have to deal with life again, and I just wish, for one day, that I didn’t have to deal with it. Just one day, world, just one day of peace and quiet and silence. No classes, no work, no bars, no alcohol, no talks, no demands, no… No him. I mean that I need a day when he doesn’t pop into my head every two seconds and distracts me from life. A day away from life, where I can disappear for a time, be it into some oblivious sleep, some faraway country or just some dream world I concocted when I was a child.

I first learned what the word “oblivion” meant during my first week at the Lycee back in the 90’s. My English teacher had the words “oblivion” and its antonym (it could have been “consciousness” but I really can’t remember anymore) stuck up on one of his pin boards that were hanging on the wall. It attracted my attention, and when I finally had enough courage to ask him what it meant, I decided that it had to be used in my first book. I think I may have told my teacher that, and I hope that somewhere, somehow, he will see this and remember too, although he unfortunately isn’t here with us anymore. In any case, oblivion is one of my favourite words and also the word that will always be the best explanation of what we want to fall into during those times when we fall down, down, down.

 What is oblivion to you? To me it is just somewhere where none of all this that we have to live with and deal with every day exists, and where we don’t have to remember or listen to anything or anyone, and when we come back from it, well, we won’t even remember that it existed anyway. Kind of like the characters in an episode of Lost. You don’t remember the island or anything that happened on it once you are away from it. But once you are there you are away. Maybe I just have a rosy vision of what oblivion really means, maybe it means just gone away for good, unaware of anything, in a catatonic state? I prefer my view. Oblivion is a soft, down-filled bed that I can sink into, like a fluffy white cloud on a sunny day in spring.

Merriam-Webster defines oblivion as being one of the following: “the fact or condition of forgetting or having forgotten; especially : the condition of being oblivious” or “the condition or state of being forgotten or unknown”. I still prefer my definition, it’s just more… Poetic maybe? In any case, this week I just want a day of what I see as oblivion, and although I know that it won’t happen, it doesn’t hurt to dream.

Anyway, I just don’t want to get out of bed. I don’t want to have to go on the tram and be squished up against some pervy man again like yesterday. I don’t want to have to have another attack of the low blood sugars in the middle of class, just because I couldn’t face breakfast again before I left the house. I don’t want to have to deal with all of the idiots who are still in my class because they haven’t dropped out yet, the ones who think they are just too cool. I don’t want one of my professors to yet again ask me what I think about such and such writer, just because they know I am the only one who will dare to say something at least meaningful, or at least thoughtful. Or maybe I just think my responses are meaningful, and they only ask me because I can be bothered to answer. I’m probably already taking myself too seriously, and I haven’t even left my bed yet. I suppose oblivion is not for today, yet again.

The phone is back on the hook again, with at least 5 messages from him. I can’t bear to be woken up by the sound of it ringing and ringing, all night long, with both of them telling me that I should be with them, that they miss me, singing me songs and telling me that I should be out on the town with them, getting drunk, laughing, hugging, kissing, talking to the late hours of the night about everything and nothing. We are not going to save the world, and the world is not going to save us, but we can still talk about the impending doom and the sunrises over the horizon, contemplating what life would be and what life could be and listening to our favourite voices push us on through the night towards a goal that still hasn’t been created in our minds.

I love these boys. I suppose I should really say men, because we are all adults now, but I can’t bring myself to. We are all still so naïve but bolshy at the same time, we know it all but haven’t built those walls of protection around ourselves to save ourselves from the pain that is obviously going to come hurtling down on us at some point. The other night we were all sitting around my make-shift coffee table, drinking Desperados out of cans, listening to Tom Waits on vinyl, smoking Gauloises Blondes and talking about Israel and the anti-Israel politics in France. Sometimes I feel like a few of us pretend to be right wing, but are really left-wing, and I live my life on my own political spectrum terms, which go from the far left to left of center, sometimes hopping over the border to dip my toes and always running back again to my safe haven. We are all so smart and full of ideas, but they always only end up being coffee table ideas, as no one really has the energy to really go for it. It’s come to a point though where I need to move along, make my own way. While I was sitting there mainly listening to them all talk I just realized that I needed more. Instead of talking I need to see, feel, hear, be there.  I can’t stay here like this, dreaming about being born in another century, or at least another year, pretending that everything is allright, that one day I will miraculously wake up somewhere else, somewhere better, in a different life, in a different place.  Back to that oblivion, maybe it’s time to make the oblivion I want a reality.

I listened to the 5 voicemails, all drunken laughter, songs, mainly Jacques Brel and Leonard Cohen, “we love you” and “wish you were here”. I know you wish I were there, but I just can’t do this anymore. I can’t continue to be in love with someone who is in love with someone else, it’s just not possible anymore. If I stick around long enough he will marry me, that’s what he has always said, but I know that I need to live a life for myself before I can accept that and even agree to that. Only because I know that I am the comfort zone, and the others are all the chase, the idea of something different. I don’t want to be someone’s comfort zone, I want to be someone’s muse, I want to inspire someone and to be inspired at the same time.

Hiding away in my apartment and just concentrating on my thesis, my classes, my books, my writing and my depression is my only way of letting go. Leaving the protection of my house is always a chore, that nervous bubble that grows in my stomach, then the building of those protective layers to stave away the pokes and the stabs that are surely going to come my way in the outside world. Eyes to the ground and book in hand I make my way to each destination as fast as possible, hide away in my tiny classes at university, sit in the library for hours taking notes and doing research, teaching my students in the different locations, shopping and then home, to the pure comfort of my bed. I love to have people over, and to cook for them, but I am really struggling with being sociable and happy in public right now. If I go out he will be there, we will drink and talk and kiss, and then I will go home and watch him walk away to the new girlfriend’s house, knowing full well that she is waiting for him there, and I am going home alone. So what if I have his mind and his sociable hours? She has his love and she has him in her bed at night. I am just not pretty enough for him, or just not young enough, or just not something enough, I don’t know. In any case, this is my way of letting go of him. It’s time to branch out, it’s also time to leave the protective group of all my male friends and find someone who will love me for who I want to be. Or something in that vein. In the meantime I need to stave off that feeling of worthlessness, and hide from wanting oblivion too much. Every day I battle these feelings and every day I feel like I fail a little bit more.

Once I finish this thesis it will all be over, unless I want to continue and study for a PhD, and I know now that it’s too early for that. So what next? Run away? Start a new life somewhere else? This world is so large and there are so many places I have to see, but I just don’t know how. Can I leave the comforts of today and go? Can I just pick up and see where the wind drops me? What about my family and friends and cat and belongings? Will I feel the same any place I go or will I feel like a different person? All of these questions keep going around and around in my head, and I can’t keep my brain quiet any longer. I just want to get out of all of this. I need to remove myself from the feeling that if I throw myself in front of a tram on the B line that it will be a quick end. Or take a lot of pills and just fall asleep. Or just never wake up one morning and it will all be over. No more pain or feelings or sadness or confusion or hurt or shyness. No more keeping my mouth shut to avoid confrontation, no more wondering what life would have been like if certain things hadn’t happened. No more missing a person who will never ever come back. And no more hating a person who I can’t fully hate, even if I have every right to. There are so many days that I just want it to end. Too early, too late, never the right time. I just want it to end.

But I know I could never do that, only because I know what the pain is to lose someone in that way and I don’t have the heart to put anyone else through that. No one deserves that, however bad it may be, it could be worse, right? I’m sure there is an answer for me, and I am determined to find it.

Oblivion can wait another day.