Morning violence

Most of the time, they are just frivolous thoughts. The perfect sheet color to brighten the room, the silk scarf, the denim jacket. I'm waiting for my paycheck to place an order online. All this while listening to music, my only escape, and I float above the crowd pushing and shoving to get on the Tube. People sigh to stifle their cries.

I don't recognise myself anymore. I am nor the dreamy little girl who used to gaze up to chase the hot air balloons, nor the ambitious kid who knew everything, from beginning to end — the start of things, the direction, the meaning — nor the teenager who longed for the sea… I've lost everything. The apartment is filthy, and I drank too much last night. The only friends I have? I'm afraid of them because they might see that the cool girl I've become has a dagger plunged in her heart. The facade is no longer holding up.

As they come out the train, they queue up to get on the escalator. I don't understand. From a distance, they look like livestock, but an ambitious livestock, in a hurry. In the street, dawn paints the buildings pink; everything is pretty. It's spring. And a guy is kicking cardboard boxes while taking out the trash. It's not even seven in the morning. How do you get to the point of kicking things in the street when the day hasn't even started yet?

It always hurts. I tell people I found a job and everyone congratulates me: “That’s fantastic!” Yay, I’m part of the system. I can go to the bar and pay for my own beer. I talk about coaching, business, clothes, fitness. But once I’m home, sometimes, I swear I could cry. Every time, I wonder why I didn’t talk about the things that really interest me. Why didn’t I talk about painting? About this world I have teeming inside? About talking trees, music, and the sea. About the little characters that follow me everywhere in my imagination and always make me laugh. Why have I never dared to explain why I always lift up my nose when the wind blows? Why haven’t I shown the secret photos I take in the street that move me so deeply? Why have I never dared to admit to anyone that it kills me when people congratulate me on finding a job? I had a job… It was living. It was about making every minute I had been given an ode to the beauty of this world. I had a job: to convey that. To touch souls, to stir them from within. To awaken them to life. ‘It doesn't pay?’ I hear people say. Who said it was impossible? ‘What do you do for a living?’ I awaken souls.

Are they really my friends if I've never dared to tell them all this?

‘You're nothing but a coward’, I hear myself saying. A stillborn thing, hidden, all alone, curled up inside. I laugh when I talk about things that don't interest me, I learn to use what works, I apply it. And the worst part of it, is that it works. My complexion is fresh, I get compliments. ‘You've lost weight, that’s great! You look awesome.’ Inside, I'm dying, and I haven't told anyone.

I could have avoided all of this. All it would have taken was one honest answer, just one, for me to be proud of having found a job. All I would’ve had to say was ‘I'm figuring things out’ the day someone asked me what I did in life.

This child who dreamed of everything, tell me? She's the one who wants to write tonight. What did she do to make you whisper in her ear: You can't. Incapable. Time passes, it's already too late. There's nothing left to live for. There… Turn on the TV, go to sleep. Show yourself as you are? But look. Even you don't look at people in the eyes, so what is there to see? Nothing. And that's what you're worth, so don't hurt yourself. Have another cigarette, relax. Nobody's waiting for you tonight.

You don't find it in the street at seven in the morning. The violence is inside me. —

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Read as well You know well it will be me, Journal (Vol. IV), Julien Green.

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A year later

Right now, beautiful. At peace. An hour ago I was getting off the subway and, sweating, I was meditating on the word "overwhelmed." I find it hard not to let myself go lately. Tonight, I lied to everyone. I said I had training and therefore wouldn't have time to be there. Not for volunteering, not to answer messages, not to see anyone. In fact, what happened is that I offered myself a wonderful gift. I came home, took a shower, cried, curled up on my yoga mat, and prayed. Finally, I found this moment. This sacred moment where no one knows where I am. Where I can simply be and write (my two favorite verbs). And I give up nothing. Neither the desire to love, nor the strength to win, nor the secret desire to be heard. But I let myself be. Guided. Just a few hours. I let the light decide for me.

No one told me I’d have to sell bread. Or walk across the whole city. Or wait so long to see my dreams become a reality. But I also understood something: it doesn't matter if I can't afford the camera right now. What my soul longs for is being part of the whole, being absorbed. To see everything, feel everything, in the middle of a crowd as in the midst of a forest. My soul cries out in pain when I stay in. It's not the city that suffocates me, it's not having the opportunity to see every aspects of it. Not looking at people, mingling with them, witnessing the smiles, the moments. I wish you had seen this, the other day. There was a couple in the street, two young people in their early twenties with two children already. The young man was in a wheelchair, and the two little ones were sitting there too ; one on his lap, the other on the footrest between his legs, and they all looked so happy. They were laughing, eating ice cream. If I'd had my camera… Click. You should have seen their joy, Lidy, mingled with the sunlight. The scene moved me. 

Anyway, I lack the means, but my circumstances can't stop me. They don't affect my mood or my determination to capture the beauty of the world. I made a pact with myself, and with my mum, a long time ago. La vie est belle — life is beautiful — and I'm going to prove it. —

Child & Bird, Barcelona, 2024 —

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#15 - The resignation

or ‘False start’

For a moment, I really thought it was relier I was feeling. No more gas meters, no more jerks, no more days alone, desperately alone, fighting against everything: people, fate, weather. ‘I quit!’ Finally, I could say it out loud! And oh, what joy…

But now… What?

The first week, of course, it was all about going out to the beach or for coffees, accompanied by Nietzsche, Marcus Aurelius, or Hannah Arendt. And a different neighbourhood every day, why not? I could do it now: I wasn't afraid anymore. I knew Barcelona like the back of my hand.

But now… What?

I had enough savings not to have to work again until the end of the year. I could fulfill my dream: go to France, where I would spend three months at my parents' country house. Nature, silence, solitude. The perfect writer's retreat.

But now… What?

There were the cows, indeed. And the silence. So much silence, in fact, I couldn't focus very well. And then there was my idea for the novel, which had been sleeping within me for the past three years. But employed or not, I was facing a blank page, and the vertigo made me reel for quite a while. What more could I possibly say here, in France, or in Switzerland, or anywhere else for that matter, than I had at home?

Yet, all success stories began like this… “I gave up everything,” “I was unemployed,” “I suffered failure after failure, until…” Jack London, or J.K. Rowling, started like this…

But now… What?

I started to get really scared. Maybe there was nothing in me? I wanted to make the trees, and the music speak, and give a voice to everything we don't usually hear, but I realised, up there, at the foot of the mountains, that I didn't even know the sound of my own voice.

Three months passed, and I didn't write a single line (not one worth publishing, at least). I came home empty-handed, but it takes more than that to put me down. So I kept trying, I persisted, fought against the blank page and all the demons that awaken when you finally confront yourself with your own fears, but it was all in vain. Three months later, again, I was back to square one: no manuscript, no job, and I'd spent all my savings.

I guess the wise have known this for a long time: there is a time for everything, and everything comes in its own time. ¹ —

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¹ : Ecclesiastes 3

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#14 - Starting over

For moment, I really thought it was relief I was feeling.

It felt like a new beginning, I had all the reasons to feel proud, right?

But this thing eating me from the inside… No doubt.

I was terrified.

It’s normal. One might be a little crazy to give up everything, without any assurance.

But have you ever noticed?

The best of things are always on the other side of fear. —

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See the movie The Truman Show…

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#13 - The blue balloon (the story)

It’s hard to be small because people get mean.

‘You see, son’, said a father to his boy the other day, as the three of us were waiting for the lift. ‘Work hard at school, otherwise you'll end up like her.’

Oscar Wilde said, ‘I refuse to engage in an intellectual battle with an unarmed man.’ So I slipped my book into my pocket and kept quiet.

It's a little bit every day, my drama teacher used to say, back in France. When you have a goal in life, you have to work on it a little bit every day. And putting people down is a sport like any other, after all.

It was early afternoon in July. It was already very hot (37°C!) and summer had only just begun. I had spent the day going up and down stairs (50 to 60 floors a day, without lift!) and finally, I was beginning to see the end of it.

I rang the doorbell.

‘Who is it?’ said a man on the intercom.

‘La lectura del gas.’

‘Ah.’

The disappointment in his voice was painful. He hung up. I heard a noise in the hallway, so I stayed, just in case. And he did come down to open the door. He showed me where the meters were, but there was a pile of stuff blocking the access. He swore, removed a kid’s bicycle and some plastic toys, and in his haste, a balloon floated away and tumbled down the stairs.

I watched it float for a second.

Turning around, I saw the guy staring at me, bike in hand, looking rather upset, so I hurried off to take my pictures. Then I thanked him cordially, picked up the escaped balloon, and handed it to him. ‘No, but what do you expect me to do with it?’ he said, annoyed. ‘Take it away!’ So ​​I went out, balloon in my hands, and heard the door slam behind me.

I'd had such a difficult day already... Exactly this, aggressive people for no reason, rejections, comments, sighs... For a moment, I couldn't move. I stood there, on the spot, trying with all my might not to burst into tears. It was too stupid, really. So I took a deep breath and then looked at the balloon. What am I going to do with you?

‘Throw it away!’ I could still hear the guy barking. ‘In the street, I don’t care!’

But I couldn’t. Is this how we do then, these days? We use, and when we’re done using, we throw away, without second thought? My balloon and I were like two stray cats, and I certainly wasn’t going to abandon it there. That would have been like admitting the guy was right. The idea made me shiver. So I opened my book to the page where I’d left off and walked, balloon under my arm, to the Tube, where everyone was giving me strange looks. But I think it was on that day I realised ‘strange’ was a compliment and that I was going to spend the rest of my life going against the current. —

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#12 - The blue balloon

At some point, I lost my sense of gravity… 

When you get away from everything, it's easier to fly.

On my way, I found a blue balloon.

Small, a little deflated, but so ridiculously beautiful compared to what surrounded it... I decided to hold on to it.

I would have been ashamed to abandon it too. So I took it with me.

Because on that day, I saw a vast and cruel world all around me. A world that treats people like they’re balloons.

I got scared, that's all. —

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#11 - ‘Historias del gas’

or ‘Gas meter stories’

02/09/23 — Thoughts

I was the girl who, on her first day at middle school, wore purple ballet flats with orange socks and green polka dots. People were whispering as I walked by, but I was smiling, handing out candies. I had no awareness of how ridiculous it all looked. I was coming down from the mountain, you see.

God, how I’d love to return to that state of (un)awareness. But I have gone too far. I have built a corset over the years that has worked wonders. As I tightened it, my face turned purple and people applauded. Now, I am doing everything I can to find myself again.

It's painful, frustrating, terrifying, even. But no, it goes further than that. It's agony, actually. The birth of the authentic self through the death of the fabricated self. You better hang on. —

Sunrise over Barcelona, from the rooftops —

19/10/23 — Núria

I think there is something in the phrase ‘I need help’ that the universe is particularly sensitive to.

This morning, no one is opening. It's NO, and NO, and NO, and a boss who says I'd better not go home until I achieve [such] percentage.

Upon entering her home, though, the voracious monster that, night and day, devours me from the inside, suddenly calmed down. Everything is dark, but it is a warm darkness. In the kitchen, alone, a lit candle and a tiny image of Mary.

I exchange a few words with the lady, Núria, who is quite elderly. She tells me that she has difficulty walking. I tell her that I've had a bad day, so suddenly, two souls connect. She takes my hand and offers me a pear.

‘Wait a moment, I'll wrap it up in a bag for you.

— No, I said. Please... I'm hungry.’

In those two words, ‘I'm hungry’ and the pity my gaze must have inspired her, she read everything. She said nothing, rinsed it under water and handed it to me.

So here we are, another awful day, but soon everything will be better, and I'll only remember this gesture: a hand reaching out and one person talking to another as if she were human.

It's nice, for a change. —

“Careful with the dog (he too has feelings)” —

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There are two types of gas meters: those located inside people's homes and those found on rooftops. When we have to knock on people's doors, the company, by law, is required to leave a notice — an A4 paper sheet stuck on the door of the building the week before. It is on this paper, collected throughout the day, that I write most of the time.

This morning, as I started on the rooftops, I didn't have anything to write with, and it was really itching me. So I started ringing doorbells, and in barely an hour, I had already collected a nice haul (of sheets, that is, not meters. At that hour, no one answers the door).

And I started thinking... One year. I didn't think I would last that long. A year ago, I hit rock bottom. I had €1.47 in my bank account and I was counting my coins to buy wrapping paper for my parents. I cried a lot, prayed little, and put more trust in bad relationships than in my own abilities in God to get me out of the pit. A year ago, I was afraid to take the underground, I was singing my first concerts. I was anxious about everything and sweating day and night over money. A year ago, I cut my own hair with Ikea scissors and used the weekly grocery budget to buy a jacket that was supposed to solve all my problems. A year ago, I was losing heart, I was losing myself.

Well now, it’s been a year I've been humming as I get off the bus and practising my solos in stairwells. Now, I find it hard to recognise the person I see walking onto the stage and standing in front of everyone, whispering, my heart bursting with gratitude: ‘Here I am.’

There was a miracle, and it started like this: with a community. So yes, we have to put up with each other, day after day. We have to learn not to judge mistakes, excuses, moods and bad days too harshly. Because without each other...

Finally, it occurred to me this morning, as I watched the sun paint the whole city gold, that I no longer have any reason to fear anything. I have reached a stage in my relationship with God that gives me the certainty (and the peace that goes with it) that everything is under control. He takes care of every little detail of my life, like a painter in love, and I have nothing to fear. Bosses will get angry, money will run out, friends will be stubborn, that's the way the world works and I can't blame it for that. But I no longer let these things hurt me. I write, I breathe. The sun rises, and from the rooftops, I’m smiling.

* * *

In that building, practically no one answered the door, a dog bit me in the lift, and some idiot slammed the door in my face. But when I left, I didn't care, I had a smile on my face. For my bosses, it was a failure. For me, it was a resounding success: everything I've written since earlier, I did on this very paper. —

Morning street sketch —

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My collection of staircases

07/02/24 — Nayla

She fell to earth like a comet crashes into the desert.

I've been having strange dreams for two days now. Sordid dreams, to be honest. When I wake up, I can't shake the shivers that run through me when I think about them.

There was a bombing, secret underground tunnels, people I knew who were going to die; I knew it, and I couldn't say anything. The visions were so strong that I couldn't get up right away. I crawled to the sofa and went back to sleep, trying to dream about something else. The coffee was brewing. And I dozed off again after breakfast.

I wish I could say that after getting on with the day, things got better, but it wasn’t the case. I dragged myself from one street to another, suspicious, counting the minutes until 3:30 pm (I started late, obviously).

That's when she appeared.

I rang a doorbell (one of the 416 I had to ring today) and all I got in response was a racket, a bang, a muffled commotion behind the door. I waited. Nothing. Waited some more. ‘El gas...’ I tried, unconvinced.

Then a little voice through the door said, ‘Wait. Wait, eh?! The door is locked.’ I said, ‘Okay, I'll wait,’ in the same tone as the little girl who had given the orders. ‘The door is locked,’ she repeated. ‘He went to get the keys.’

A moment later, “he” finally opened the door. A tall man, speaking in monosyllables. She must have been seven or eight years old. The brown skin of desert children, eyes as black as ebony. She stared at me without saying a word, as if it were the most natural thing in the world — that I should be there, in front of her, and that she should be there, in front of me, opening the door of her home, naked as a jaybird.

She let me in, and the father followed us. I finally found the meter and took my photo. The grandmother was in the kitchen — you could see at a glance that she wasn't quite sane. The house was dirty and messy, my shoes were sticking to the floor, and it was best not to touch the walls.

She said something to me in her pretty, impetuous tone, something that rolled off her tongue. I didn't understand and it almost made me want to apologise. Her father translated: ‘No, nothing. She's just telling you she has candies.’ I replied — to her — that she was lucky.

I wanted to ask her a thousand questions. As if within the body of this wild child laid all the answers in the world, a thousand-year-old wisdom, this profound connection that, at its core, links all cultures together.

If I had said, ‘What is time?’ or ‘Why are we on earth?’, she would have had the answer, I was certain of it.

But instead, the door closed. She disappeared, along with her wildness, her strange little air and her furious freedom.

I went down a few steps so that no one could see me, then I began to scribble down all my impressions, the tiny details that had struck me in a matter of seconds.

I named her Nayla, because it means “she who has big eyes” in Arabic, and because it's the name I would have given to the queen of a free country of the desert if I could have created one.

Then, as I left the building, I turned around and looked up at the floor where she lived. A strange feeling came over me. I checked the time, then looked at the window again. Shouldn't children be at school on a Wednesday at eleven o'clock? —

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#10 - La chica del gas

Recent revelations:

• The divine never acts alone.

• The entropy of the universe can only increase — second law of thermodynamics. (What is entropy? A measure of disorder.) Applied? After a whole day spent cleaning, all it takes is a pencil on a table for everything to be done again. In other words: disorder attracts disorder (the same applies to evil).

• Find a job that doesn’t cost you too much.

• Repair things as soon as they break.

• Make your home a place where you enjoy living.

• Buy a plant.

• Choose a book.

“El gas… ! Lectura del gas!”

I always start my day on the rooftops. It helps me stay away from the ground, and since I always have trouble getting started — to be honest, I should say: as I still struggle to believe that this is what I do now, reading gas meters — I take my time to enjoy the view before diving into the hustle and bustle.

Barcelona isn't what I imagined. Crowded, noisy, and relentless. No matter what, it never takes a break. Going out in the morning during rush hour feels like being swallowed by the beast.

Jonas in the heart of the storm.

I thought I would find here what I didn't have the courage to look for within myself. In other words, I was devastated when, upon arriving in the Promised Land, I realised that being myself wouldn’t be enough to get me papers, a job and an insurance number.

“But… I’m a good person!” I can still see myself stammering in front of the police station. Without a doubt. Take a number.

After a year of unemployment, I was already lucky to be able to put on a uniform and shout “El gas!” ¹ all day long.

Suffice to say that we see of E-VE-RY-THING, every day. From all social classes to all kinds of possible reactions. Once the doorbell button is pressed, what happens follows a dichotomous order:

So there are those who open the door immediately and let me take a photo of their meter in the kitchen. Then they say, ‘Goodbye and have a nice day,’ and close the door. Those are very rare. I know how to appreciate them.

There are those who open immediately, but only to say NO. ‘You shall not pass.’ (Think of the hoarse voice of the wizard in The Lord of the Rings). Frank and to the point. I appreciate them just as much.

Then there are those whose footsteps I hear behind the door. They come closer, look through the peephole, then play dead, holding their breath until they see me turn around and leave.

Finally, there are those who open up only to give free rein to their frustration at being born into such an ungrateful and meaningless world. For those, I simply write a little note at the bottom of the screen for the colleague who will be coming back in two months: No picar. Do not knock on the door.

After two weeks, I must confess I contemplated the possibility of throwing everything out the window.

However, everything changed after the encounter.

9 o'clock in the morning. G. avenue, far away in a neighbourhood I don't know very well. It's grey and I'm cold. I couldn't wake up, so I have to run and start the day's list without even having time to drink my first coffee. The building is brand new, which is a bad sign — usually, no one lets you in. But she's the first to answer and she seems nice. The meter is on the balcony. I follow her. She's elderly and has trouble walking. As we pass through the hallway, I notice a magnificent portrait on the wall. A young woman in charcoal looks at me calmly. She's confident and smiling. Auramar², I whisper. It's written in the bottom right corner.

I take a picture of my meter and thank her. Looking up, I realise: it's her. Forty years later, but the look in her eyes is unmistakable. ‘It's you... The woman on the wall, isn't it?’ She nods. Walking back down the corridor, we both stare at it, somewhat dreamily. ‘It's a self-portrait,’ she finally admits. I'm speechless. ‘Did you do it?’ So, as she told me her story, we got a little sidetracked. I forgot about my meters for a moment, and she forgot to take her medication.

Because I told her that I also liked drawing, ‘but writing, above all... yes. Writing...’ she kindly showed me more drawings. Then texts. And poems. The table was covered with them. I had never met anyone who spoke so beautifully about the sea and solitude.

The coffee had cooled, and we had to say goodbye. ‘I have work to do,’ I said, inspired, and I wasn't really talking about reading the gas meter. She got the hint and, at the door, advised me to get to work without further delay. I nodded and thanked her. Poco a poco, I said. Little by little.

She grabbed my arm. Poco a poco, no. Trabajo duro. Like a prophet, she warned me: it will be a difficult path. Very few people succeed because very few people know what it means to make real sacrifices.

Then we said goodbye with a hug, like old friends. With tears in her eyes, she said, ‘Most of the time, we meet people... But today, I met a person. A beautiful person.’

After that, whenever I wondered what I was doing in this seemingly hostile city, wandering the streets and enduring this treatment, I clung to her words. ‘I'm doing my best,’ I kept repeating in my head. Then I realised it was time to make myself useful, so I started taking notes. When the old man on the eighth floor, started crying in my arms because I said, ‘Hmm, it smells good in here’ over the saucepan, and he said, ‘It was her favourite dish.’ Or when I complimented the paintings of the young man who lived under the eaves in Sants and said ‘Come on, you can’t give up now, your paintings are beautiful.’ He was so moved he gave me homemade cake, to help me finish the day. Every day, when I got home, I wrote down these anecdotes, which I unoriginally called ‘Las historias del gas’ (gas meter stories). Just for me, decorated with what I was collecting in the street. I felt a bit like Amélie Poulain sometimes.

So it's true, for now everything seems to have disappeared. My childhood dreams, my young adult ambitions, my desires for glory and fame. Useless burden of beauty... But on that day, the day we met, something came over me. Everything seems to have gone up in smoke, I thought... But don't cry, look, said the little voice inside me. Beneath my feet, a green shoot sprouted from the ashes. You are exactly where you need to be right now. Have faith. Stars are born from their own collapse. ³ —

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¹: Reading gas meters is quite a skill. We get paid to walk around the city and go door to door reading gas meters. Four hundred doors a day, six hours of walking. But since everyone is suspicious (thieves are notorious in Barcelona), no one wants to open the door. So we ring all the doorbells of the floor at once and shout: ‘El gas! Lectura del gas!’ That increases our chances (we get paid by the meter).

²: Pssst... Auramar, the woman I met, is a real writer. She has published a book, illustrated with her own drawings. A beautiful tribute to her journey on this earth. — Available here (in Spanish only).

³: See Article #8, The Aftermath.

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#8 - The aftermath

Stars are born out of their own collapse. We shall remember this phrase. We’ll make a good use of it later. So it happens. One day, just like that. Either by choice, or because life has decided so. Suddenly, everything we've ever known disappears/has disappeared, the boundary isn’t clear, and it's like watching the shore recede from the back of a boat. We haven't yet understood what just happened, but when Mother Earth is nothing more than a dot on the horizon, we realise that it's a one-way ticket we have in our pockets and that it's too late to take the plunge.

Things will never be the same again.

It takes about a year, then, to get back on your feet after a hard blow. Mum was right. A year of wandering through the dark valley. Then one morning, the sun rises. We close our eyes, by reflex, and grief becomes what it has always been: an uninvited road companion.

From the depths of the abyss, the walls open up. On the other side, there's the sound of cars and children playing. How strange everything seems, suddenly. Do we have the right to do this? To continue living after a whole world collapses? We move barefoot in the direction of this dream, observing passersby and life going on with its things... They don’t seem to know. Someone should tell them: I've lost everything.

But the survival instinct... Survival instinct is the immutable force that propels blood through our veins and makes our eyelashes flutter when we wake up and follows the smell of croissants in the street. Survival instinct is the traitor to the lost soul who wants nothing but this: to lose itself. Because it's impossible to fight against it. Life doesn't ask for permission to enter.

Like a blade of grass growing between the paving slabs. Or a smile that makes us blush, or a big laugh that escapes us. It bursts in, kicking down the door, even without letting our guard down.

Walking, then. That's all I've done since I arrived in Barcelona. Walking to think, walking to recognise, to rebuild myself. I've left things behind me, time passing by, I've let bygones be bygones, I've drawn boats and written sentences on little papers to left them on the beach. Without realising it, it just happened. Because life doesn't ask for permission to enter. I've learned to enjoy carefree days again.

Wandering around like this for those long winter months and wet spring days, I learned to look out for those things that were able to steal a smile from me every now and then. Like breadcrumbs on the way. I picked them up, one by one. I wasn't ready to experience them, but I kept them, just in case, for later.

And in the depths of my night, it happened. I saw a little light¹ turn on. It was a Tuesday afternoon, in September. There was a homemade paper ad stuck to a traffic light. I pulled it off, took it home and since then, everything has changed. —

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¹ : That’s the name of the Gospel choir where I sing, since 2022, Little Light Gospel Choir.

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#7 - Hay que seguir

Sometimes I get tired of telling nice stories. Of making delicate, “sweet little drawings”. Of telling things from the perspective of resilience. You're lucky. You've been so lucky in life. I won’t deny it, but if I could, I’d throw up that sentence.

Sometimes I want to scream when people tell me I'm brave. I don't want to be brave. I want to live a normal life.

Spend a night without nightmares. Go grocery shopping without suffering a panic attack. Be twenty-nine years old and not still depend on my parents for food.

Sometimes, I wish I could stop laughing. Go back to that moment when I was blind and shake myself, get a good slap on the face. ‘For God's sake, stop smiling!’ Because laughter was everything. It hid everything. Justified everything. You had your hands on me and I was laughing.

And at night, when I close my eyes, I see nothing but that. You and me on the railing. You and me in the park. You and me in secret. In innocent secret. I'd like to vomit everything about you and me and all those people who never stopped telling me how lucky I've been in life.

“Is that what lucky means to you?

This is the last time I look back.” ¹

Sometimes, I just wish objects could become objects again, rather than symbols. I wish a city could be just a dot on a map, rather than the source of all my misery.

But I found the courage. And I dared to speak up. So there's no going back, no more mundane mornings, or laughter without pain. I have to learn how to take the bus again, alone, and not jump when a stranger speaks to me. I have to remember how to calm a panicked child, and do that for myself, every time. Be angry for once and stop forgiving everything for the sake of... whose good, again? Accept that those who left made a real choice.

So we may cry along the way, be terrified, broken or exhausted, even pretend to be okay with that for a while. But whatever happens, hay que seguir. Find the strength and keep going. —

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¹ : From the poem I’ve heard it said.

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#5 - 29 Langthorne Street

“I have longed to move away

From the hissing of the spent lie

And the old terror’s continual cry

(…)

I have longed to move away but am afraid;

Some life, yet unspent, might explode

Out of the old lie burning on the ground,

And, crackling into the air, leave me half-blind.”

If it's true that the eyes are the windows to the soul, then I know why I've always been afraid to look people in the eye. The idea that someone might discover what my inner self is made of terrifies me. There is still so much darkness in me.

Sitting at the airport, I decided that there would be no more Evas. All versions of me that had ever existed had been stolen, broken or corrupted. So I was looking for a new identity. I had time on my hands and, since I no longer existed, it seemed like the perfect moment to do it.

I wanted a man's name, that would give me a style. I would have to find a story to go with it, but that was kind of my thing. So it would be Dylan. Why not? It sounded just fine for a phoenix. But Dylan... what? I tried British names. Dylan Thornton? Dylan Smith?

Dylan... Thomas? Cool. Yes, it sounded classy, I liked it. I imagined the cover of a book with dog-eared pages with my name on it, and only I would know: Dylan Thomas, that was me. I took my phone. We were about to board, but I wanted to check quickly: were there already lots of “Dylan Thomases” out there? I looked on Google. Suddenly, I turned pale.

Not only was the name “Dylan Thomas” already taken, but he was also a writer. A Welsh poet. And not just any poet… Famous! How could I NOT know that? I was disappointed.

Later, in London, when I had managed to make a friend to whom I could confess my real name, she said to me: "You know, it doesn’t sound so crazy. There are tribes who invite their teenagers, during rites of passage into adulthood, to choose a new name, to mark a new stage in their lives. Nuns do it; artists do it too. Why not you?"

She was right. I'd keep the name, then, even if it was accidentally copied, because I felt connected to it anyway, to the "son of the wave" who spent his evenings in the pub reading and scribbling verses without thinking too much about it.

The next three years were formative years. I had lost all roots, I was a feather floating in a war-torn sky, but I learned to put one foot in front of the other, to survive, and that built my character.

Dylan, few people know she existed. And just once, I wanted us to talk about it. About the right to reinvent oneself. Leaving doesn't solve anything, they say... You take your problems with you in your suitcase. Yet, without that, things would never have changed. The courage it takes to run away is too often underestimated. For three years, I was able to live, to grow, to assert myself. Then, when the time comes, yes... You have to come back. And face it.

Dark is a way, he said. Light is a place.

(…)

But dark is a long way.

Because the danger, when you flee, is falling asleep. —

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¹ : I have longed to move away, Dylan Thomas (the real one).

² : Poem on His Birthday, Dylan Thomas.

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#4 - The next day

“1) THE NECESSARY SEPARATION: 

The desire to disappear or to see the other disappear is the ultimate signal of a cry for help that is vital to hear. Behind this desire (for ‘it to stop’) is the call of life.’” ¹

The call of life.                               — Genesis 19:17

I thought I saw a flash of lightning. It was 6:18 am, or something like that. It was 6:14, actually, last time I looked, but I guess it takes a good four minutes to put your shoes on, unlock the door and get the hell out. 

The horror of it all was that I had prepared everything in advance. Backpack, passport, essentials. A few days later, they’d be waiting for me at the airport. At that moment, I’d imagined only two possible endings to that story: escape, or death and I had chosen both. I was leaving killing her, the Eva everybody remembered. And I was born, me, nameless still, with nowhere to go. Same little ghost who was trying to convince the public that yes, it was there. 

In the street, everything was dark, still. I was thinking about Lot. I got startled by noises, but it was just the baker getting ready to open. I went on a bit faster. They’re still sleeping, you think? But who are you talking to? I thought. Just for a moment, the sky intensified — an ultramarine blue. So I knew it wouldn't be long before dawn.

I chose a bench in the middle of the esplanade, facing the mountains, to look at the sky. There were still a few stars. It seemed like an interesting place to start living. A homeless man — I saw him coming from a distance — was approaching, staggering, and I was afraid he would come and talk to me. He came closer, and closer, spoke, but to himself, and continued on his way. I sighed. So I came back to my dawn and to this other sentence from Genesis:

‘The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar.’ ²

I could have NOT disappointed them. True. Not broken their hearts, leaving home like that. But I could have breathed my last too, and about that, they'll never know. For them, I'll just be the missing child from now on. If I had chosen death, they would have mourned me. But as I chose life, they'll have plenty of time to hate me… It’s okay. You have to take the time to do these things. It's important. 

But then you’ll have to rebuild yourselves… Personally, I planned to watch the sun rise. That was one reason to live. Until I asked myself the question again. The blue was changing for a beautiful cerulean, now turning gold. I was waiting my turn. 

In the distance, a woman was walking quickly. I could see her silhouette pacing up and down the avenue. She disappeared from my field of vision and reappeared a moment later, right in front of me, agitated. She started talking and talking ; I stared at her, dazed, as if she were speaking a foreign language. She explained that she was looking for her son. That she had woken up around 5am that morning and didn’t find him there. ‘15 years old. Brown hair, white T-shirt, about this size... I won’t punish him, you know. I just want to find him.’ She looked pitiful, I wanted to help her.

The problem with this woman — and she had no idea, of course — was that she was showing me how mothers feel when they can't find their offspring in their bed, where they belong. And it was really not the right time. I nodded and muttered ‘Sorry’. 

It was a strange scene, because there wasn’t this atmosphere of absolute solitude that usually goes with all the great moments of a character facing his destiny. I had taken the leap. Left everything behind. Family, work, comfort, home… I had nowhere to go, and I was going there with a pair of old jeans and a soon-expired passport. For me, it was the adventure of a lifetime. For the baker, the mother, the homeless man, it was a morning like any other. There was only one person in the world who could understand the exceptional nature of this day. And the last thing I'd done with her was pick up broken glass. This idea has obsessed me since. —  

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¹ :  C. Eliacheff, N. Heinich, Mère-fille: une relation à trois, (2010), Ed. Albin Michel. 

² : Genesis, 19:23

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#3 - What women talk about amongst themselves

With all due respect to these gentlemen, their mothers —

‘From control to narcissistic abuse:

(...) Narcissistic abuse is the projection of the parent onto the child, whose gifts are exploited not to develop her own resources but to satisfy the parent's need for gratification. (...) It is an abuse of identity, the little girl being put in a place that is not hers and, correlatively, dispossessed of her own identity by the very person responsible for helping her to grow. (...)

The mother's over-investment is accompanied by a lack of real love, which the child transforms into a lack of self-esteem, an insatiable demand for recognition and an unfulfilled need for love. The ‘gifted’ child never ceases to multiply her prowess in order to merit, through her gifts, a love that is always unsatisfying because never directed towards herself, for herself. (...) ¹

[Diary, Oct. 2018:] ‘I can't go on. It's terrifying. It's as if this book were an oracle of my life. It's all written down: the constant pain, the bulimia, the desire to hurt myself, to starve myself to death... the wish to disappear. The worst things I can't even confess to myself. (...) I'm scared. Dr M.’s office is closed and I have nowhere to go. The only thing I know: I can't go home.’

I remember. It was this book that started it all. The paranoia, the escape, the wandering from one end of the city to the other... It was the book. In my ghostly delusions, I ended up in the library and found myself face to face with this book — Mother-Daughter: A Relationship of Three. Out of curiosity, I opened it. I thought it wouldn't hurt to have a look at it. Well I was wrong.

The child prodigy is torn between smallness and greatness, self-hatred and self-love, the interiority of being and the exteriority of doing, the darkness of secret suffering and the light of a glory offered in vain. Such is indeed the fate of the little girl when her mother, oblivious to her own identity as a woman, has entrusted her with the task of realizing her aspirations in her place.’ ²

It was as if the world had slipped away from under my feet. I had the feeling that someone was observing me. ‘This need for love can never be fulfilled because the signs of solicitude are never really addressed to the child.’ It was joke, wasn’t it? Someone had let the damn book there, just to make fun of me.

‘[Maria, from the movie Bellissima] would undoubtedly have become a brilliant young woman [if she had had any special gift] but nevertheless, always hungry for narcissistic gratification, alternating periods of excitement and depression, overactivity and inertia, always eager to please but generally unloved, probably bulimic as well as concerned about her figure, emotionally immature as much as sexually savvy.’ ³

‘From there, something clicked inside my brain. I saw the truth. I was in the eye of the storm, suddenly very serene because everything appeared to me as a powerful revelation, with only one possible outcome: escape or death.’

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Think about Rapunzel, who has never touched reality, not even close. Lacking knowledge of what it is made of, she has imagined a world. And in this world, all the characters in the story want to hurt her. And she is right, in a way, because without a voice of her own, everyone is free to put words in her mouth that she never wanted. But the liberating question is not: who is on my side, really? And who has been pretending all this time?

But rather: who has more to gain if Rapunzel stays in her tower?

Artist : Claire Keane, her website here.

MARIA (to her mother): You know what would actually help me? If you’d loved me less. —

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¹, ², ³ : ‘When women get together(...), what do they talk about? With all due respect to these gentlemen, their mothers. So argue Caroline Eliache and Nathalie Heinich in their book on mother-daughter relationships.’ — C. Eliache , N. Heinich (2010). Mère-fille: une relation à trois. Ed. Albin Michel —

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#2 - The wandering

October 2018 — At church

Dear Lidy,

We look for places like this when we suffer. Places that would make us feel like we still belong to something... Anything.

There's no one around. I have the vague impression that I've heard these whispers before, seen these windows —in my dreams or in my memories, I have walked through this door, caressed its wood, I'm sure of it. I can’t say whether God was there or not last time I’ve walked this floor, but I know a part of me died within these walls.

I spent the week wandering around the city. I couldn't go to drama class because I've lost my voice and I can't be there on stage in front of everyone else. I don't have the strength. (Please don't say anything, okay?)

It's my fault. I had established a long time ago that when things would go wrong, I’d simply cut myself off from the rest of the world. Remember when I was a kid? I used to call it “the extinction”. It’s shutting down your senses. You're like a rag doll, you let your body take control. The humiliations, the gestures to resist, the things to face, all of it becomes so distant that nothing really touch you anymore.

But I'm scared. I think I'm stuck, Lidy. I can't get out of it. He wanted me to kneel down the other day and I haven't been back since. I don't live in this body anymore. I grabbed a backpack, threw some things in it, didn't even look... I just stuffed everything in and since then I've spent my afternoons wandering around. From time to time, I write. I move my fingers to see if it's over. And I think of that sentence from The Little Prince that suffocates me every time I read it:

“You will be sad. I'll look like I'm dead, and that won't be true. (…) You understand. It's too far. I can't take that body with me. It's too heavy.”

He fell gently, as a tree falls. It didn't even make a sound because of the sand. — The Little Prince, chapter 26

Without really knowing how or why, I ended up at the theater, knocking the front door. I felt both hopeful and nauseous. It's Tuesday. That's four. Four days without eating. He opened the door, surprised. Class doesn't start until six. I pushed him. I told him I wouldn't be there at six. I climbed the stairs, went up stage and, facing the light, I tried again: Here I am. I must have said it a thousand times. And then I started to cry. He took me in his arms. I kissed him. He didn't flinch. As if we knew from the beginning that it would end up like this. He made me sit down to breathe a second, then asked me what was going on, but I don't know how to do this: talk. If I had known where to start, I would have screamed out. Instead, I kissed him again. We got carried away, he took my hand, slid it in. He was hard, I wanted to pull away. Men love that, making you feel. Like it's the greatest compliment, no kidding.

Somehow, I left. The sun was beating down on the whole city. I staggered on, but I had nowhere to go. I had exhausted every meaning of the word “home” — the pen, the paper, the stage, the arms of a loved one. It no longer meant anything. Everything went dark. And as long as he exists, Lidy, I will never be able to return. —

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To take with me:

• Passport

• Rosary

• Sleeping Mouse T-shirt

• 2 pairs of pants

• 6 pairs of panties

• 6 pairs of socks

• Blue jacket

• Toothbrush

• Makeup

• Cercles, Yannick Haenel

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NB: This episode was the day before my departure. The next day, I was leaving for London, where I lived for three years.

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#1 - Here I am

Alone together, Maria Kreyn, 2012 —

Ready, set, lights on.

Here I am.

“Do it again.”

The exercice is simple, though.

Audience in the dark.

One single spotlight.

Take one step forward,

Look at them,

And confidently say: “Here I am.”

Here I still am.

Not that I didn’t try, really.

A little bit every day, 

That’s what he teaches us.

When you want something in life,

You have to work at it

A little bit,

Every single day.

But they got that

Long before I did, right?

Make her disappear,

No brutality.

Just work on it,

A little bit

Every single day.

Here I am.

“Do it again.”

Do you think he sees it?

That there’s no one on stage,

No one is living inside this body anymore.

I’m a ghost now, nothing more.

The stars

Called through the window

That night,

And I almost answered: 

“Here I am”.

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