#5 - 29 Langthorne Street
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 (…)
“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. —
¹ : I have longed to move away, Dylan Thomas (the real one).
² : Poem on His Birthday, Dylan Thomas.
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#3 - What women talk about amongst themselves
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. (…) Out of curiosity, I opened it. I thought it wouldn't hurt to flip through it. Well I was wrong.
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.’
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. —
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
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 little? I used to call it “the extinction”. (…) But I'm scared. I think I'm stuck, Lidy. I can't get out of it. (…)
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. —
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
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
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”.
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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