December 31, 2002
New ash

Coventry, England.

The fields, hillsides and dips in the land were freshly green from recent rain, occasionally dotted with brick houses or sheep, marked out in plots with fences, grey sodden hedges or small trees. My companion for the trip had caught the train just in time, having made his way from Heathrow within the space of an hour. Strangely, I understood his Cantonese better than his French.

London was grey. Unsmiling people with ashened faces, their brows lined with worry. At the post-office, one woman cried out to another person in the queue, "What are you looking at me like that for?!" At the cafe, another was impatiently trying to order a latte, grumbling loudly at the girl behind the counter who wasn't able to understand what she wanted.

"I was having a good morning until she came along," the girl said when it was our turn. I made extra effort to be nice.

Three English customers at the Chinese restaurant were having difficulty understanding the menu and asked for recommendations, but the waiter merely pointed out how they should fill out the form order and left them at a loss. All non-Asian customers were handed the non "dim sum" menu as soon as they were seated.

I think of the musician at the street corner in Melbourne where it is already the New Year. "Greyness make people turn inside themselves," he had said, and perhaps it is true.

"Come to Birmingham," said my companion who had just flown in from Chicago and had liked the book I was reading. "I'm there till the fourth." I wouldn't be able to, but the invitation was a lovely thought. He told me about his friends he will be partying with and it seemed like an enjoyable evening is on the way. Across the English channel, my heart lies next to the duck that is being grilled.

It is odd to think that the new year is creeping second by second around the world. In the kitchen, music is playing while dinner is cooking and there are people laughing going down the street. I wish you a Happy New Year devoid of greyness and abundant with flourishing dreams.

Posted by sniffles at 06:56 PM | Comments (0)

December 28, 2002
The virtue of silence

La Saussaye, Normandie, France.

Fresh Antipasto: The Virtue of Silence. (I thought I would write in a different space for a change ...)

One of the most abused punctuation in casual English is perhaps the ellipsis. The other, though not so much in casual language, is likely to be to the semi-colon.

Posted by sniffles at 01:57 AM | Comments (0)

December 25, 2002
Christmas days

La Saussaye, Normandie, France.

Christmas is no longer just a single day. The days leading up to Christmas have become days of frantic shopping, planning, gift-buying, preparations and what-not. My first Christmas in France makes me wonder if we are all subservient to the power of consumerism.

On Sunday, caring little for festivities, we lunched in the vicinity of Saint-Germain before spending two hours in the queue in front of Musée du Luxembourg and one hour being dazzled by Modigliani. In front of us was an extended family on holidays complete with five children in tow - well-behaved considering that their patience was being severely tested. I hope it doesn't put them off art exhibitions for life. Afterwards, we recovered with tisane at Café de Flore, now overpriced, over-bright and catering for a bourgeois clientele, somewhat different from 70 years ago or so.

I made a mistake of testing the crowd at Fnac on Monday. Temporarily safe on the escalator, it was a stifling sight to see the number of people crossing the floor below, gift-hungry beasts out viciously hunting. I can't help but think how much much money was being rung through the cashiers of big shops such as this. Fighting the torrent of bodies in the street, someone shouted me a marriage proposal - I later discovered that this kind of blatant approach to relationships is a cultural trait belonging to the French of the south; on the following day I had a declaration of love whilst waiting for a train Gare St-Lazare.

That aside, I made a fascinating find - an antique postcard from Rouen, seemingly sent from a mother to a daughter, dated sometime around 1902. It begins: Il ne trouve plus la moyen de revenir diner. Aussi je me demande pourquoi nous sommes mariés. Jamais nous sommes ensemble. Tu vois que ma vie n'est pas plus gaie que la tienne ma chère Maman ...

Wouldn't it be interesting to know the thoughts of ordinary women in times when their voices were held as less significant? One finds also the story of Jeanne Hébuterne, much less known for her own artistic pursuits than for being one of Modigliani's favourite models.

Making my way to Les Halles (I was brave), I chanced across a tiny shop on Rue Sauval (off Rue de Rivoli) belonging to a woman named Françoise who hand-makes incredibly beautiful jewellery, scarves and hats, such that anyone who wandered into the shop was tempted to try all manner of rings, earrings, or fine necklaces. After much difficulty, I finally left with a couple of small presents.

On Christmas eve, we battled traffic to Rouen, somewhat amused by the lack of parking spaces and by how unnecessarily stressed everyone seemed. Last minute gift-shopping (if you can't decide between Item A and Item B, buy both), food-shopping (too late to place orders for seafood platters now), and purchase of essential brain food (such as Michel Onfray's Theorie du Corps Amoureux). Mustn't forget wrapping paper.

It's Christmas, and no excuse ought to be necessary to bath oneself in pleasure. So, Joyeux Noël. :)

Posted by sniffles at 04:10 PM | Comments (1)

December 20, 2002
Passing

La Saussaye, Normandie, France.

Tendrils of sky was touching the paving at the tips of my feet. The roofs of aged buildings were a little lost in the clouds, somewhat erased by insubstantial grey poured from somewhere above. Rouen est une ville melancolique. Deep beyond the stones of its churches and the silence of ancient wood, beyond memories hundreds of years old that had penetrated its soil, the word "beauty" is far from enough - one feels the insignificance of time and the pettiness of self.

I am often amazed at how differently I remember places at night compared to the day; my memory of locations and directions never seem to coincide. Today I was doing well, or perhaps my sense of direction was. Sure-footed, I trudged around the center of Rouen, gaining curious looks from the locals - it doesn't usually take much beyond the colour of my hair and the shade of my skin.

In the early afternoon, I was idling in a shop, looking for nothing in particular or perhaps something that I haven't yet decided upon, when a young Chinese man suddenly appeared at my side and asked me if I spoke English.

"Yes," I said, rolling the strangely foreign word around my tongue; I have been speaking mostly French lately. He and his companions - three middle-aged Chinese men - were trying to find their way back to Paris, but didn't quite know how. I took a punt, and said, "I can also speak Mandarin."

So that was how I came to lead the little group of tourists to the corner of Rue du Gros Horloge and Rue Jeanne d'Arc, giving them directions in Mandarin to the train station at the end of the street, when I myself was barely acquainted with Rouen. They were much braver than I, having found their own way here without knowing a single word of French.

Later, on my own way home, I passed them again in the street; the train for Paris wasn't leaving until some time after four. The young man gave me a smile and a wave and we continued our separate ways.

Posted by sniffles at 11:58 PM | Comments (3)

December 19, 2002
Le Plancher des Vaches

La Saussaye, Normandie, France.

Once upon a time, the earth wasn't really the way you and I know it today. There wasn't soil which was solid when the weather was dry, and it was not at all soggy when it rained.

Now, you and I might think it could be rather nice, not slipping on the mud and getting dirty on wet days, but the truth is, grass couldn't grow on soil like that. This meant, of course, the cows were not at all pleased about the state of things.

"We have no grass," they grumbled. "It's not good. Cows should have healthy grass to eat."

So they gathered together other cows from other lands, and formed a Working Group and an Advisory Committee. The Advisory Committee's job was to advise on what were wise measures to take. The Working Group's job was to ... well, carry out the work. And they appointed a Director Cow, who made sure that things got done.

"Let's fix this awful problem of not having proper earth," said the Director Cow, who was from Normandy in France.

"Yes!" mooed the cows. "And good grass!"

Have you met a cow before? Cows might look like idle creatures these days as they stand and munch away in the field. But let me tell you, when work is needed, they know how to work hard, but only when no one is looking. They are smart, you see. They know that if the farmer sees them working their hooves off, he will just give them more work to do. Cows are not lazy - not at all. They just want to enjoy their lives while they can and work only when it's necessary.

And when cows have work to do, they get right down to business. In almost no time at all, the Scientist Cows worked out how to fix the soil so that it behaved just the right way: not too soft when the weather's wet, not too hard when the weather's dry. They made a special potion which they tested very carefully in their laboratories, just to make sure that nothing would go wrong. And then, they gave the potion in small bottles (it was strong stuff!) to the Distribution Cows who had the task of pouring the vials all over the land. As soon as the Distribution Cows finished their work, the Farmer Cows went and grew grass over the good soil. And boy, didn't it grow lovely and green!

But as you and I know, things don't always go quite as smoothly as planned. A week later, the Director Cow heard that there had been an accident. The ship that was taking a team of Distribution Cows to Africa ran into a bad storm and had been shipwrecked. All the cows were safe, but they had lost all the potion. In some other parts of the world, there were potion shortages so some places were not able to grow healthy green grass.

"No matter," said the Director Cow. "We have enough land now for good grass for everyone."

"Yay!" cheered the cows, as they ran off to the fields for a big feast.

So that's why, sometimes, the ground where the green grass grows is called le plancher des vaches, or rather, the floor of cows. And that's why too, every cow you see today is happily munching away, idling contently and enjoying the fruits of their hard work a long time ago.

Posted by sniffles at 12:13 AM | Comments (1)

December 17, 2002
Somewhere that's green

La Saussaye, Normandie, France.

La Grange is a place of poetry; it says very little, but it listens with aged intelligence, it remembers all that makes joy, it extends its embrace to all who enter its doors. All its memories, it hides in the shadows of eaves and corners, in the joints of old wood, the chill of ceramic, the ashes abandoned by the heat of fire.

I had managed to finish Simone de Beauvoir's La Force de L'Age (in English, of course) just before leaving. In front of the fireplace, we discussed how today's feminists have relatively little interest in her work, and that certain women have rejected her because she chose not to have children.

The lack of interest is understandable - she belongs to a different time when the feminism battle was different. However, the rejection seems to me a little uncalled for, eventhough I can see the basis for it. Today's first-world woman has been given the choice of having a family, a career and a personal life. Perhaps it's due to the fact that these choices have not always been present and that our rights were hard-fought, that I think women today tend to feel we must have all three. The fact of the matter is, we don't. The idea behind choices is that we can choose, that we are no longer imprisoned behind society's demands. Just because we have these choices available to us does not mean we have to take everything that we can.

Posted by sniffles at 11:09 PM | Comments (0)

December 12, 2002
border-bottom: 1px dotted black;

The pen had a name, and it read 'Catherine' in bold, black sans-serif. It was for signing the printed piece of paper that the credit-card processing machine had spat out, complete with a dotted line of dashes in case you didn't know where you should sign.

Since when did we begin having lines to sign on? I received two letters from the guy who's managing some of my funds back home, and on pages where my penstrokes were needed, he had stuck serious-looking, translucent red arrows (the funky sort you can peel off) which said: "SIGN HERE".

The ArtLex art dictionary has an entry with regards to artists and their signatures, but I haven't managed to find anything else.

I hereby declare that my brain is fried.

-------------------------------------------------

Posted by sniffles at 11:26 PM | Comments (4)

December 11, 2002
Egg-venture

First I was the Shakespeare of Omelettes, then I was the Hemingway of Culinary Ventures. Cooking dinner for another can be unexpectedly and poetically rewarding.

Posted by sniffles at 01:30 AM | Comments (0)

December 09, 2002
Bubbles on the surface

There was a tiny splodge of something foreign on the bathroom floor. The light was faint, so I had to bend down and squint. Puffy, yellow, and rather flattened. Someone had brought in a squished morsel of popcorn with them. How very odd.

There was another girl in the bathroom. All long blond hair and bright blue-eyed. I stole a glance at myself in the mirror — I looked ash-gray and tired, with that kind of haziness in my eyes that I get after a movie. Two girls who were heading towards a party debated about the French on a sign, and I thought vaguely about a party that I missed in order to go to another.

Occasionally, I tire of people. I would like to believe that people are trustworthy and intelligent, and they are thoughtful and sensitive to others around them. I lack patience for pretenses, for polite, pointless small-talk. I tire of the fact that all we see and react to are often mere surfaces of each other.

The Italian at the bar annoyed me. He hadn't shaved for several days, and wore a fuzzy grey shirt which looked like it had been through the tumble dryer much too often.

He didn't like Montreal.

"Why not?" I asked.
"The French and the weather."
"What's wrong with French Canadians?"
"They're weird."
"How so?"
"'Cos I don't get along with them."

He started to get a bit edgy. "Look, I'm Italian, maybe you don't like Italians as an example. I don't like French Canadians."

"I just think it's unfair to dislike a group of people for no reason."

"People have opinions," he said, firmly punctuating his remark, bringing his beer mug down on the counter with a clunk.

"Opinions founded on what?" I said. "Prejudice?"

He changed the subject, and I let him.

Occasionally, I tire of people.

Posted by sniffles at 02:18 AM | Comments (2)

December 08, 2002
Stories to tell

For a little time, you could believe that the world outside was no longer threatening and no longer cold, that there was nothing to be afraid of, that those of us who made it here were really at the prime of life, and that the minds clasped shut within the shells of our skulls were really, wholly ours.

She had been nervous to see me, but her discomfort dissipated quickly enough. "Your brother works here?" I had asked, and she had said, "Yes, but he's not here tonight." So she told me the story about her brother.

He paints, plays the guitar and wants to write a novel. It doesn't go down well with her parents who simply do not care for the arts, and he's been thrown out of the house three times, and taken back three times out of obligation and some degree of guilt.

"At least he's trying to earn enough to eat," she said, sipping the G&T, of which the gin was the cheap sort. The contents of my glass glowed suspiciously blue under the light, and again, I wished for a lemon, lime and bitters which strangely doesn't seem to exist outside Australia. Between the two of us, we devoured too-thick chunks of chocolate slices obviously cut by someone who has a big mouth. Then she told me the stories about her jewellery.

On her left hand, she wore the gold ring she had since she was sixteen and her grandfather's wedding ring. On her right thumb, she had a simple silver affair similar to another on her fourth finger. The latter was pulled over a delicate ring of old-gold braid which she said was from her hometown.

"This is from my aunt, this is from my mother, and these my grandmother sent to me for my twenty-first birthday." She jangled her bracelets and pointed to a black necklace hidden under her collar.

I looked at the butterfly ring on my left hand which I had bought on impulse from a tiny boutique in Sydney. Circling my right wrist was the precious bracelet sent by a dear friend. I felt the dangle of my earrings from Tokyo.

I didn't tell her these stories. Somehow, they seemed much less important.

Posted by sniffles at 02:35 AM | Comments (0)

December 07, 2002
Rope

Between the artificial brightness of the light on the floor and the flesh of his foot lie the shadows which my eyes are constantly drawn to. The air in the room is faintly stale, and thrice a day I look at the plant we are both killing. It is from shadows like these that words and music come, it is from shadows like these that we speak, and reach for one another's hand.

Like you, I want to unravel this.

Posted by sniffles at 12:53 AM | Comments (0)

Dessert

He is explaining something or other, elaborating on some small detail, and I shift my gaze, not wanting give away my pretense of hearing it all for the first time. Stupendously huge cups dangle on metal railings above the waitress' head at the cashier — I wait for them to fall.

Sparkling eyes as his lips flap open with each word that tumbles, I try to decipher the glint in his pupils, feeling like a one-way mirror. Tonight I shall be beautiful and a seductress and look cute in my coat.

It's the same. They look at me and see their future in me as if I am a silent oracle, a sentient crystal ball holding the seams to silken secrets they are longing to unfold. I shall be the glass of red wine, that little extra which makes the meal of life complete. The sliver of garnish.

I hold his gaze and lick my fingers. One. At. A. Time.

He has a metaphysical jaw and it drops half way down in front of his chest at the third shirt-button; at the same moment, the coffee in his cup choses to take leave of porcelain and rearranges itself on his lap like an affectionate cat. I feign sympathy and pat his pants with a useless serviette, spreading rather than soaking. In any case, I figure he is due the embarrassment given that he had the nerve to compare my beloved Moleskine to his dollar-notebook.

I shall have more pleasure playing a Mozart for four hands.

Posted by sniffles at 12:39 AM | Comments (0)

December 06, 2002
There's a hole in the world like a big black pit

Looking to stay in London, London, and London. Hotels, hotels, and hotels - even the cheapest cost an arm and several legs. Pooey. I guess I'd better work out that I can get there first.

Posted by sniffles at 03:06 PM | Comments (0)

December 01, 2002
Nocturne

The crunch of half-formed snow punctuated each of our steps on our way to somewhere. Sometimes I lose my sense of direction because I get lost in the beat of the rhythm, the present moment, this luminous instance within which an eternity resides.

Dusts of fine snow sparkled and glittered under the streetlamps and in front of impatient automobiles, yellowed by artificial light and darkened by shadow.

Some months ago I couldn't sleep beyond five hours at a stretch every night. I am naturally intense and a poor sleeper, but for now I have ceased to suffer from insomnia. Thank you to each of you who have written your thoughts, I am deeply grateful. Keep the stories coming, I want very much to hear them.

Looking out the window, I had said, "The people who don't love snow most likely own cars." He had murmured an agreement by my ear. I watched a man struggled with the stubborn engine and the snow on his car, imagining that he wouldn't be in the best of moods. We took turns pointing our cameras out the window. In the morning, a snowman had taken shape across the road and it held a fishing rod dangling with a fish. (The next morning, it appeared to have been beheaded ...)

When snow turns into rain and nows turn into pasts, I will still pause in awe at being alive.

Posted by sniffles at 08:14 PM | Comments (1)