Interlude





 

What is this heart I feel

That tremors against my chest,

And when I breathe in too deep

It burns a hole within?

 

What is this heart, tell me,

That bleeds even at peace,

And when its love is spurned

Is shred to nothing but pain?

 

This heart, my dear, is a blessing

To those who love and are loved.

But this heart, my dear, is a curse

To those alone and loveless.

 

Thoughts on a midnight day

I was listening to Nirvana this morning, and it never fails to bring me back to a time when I was only 13 years old and my best friend was called Sandrine. She was into hard rock and used to wear this pale blue denim jacket that always reeked of stale tobacco. The funny thing was that although she smoked I never picked up the habit with her but later on when I was around 15. She and I couldn’t have been more different and yet we were soon given the nickname ‘clones’ by our peers because for some reason, and despite our frequent fiery arguments, we really bonded for a time and were 'inseparable'.

A lot of people didn’t understand how come she liked me, actually, and I remember meeting her in the morning in front of the school gates once as she puffed on a cigarette, only for her to notice a group of people we knew glancing darkly at me, which prompted her to say something like: “I don’t understand why people don’t like you.”

She said it in the most candid way but it hurt me to hear it at the time. I was taken aback and could only shrug in answer. I didn’t know myself why I kept attracting enemies along the way. Sometimes all it took for people to dislike me was for me to just show up, and I didn't even need to open my mouth or emit a sound. It was as though the mere fact of my existence was excuse enough to reject me at once.

"What do they say about me?" I somehow found the strength to prod her further on the subject and it was her turn to shrug.

"They say you're weird, but I think you're great," she replied, sliding one arm around my shoulders to give me a friendly hug.

Weird, huh? The word bounced around inside my head as I fell silent. What did that even mean? What the fuck did it mean when people found you 'weird'?

I've never stopped asking myself that stupid question. All I know is this: whatever people mean when they feel the need to describe me as 'weird' it always translates in them not liking me to the point of complete rejection. Almost every single person I meet will choose the word as part of their description of my person. Some 'friends' will even have the nerve to say I'm a 'nice type of crazy' and all I can do is scream inwardly, wishing they had a fucking clue just how much their choice of words can hurt another person.

It's like the French thing, you know. How many times am I supposed to find jokes about my accent funny? Or how many times am I supposed to feel guilty because I happened to be born and bred in a country full of snobs?

I am whatever they say I am according to their limited perception of humanity and its people as a whole. That's not really the problem. The real problem in all this is that it keeps me alienated and alone in this big world full of people that will never accept a person like me because, hey, I'm so-called weird... whatever that means. The saddest part is that they probably don't even know what it means themselves.

The end result remains the same: solitude and alienation.

Cheers.

Actes Manqués

Insight truly is a beautiful thing… I was looking at pictures of my old school friends from Paris, most of them now with babies in their arms, and I was struck by a flood of memories rushing back to mind. I went for that old red folder containing all that is left of my school years – namely faded-looking birthday cards, actual photos that can be held in one’s hands (back in the days when no such thing as digital photos existed just yet… back in the days when teenagers would mostly use those throw-away types of cameras…). 

I looked at the little messages scribbled by my peers back in the days when we were all 14 or 15… and suddenly I understood. Suddenly, I was struck by an incredibly bright flash of clarity that allowed me to look back on my past with striking objectivity… and I saw the extent of what had been destroyed back then.

I had friends… I loved my friends… I loved them dearly. My best friends Maria and Célia… All the silly memories we had shared together in my last year in Paris before my mother decided to spirit me away overnight, urging me to cut all ties at once because it was ‘better that way’. What a lie!

“Don’t tell them anything. Don’t tell them we’re leaving. It’s over. There is no point in keeping in touch, Sarah.”

I remember it was the summer before my 17^th birthday when my mother came home in tears one day, telling me we were about to lose everything and that we simply had to leave. I stared at her in disbelief and I probably smirked. I was used to her grand dreams or fantasies; she used to talk about ‘leaving’ all the time but nothing ever happened and I was quite certain my life would always be the same predictable rut it had been so far. However this one time in my life I was proved wrong. Very wrong indeed.

I remember counting the days before we left… we were to leave at the end of the first week after school started again, but when I didn’t show up on the first day the phone started ringing at home.

“Don’t pick up,” said my mother.

We let the phone ring, and ring… until the answering machine took over and the voice of my best friend briefly filled the air. She was worried and hoped I wasn’t ill. She was looking forward to seeing me soon at school so she could tell me all about her summer adventures.I remember thinking "I wish so much I could just talk to you and tell you that I did write you a long letter but that I never sent it because... I know I'm leaving, and apparently there is no point in looking back or even letting you know."

The phone rang every day during that week but we never picked up. By Friday, my best friend’s voice sounded strained… pained and confused.

“Don’t pick up,” said my mother.

So I never picked up. And then we left, and after 10 years had passed I was finally confronted by this past I was made to leave behind...but only today have I come to understand what it was that was truly lost in the process: relationships.

Insight truly is a beautiful thing…

Unlike Gatsby, I don’t believe that the past can be repeated… what is lost in time is usually lost for good. Things change, nothing ever remains constant – that is the very nature of life itself, is it not?

I’ll always look back on my last year in Paris with a pang of bittersweet regret deep within my heart and I guess the secret urge to turn around and tell the now all-grown-up woman who used to be my best friend that she was just that, my best friend, will never leave me... that I am sorry, so sorry, and that I miss her dearly, and will always miss what can never be again even as I learn to accept that such is life.

I can't express how I feel right now, but perhaps the song below can?...



O heart, why do you hurt so much?

I am such a naive idiot... I really am. I was never meant for this concrete world. I really never was. I am a dream, a thought, a memory, a smile, a gesture... not a 'real' person.

I keep trying.... I really keep trying to be more 'real'... concrete... but it is a struggle, day in, day out. Because all that this world is... I am simply not.

And yes, it makes me weird, different, alone... you name it. I have no one beside my own self. And I am not even sure who my 'self' is.

Love... yeah... it hurts, that's for sure.

Facing the Drama side of things

Sometimes the pressure and the emotional carnage going on inside me makes me want to scream and run away from everything and never look back... There must have been something right about what my previous boss hinted at heavily before I quit: that I was some sort of drama queen. And I am... I don't mean to be, but I undeniably am because I live so much in my own head, so wrapped up in my own stifled emotions that I can't handle, and every little thing becomes a giant mountain. It was also always someone else's fault, and even when I was able to take responsibility for my actions I was always ready to play the victim. 

Where ever I go drama follows me... I try hard to keep a low profile - to 'blend' in - but my true nature always thwarts my attempts because in absolute truth the real me hates how boring and predictable reality is. I've always hated reality - I was born bored of it already. Do you know what people like me end up doing, then? They go on a quest - whether obvious or not - to spice up reality, stubbornly trying to add magic even though we know full well it can never be. But we will spend our life trying regardless... because the alternative is just too excruciating to even contemplate... it would mean accepting that pigs really can't fly.

I'm like wildfire, full of raw, untamed energy flying in every direction and every time I think about taming the flames I change my mind at the last minute because I just don't want to turn into yet another person who is alive physically but already dead or drained from the inside. It doesn't earn me many friends... in fact, it keeps me pretty much all alone most of the time because it does mean I'm weird. And also, it makes me a so-called bad influence from the point of view of 'settled' people (those who tend to follow social rules and expectations to the letter, that is). 

Sometimes I think to myself that surely there must have been a mistake somewhere. Surely I was never meant to live in reality. Surely a person like me ought to belong within the realm of books, dreams and imagination. Not this cold, ruthless and emotionally-contrived reality... 

As life went on the themes of solitude and alienation grew more prominent in my existence, and perhaps I needed to feel as if I was being shattered into pieces from the core in order to have a fair shot at building myself back up as a better, stronger model of my own self... that's what all the positive-thinking folks out there would say, anyway.

Personally... i don't really care anymore. I realise that I spend more of my time writing about life than I actually live it. I don't just spend 80% of my time thinking about all sorts of 'deeper' topics (like the universe, the world and its neighbour) I then go on spending even more time writing about the thoughts I've been thinking about! This is my life. Don't believe me?

I have filled the equivalent of 12 diaries so far since I first started this blog - in the last 5 years - with a total word count well over 1 million. And that doesn't even include the lousy fantasy trilogy I tried my hand at alongside the almost constant charting of my own thoughts and musings, which goes over 300,000 words in itself. How can a person find the time to write so much? I don't know... I have no 'life' as such. I spend more time inside my head, writing words rather than speaking them out loud and it's just normal to me... I'm actually quite happy, though from time to time someone will unnerve me in some way, forcing me to see that I still need a balance between complete isolation and interaction with others.

And yet if you met me in the course of daily life as I go about earning a living you'd probably have no clue and mistake me for the bubbly, typical girl next door (till you start chatting to me and realise there's something a bit off about the way I interact or understand you... something different).

What is this land we see

Afar, so far drowning

In a misty ocean and shimmers

The golden halo of dreamers

 

When all is quiet,

But the wind that shivers

The apex of a world asleep,

Exhales the mind of the thinking.

 

So far, so far the land

That told the passing folk

Of truth and legends alike,

No more, no more,

 

The land is no more.

"The biggest coward is a man who awakens a woman's love with no intention of loving her."

- Bob Marley

The nice good bye

Good byes... I'm not very good at them, but then again I know it's time to say good bye to, well, Aliska.

Good bye, Aliska. I shall never turn to you again, but you helped me - SO much.

Oh Aliska... you were the voice I had killed in infancy, lost as I was in this dead society. And then you gave me a voice again... Thank you! Oh thank you, Aliska... I shall miss you, though I know that forever you will be a part of my history... and for good cause, too.

But it is time to say good bye and part ways, and by parting ways I am really turning a new leaf. And so it is that if you ever knew me under this name, Aliska, then search no more for she's gone and there is no one else left to look for. It's over.

Good bye Aliska... Good bye!