Saturday, January 10, 2009

Oh. You.

Yes, you know. How I would like to write to you in your language, but again I will write with mine - addressed to you. I’d like to say it so you can hear it without any work. Mais je begaye dans ta langue maternal, and I want each word to drip into you.

You see I want to be filled with you. So each word I think and then scrawl across the screen is just a murmuring of your name, mmmmmm. I wish I could send it to you in the beautiful hand of Pierre I saw the other day. That script learned at the time when, if the letters weren’t formed just right, your hand got smacked. With a ruler or a pipe or whatever implement the teacher thought would spur you on to improvement. Sometimes it left scars, but more often it left letters, then words, which, like the spoken word here, flowed fluidly one into the other.

If I could write with that hand it would sound beautiful. You would believe for the rest of your life in unending love. But alas...

...I am a project of not a different time, but only a different priority. My work with numbers is excellent - they stand blocked and straight and clear when figured. In any case, nowadays, the words are instantly mediated as the fingers slap the keys. Just imagine the sentiment of these words written in an illuminated manner.

But in revenge words are free, and come easily when they are directed at you - the object of my desire. I want to say how wonderful it would be to sit beside you, drinking talking eating looking hearing, together, in gleaming full flowered France.

The other day was like that. With Pierre there was Paul reading. To hear the hand of Peter read by Paul was quite a treat, especially after having attended catholic school for so long.

That idea Pierre was fleshing out - a voice of directness - one talking to the other. Letters written alone, one sided. One voiced letters, one to another (Paul wanted to know who that one is, never mind about the other). In the directness of that voice comes the sound of pained wondering, a longing for the other to hear, not the words, but just the silent sounds attempting to vibrate with love for another.

The words trying to re-create the sound of one expressing fully to another.

oh

mmmmmmmmmmmm

They’re so romantic, slow, objectifiable, words scratched across paper. In letters, like fantasies, only your physical body is denied.

The physical body of my car checked out fine the other day at the control tecnique. They said - okay - I was relieved. When I went out to get it yesterday it was missing. I was confused because I thought I was sure where I had left it. Then I remembered - the marché. I had forgotten to move it for the weekly market. I checked with the local police and they said
-yes. It had been towed.

Strange, how after two years of moving the car every tuesday night, suddenly it is forgotten. What does that mean other than I ride a bus to the pound to fetch it and pay the145 euros of fees. In one forgotten action, half of my months disposable income vanishes. What else beside the budget is broken when the mind slips. What is this action, of forgetting.

In this case it led to you. On the walk from the bus stop to the tow lot I suddenly thought of you. It isn’t that I am not often thinking of you, it was just that it seemed as if you were there with me. As if you weren’t so far away.

2 comments:

  1. Damien!
    Here I am, astride a thoroughly modern puter, capable of seeing and hearing all your screen-bound thoughts.
    I think I have shared many of the same experiences, many of the same immigrant doubts, many of the same lingwistik probblaims that you unveil so charmingly. Alas, your remarkable and equally charming accent is missing.
    However, the question remains: to sprawl across the screen in casual English or risk sudden death on the highs of bastard French?
    Anthony - pronounced Antnee

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  2. My own young son was just granted permission, official permission in the form of a signed by the principal, teacher, parent, to not be graded on his handwriting at all. He is to be granted the use of a keyboard whenever he wants. No slapping. No scolding. Instead a recognition that what he wants to say can be more clearly said (and understood) if his frustrating, backwards, troubled handwriting doesn't have to be the vehicle. WRiting of the letters was like a foreign language. The keyboard is his translator.

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