Young and innocent, in our teens. Careless. Reckless. To self-obsess. And so she never considered she might not know her dear friend. Not as well as her dear friend's neighbour knows her. When she reads a story her dear friend wrote she can hear her voice. Her dear friend's voice, not the author's. Her dear friend speaks to her as if they were still 18 and on the phone. Yet she sounds more solid, more even than it was.
She speaks of the clothes she wore when her mother left her father. Of how her mother took her. Of how she didn't speak her mother's language, not then.
She does now.
Of how she said 'no' when a child asked if she wanted ice-cream because she hadn't understood. Of how nobody told her she was not going back to her father.
"I miss my father," she says, her character says. "I haven't seen a field of irises since that day."
She cries about her dear friend's irises. About leaving to never return. She wants to go to he dear friend and say that she is sorry. For not having realized, back then, for having been unaware.
My dear friend, she writes. We all have one pain, one loss. That thing that has formed us to become who we are. It seems so small when we are young and everything around us is big. Yet it feeds on passing years. It grows and grows, until we are so full of that thing, and so overwhelmed. We learn that this thing is no longer in us. It is us. Sit down, dear friend, burn these words and talk to me. Let us talk as if we've never met before. What is the first thing you'd tell me about who you are?
Everyone loves the young pianist, whose star is rising. Up and up it goes and we so hope that this young man, the one who just shook our hand, is something else. Something of genius, something extra special. This young man sweats while playing. Rests in between rehearsals. Drinks cola. And prefers texting messages to someone who's existance only he knows of than to engage in small-talk with the VIPs at his table. One lady cracks a nonsensical joke. His eyes light up. He laughs, spontaneously. Finally he actually looks at someone, at her.
Then there's the old pianist. Who starts his days early. It's him that rises and shines through the day, not his star. He enjoys a healthy breakfast during which he talks to people, shakes hands, smiles, asks questions and even compliments the people around him. Do you have enough assignments, that same lady asks. And he says that some months are busy, others are not. At least he's affordable, he jokes. Does it worry you when it's a quiet month? He shakes his head. No, he says. He practices instead. And keeps practicing so as not to think.
The violinist is young. The stage is hers. She throws herself into the music, with intensity and drive. With ambition. She is mature enough to understand that what drives true creation is focus, is concentration, is an internalization of that very thing she is externalizing, is expressing. And so she closes her eyes whenever it's the symphony orchestra's turn to do their thing. When she is to wait. She sways to the chords. You'd think she's in sync with the music.
Yet something isn't right. The way she moves her violin while swaying, the way her hands play with the nuts and bolds in between sways. How she wipes the strings. Gets rid of a loose hair. Props the violin up against her chin so it pokes out in mid air for a while. Before it's her cue to start.
She is too aware. She is not there but here. With me. While she needs to be there.
Midway, she has a hard time keeping up the drive and intensity with which she started. It becomes a fight against herself, a struggle. We lose ourselves not in the music but in her expressions.
By the end, she finds herself again. As if finally she has to give in to that one truth that matters: the lower notes. The slow cry of the lower notes. This is where she excels. When the music quietens and she calms down.
A fisherman throws the net onto the deck. The fish die, slowly. They lie on their sides and their gulls open and close. One fish manages to flip over. A woman and her daughter watch them for a while. As if wanting to correct something, the woman picks one of the fish up. Just walking over to the side of the ship with that fish in her hands makes her feel good. Her daughter beams. They are going to save that fish. She throws it up into the air. But a seagull snatches it and gulps it down in one go.
Two boys are jumping up and down on a trampoline. One boy says to the other: "look! there's a ladybird!" The other boy kneels down beside his friend to look at it. Then squishes it with his finger.
It's raining and it's perfect. A crisp rain that clears the skin of sweaty thoughts. It carries the smell of blossom, soon to rot. Tomorrow could be the end of spring.
The Other Me envies The Original Me.
It's The Original Me people should be listening to. She sings beautifully, in a silent voice that nobody hears. She used to write stories of lost love and forbidden desires, of running away. She used to draw buildings that could one day become the tallest in the world. She was scouted, once, on the streets. By someone who saw and who knew. Please, he said, just let me take one picture, just one. No, she said and disappeared into her room.
The Other Me desires, needs, asks attention. Cries for it, dances for it, writes for it. And writes, and writes. She screams when silenced, especially then. She decorates herself with feathers she has stolen from a peacock. Plucked him dry. She is louder still when afraid and she is always running outside, with no particular aim.
The Original Me is stuck in a tall and grey dilapidated building. The Other Me approaches it feeling remorse, knowing The Original Me is in there somewhere. In one of those rooms, row after row of rooms. Of concrete greys and faded shades of white. But one window stands out. It is open and so are the curtains. An orange sickle-shaped moon glows from the ceiling behind that window. The Original Me waves brightly from that window to The Other Me who is wet. It is raining outside, in The Other Me's World.
Early morning work day. It's raining damn hard. We bicycles wait at a traffic light. One tends to pull the chin down when it rains, hide the face. Not so for the two people in front of me. He and she. He has small dreads, a muscular ass and legs. He casually leans on one leg, waiting for the light to turn green and looking at her, talking, listening, unaffected by rain. Intently. She wears a polkadot rain coat. The hood is pulled over her head, I can't make out anything of her except that she is tall and skinny, she wears sneakers. He leans in and kisses her. It is a loving kiss. She doesn't turn her head but her whole body twitches in excitement.
They must have made love, is what I think. Where are they heading now? Then I catch myself thinking: look at him, a true macho. His boxer shorts stick out from above his jeans. He looks kind of old. Fourty five maybe? Does the poor girl realize what she's getting herself into?
They bike fast. I bike faster. I want to see her face. In passing I see her rozy red cheeks, her face is flushed and elated. Blond hair falls over her eyes. She doesn't have a single wrinkle. She looks like she's about to giggle but is keeping herself from doing so.
I leave them behind me, turn a corner, pick up some bread, turn another corner. Now, he bikes towards me. He has dropped the girl off somewhere, perhaps her home? He is soaking wet but his face still isn't turned down. It's lifted up, towards life's opportunities. When he sees me he raises his eyebrows in appreciation. He whistles. He turns and comes after me: where am I going? He asks in pidgin English. And maybe we could have a coffee. His treat. He likes me, he says. I am very, very beautiful.
How many photos have I taken in my life? For a couple of years, I had even taken the effort of sticking photos into albums. My student life is therefore neatly arranged by date. Those albums take up a lot of space. They are full of smiles. They have become my memory of those years. Not all the photos made it to the page, the rest are in some box somewhere in an attic.
My sister made me a photo album for my 40th birthday. Now, someone else was putting order to my life, deciding what was worth remembering. Before opening the book, I wondered who would be looking back at me from the pages. I discovered photos of me I had never seen before. Taken in a gentle way and carefully ordered.
An angel-reader recently said to me: "you should bring out the 5-year-old in you. The 5-year-old woman, that is to say."
I look at the 5-year-old in the photos. That 5-year-old wasn't always smiling or feeling she had to. She was just being herself. And yet, she was loved.
Her shoulders tighten at the sight of a construction drill. Her mood sinks. Not only have a dozen black men opened up the pavement right in front of her holiday apartment, the unforgiving sound of multiple sandpapering machines blast out of windows in the building right next door. From across the street comes the intrusive bang of a hammer where yet snother house is being built. She is closed in by noise. Her heart palpitates and she wants to leave right now, run, complain. Not even complain, no, just book herself a five-star-hotel and not bother anyone with her annoyancies.
But hold on just a minute, she thinks as she opens the door to her apartment. How bad is this really? She glances leftward and greets the man who is kicking a rotted window frame. Hard. She waves, instead of rushing inside, closing the doors and curtains, switching on the aircon hoping to shut the world out. Why not lean over her balcony for a moment? Simply stand there and study what is going on, perhaps light up a cigarette. The dynamics are interesting. She can figure out who is doing what and why. The men start looking like actual people.
The owner of her apartment hotel comes out looking concerned, hands on his hips. She says, "well I suppose the "relaxing tranquility" is over now right?" and she laughs. He laughs too. Suddenly she feels as if she has all the time in the world. The owner explains they are taking away a lantarn that was blocking guests' views. Next to them, people are building a restaurant, living their dreams. And the house across the street? Some rich guy decided to build a home for the drug addicts in the area because they had taken such good care of his property while he was away. Without stealing anything.
"That's lovely," she says.
"It is isn't it?" and the two of them stand there for a while longer, leaning over the balcony, smiling.
