The woman he was born from speaks without waiting for a cue.
I can't tell you how amazing the trip was and special and all these wonderful people we met like this one lady who was sick but maybe not really sick and anyway we took her to the hospital there but they didn't find anything and so we drove her to Paris where she took a plane out, which she now regrets. And Paris is of course lovely and Marseille, well really
- he works in Marseille sometimes, he is a painter en he adores the vibrant edges that city has -
I mean Marseille in no way compares to Avignon, not at all. Avignon is, well Avignon is special. And then of course because I fell ill the first few days we stayed in one place for a while and I saw the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, it was as if the sun was rising on the wrong side of the world. You should paint that, you really should, you might actually sell something
- maybe you should paint it if it inspires you so much? -
So anyway and anyway and this and that and all sorts of things including famous artists she met and who told her all about how art is these days and she could therefore inform him that...
- I know all about art, I myself can tell you all about how art is these days if you like? -
And so on.
He tries hard to listen and to think only positive thoughts. But the painting bit, he can't help himself. It makes him angry.
Meanwhile, inside, he truly doubts whether the past few weeks of his life were even worth asking after? Maybe simply the fact that he had a lovely weekend could be interesting? And how he saw the most beautiful opera he had ever seen? The opera was about a mother and her daughters. Mother, you really should see it. Speaking of daughters, I did see my own daughter this weekend and we had so much fun. She understands why her mother and I have separated. Her mother and I had a few drinks, we laughed the way we used to laugh. And neither mother nor daughter mind that I am going away for the weekend with my new girlfriend. In fact, my ex-wife helped me book the ticket. And maybe he could explain that he realizes now how unhappy he has been. And isn't his own mother happy that he is happy?
Instead, he asks whether his mother could take care of is daughter this weekend.
- Oh, so you're going away then, and not alone I presume? -
No, not alone, mother.
She nods her head in rejection and then turns away. How could you, says her body-language. I detest you.
- I'm going to catch some fresh air, he says. -
And he sits on the sand overlooking the sea for a while, studying the birds and the waves and feeling the chill. He imagines a mother that would come out and sit next to him. Or his father maybe. He would like that.
They don't.
And maybe he could take them to Marseille one day and he could show them the studio where he paints?
- Don't be angry, says the wind. They are afraid.
A man feels a negative force is holding him back. His marriage recently ended. His career has reached a dead-end. He feels he is getting older than his age would merit. His son is suddenly asthmatic. In a dream it comes to him: it is the wood carving from Kenya on his wall. The one with white eyes, a mouth, a penis. He bought it in a tourist shop. He bought many other things there too, last-minute souvenir shopping. It is this particular item he is to get rid of. But how?
He can't throw it away as this would surely release even angrier powers. He can't give it to anyone as he would then be giving that person hatred. He reads online what one is to do: wrap the object up in aluminium foil, that way it won't be able to radiate it's powers. Then put it away, in a box or cupboard.
He buys a pack of foil and uses all of it to wrap the thing up. Then he puts it in his basement, as far away as possible.
Still, he can feel it.
More research leads to sage. He opens all the windows, burns so much sage that he can hardly breathe and in every corner of the house. Out, he says to himself, out. Go now! Go!
Even still, he can feel it.
So he does something he hasn't done in a very long time. He kneels to pray. On the floor, in front of where the wooden carving was and now no longer is. He closes his eyes, breathes in and out a few times and repeats the words: It's okay. You can go now. You no longer need to be here.
The thing is very resistant, stronger than him maybe even. He doesn't want it to become a battle of wills, this he will surely lose. He envisions how the thing is fighting against the foil, enraged. Again he says: calm down, you have done your job. Now it's time to leave me alone.
It doesn't work.
So the he asks the carving that he clearly sees in his mind's eye: what is it you want me to do? And he bows his head to it. He waits for a while, in silence, his eyes closed. Suddenly he whispers aloud, "All right, if that's what you want. I will bring you back to Africa. I promise."
It scares him a little and so he adds, "maybe not in a week or a year, but eventually I will. So please, rest now. Grant me my peace and my fortune. I made a mistake and I'm sorry."
The carving isn't satisfied yet. The man now understands the following: he is not only to bring the carving back to Africa, he is to give back to Africa.
Give back? Give back what? A silence ensues. The carving is settling down, finally. All right then, the man says aloud, I promise you that too.
How does the thing know he means it?
A promise is a promise, says the man, is what I always tell my son.
Instantly he feels that a burden is lifted.
That same night, he runs into someone. That someone that helps him push his career forward.
He is now an established architect. He has forgotten all about his promise. And after he dies at old age, leaving his son a fortune, that same son finds an object in the basement. It is wrapped in foil. This must be precious, the son thinks. He gently unwraps it, strokes it, and hangs it up above his bed. There, he thinks, my father is now close.
I met a man. His wife has cancer. I knew this but we weren't friends so I never discussed it. One day, I told him about my divorce. It made him sad, the way his wife's cancer makes me sad.
We became friends.
Soon, I find myself in the waiting room of the hospital. My friend's wife is there too. "So you must have a lump?" she asks. Yes, but my lump is nowhere near as scary as your new lump, is what I want to say. She tells me that a biopsy doesn't hurt.
It did a little. But that was okay, because I was thinking of her. She's very strong.
In bath that evening some words came to mind. They are of a poem I love: "And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should."
No doubt, Mr. Ehrmann, no doubt at all.
Dear friend. What do we make of the passing of time? How do we survive the years in which we remain unchanged? Affected, yes. But unchanged.
You sent me a photo of you. I haven't see you for over eight years. We tried so hard to be in touch. You were in Nigeria, I was here. Once upon a time we lived the same dreams. We were going to change the world, weren't we? Yes that's right, we were going to make this world a better place.
These past years all you really wanted was a family. Were you hiding from me all that time? Now, you're expecting twins and suddenly there you are, on the picture you sent me. Back into my life.
You have a small beard now. I find it pretty distinguished. Your eyes look a little tired. You used to wear really cool glasses. Now it's just a simple frame, nothing special. I suppose we are getting old, my friend, aren't we? Remember how you used to have dreads? And you'd wear combat pants? You'd run around New York feeling as hip and happening as the city itself was? Until they beat you up, the African Americans did. You were on your way home from work and you were wearing a suit. They didn't understand who you were, why you had a British accent. And so they kicked the hell out of you.
Was it them, dear friend, that sent you home? Kicked you out of your dream and straight back to Nigeria?
You are more African than you were back then. And you're bald. Your smile is still the same. I can almost hear your laugh. You'd always laugh and laugh and laugh and everyone would hear you laugh. But you were never happy. Are you happy now?
There he is again. Not a man but his shadow. Fading by the passing of time. Winter or Summer, he always wears the same coat. It is a deep red and it must be wool as it hasn't worn down, not in twenty years.
His beard hasn't either. It is grey now, when it was brown once. His shoulders are skinnier, the coat fits him better than it did back then. Back then, he couldn't close the button around his belly and needed a belt. He no longer has that belt. He does still have the same brown woollen cap.
Back then, he played guitar in front of a young lady's home. She was a student. She would always give him a coin or two. Then one day, it was really cold and she asked, "what is your name?"
"Andrew," he said.
"Why don't you come inside to warm up?" she said. She pointed at the shop that was out of business, which is why he stood there. Nobody chased him away. She lived above that shop.
He didn't say anything but went inside because apparently this is what he was meant to do.
"Wait here," she said and ran upstairs.
It was hot in there. He took off his coat and the big, fat sweater he had one day found. And his woollen hat. His hair was stringy and stuck together in patches.
She came back with a flask and a cup.
"Coffee," she said and she also gave him some chocolates.
"Christmas chocolates, we hang them in the tree," she said, "do you celebrate Christmas?"
He didn't know what to say and so he stared at the chocolate for a while.
"I don't like chocolate," he said.
She told him it didn't matter, which he found strange. Why should it matter?
She looked at her watch and said she had to go or she'd be late for class.
"Stay here all day if you like," she said, "it's going to be minus 5 degrees today."
He put on his sweater, his jacket andwent back outside. He took the flask with him and looked for a different place to stand.
He no longer has the guitar, no longer stands in front of anyone's home. He just walks and walks and walks, while staring at the pavement, his arms folded on his back. The arch in his back is painful. He looks up only very sometimes.
One day a woman who seems to have been watching him waves at him.
"Andrew!" she says.
He has no idea who she is.
There's a benefit to moving house: you discover things you'd already long forgotten. An essay you had once written about bridal burnings in India. Wow, you think. Wow. Did I write that?
I also found a book. It's called: "About consolation and sadness." I remembered there was something special about that book. I opened it and there it was: "from Grandma for me" in my own handwriting. Perhaps I knew I'd forget. Clearly I wanted to make sure I wouldn't. I'd need it one day. I'd need her.
Grandma. She was divorced at age 32 which was rare in that time. She never remarried. She often talked of her fears, her pills, her pains, her loneliness. She really wanted me to learn stenography, and to learn to type.
"Become a secretary," she said, "everyone always needs secretaries."
I was 25 when she gave me that book, a book about grief. The book gives us a dry, almost mathematic analysis of grief. But it's not necessarily my sadness I'm thinking about while reading it. Rather, I'm thinking about other people's setbacks, including hers.
My Grandma died in a psychiatric institution. She preferred living there, that's how afraid she had become of being alone. Also, living amidst crazies made her feel more confident about herself. It confirmed she herself wasn't insane. At one stage, family members found her a new apartment. But Grandma had a heart-attack the night before she was to move.
Listen, she is now telling me. This time listen. And learn.
My son wanted to paint something, so I put a piece of paper on the table, squirted some blotches of paint onto a plate. My son changed his mind and played with something else instead. This blank page and paint just sat there on the table for a while. Somehow, it felt wrong to throw perfectly useable paint away. By the end of the day I thought: why not paint something myself?
Me?
Paint?
But why? And what for?
I picked up the paint-brush and it felt really strange. Next came the question what on earth I was going to paint? I felt embarrassed too, as if someone was watching me. I told myself to get over it and made myself think harder about what to paint. There was a wooden box on the table with a bird engraved on it. I dipped the brush into the blue paint and carefully placed a few strokes. Now I was painting a bird on paper. It wasn't at all like the one on the box. This was a different bird, my bird, and I didn't care whether it was good or bad. What mattered was: first there had been a blank page, now there was a bird.
Dramatically speaking, confronting your main character with a choice between "the lesser of two evils" is a powerful tool. We all remember Sophie's Choice.
The other day, I asked my haptonomist whether I'd made the right choice by separating from my husband. I had expected him to embark on some abstract theory about the concept of choice, and question whether or not choice truly exists. Yogis, for example, like to say such things when you ask them about choice.
Thankfully he didn't. He didn't even say, "there never are any real guarantees in life are there?" Instead he said something I hadn't realized myself. He said, "there wasn't a right choice. You were made to choose between two bad situations. One was to hold on to what you had at the cost of a part of yourself. The other was to follow your heart, and that too at the cost of a part of yourself. A different part, maybe, but also a part."
I instantly felt relieved, a feeling I haven't had in a long while. Just like that. There it was.
However, a new question immediately came to mind too. And this was it: "but how does one avoid entering into a situation that you are to choose between the lesser of two evils?"
My haptonomist fell silent. After a while he said, "that's a complicated question," and went on to say something a lot less convincing about life's ways and process and change.
I suppose this is when a character gains true insight. The moment a character understands what she should have done to avoid having had to choose between the lesser of two evils, she is on her way to catharsis.
Two drug addicts - a man and a woman, mid forties - hollered at me from across the street.
"Hey you!" said the woman. She was wearing a black cap, black bomber jacket, black jeans and various gold necklaces. Skinny legs, bright red lipstick, a super-sized beer.
How did I know they were drug addicts? Quite simple, they walked the way drug addicts walk (brisky and restless), they talked the way drug addicts talk (raspy and streetwise). And so here's what I love about this type of drug addict: there's no pretense. They are exactly what you expect them to be. Just your ordinary addicts on their way to the next hit. Consider the amount of substance abuse in your circle of friends which remains hidden behind social etiquette.
"You are SO beautiful!" yelled the female drug addict.
I stopped and considered how beautiful I objectively speaking was that moment.
"Well thank you!" I said, "thank you very much."
Because I had stopped, she crossed the street and rushed over to me. I put my plastic bag down on the floor knowing what was going to happen next: she was going to ask me for money. She stuck her hand into her inside pocket. Perhaps she was even going to mug me. Which was fine by me.
"I need 7 euros," she said and mumbled something about owing someone. I had already opened my wallet. As she held our her hand, I turned my wallet upside down. Whatever coins were in it all fell into her hand. Approximately 7 euros.
"That's all I have," I said. She walked away, briskly (the man had already turned a corner) saying nothing in particular. She wasn't overtly grateful or anything, she simply accepted it as it was. Her next high was within reach, made possible by me.
As she walked away I hollered to her, "you're beautiful too!"
She turned around, walked backwards while confidently saying, "thank you! But you're even more beautiful than I am!"
She had meant it. And had I?
I was putting books in my cupboard and trying to organize them in some way. The problem being: my books are hard to organize. I read books the way I watch films, in no particular order and with no specific aim. I can enjoy Cunningham as much as Coetzee, and no that doesn't mean I've read all of their books, nor will I ever pretend to have.
There's a lot of books I'm supposed to have read, and this concerns mainly Dutch literature books. It's very typical of my culture to think in terms of "supposed to" as opposed to "want to." The million dollar question obviously being, how do I manage to write a "supposed to read" book? When I prefer to write like I read: want to.
Anyway. I scanned my cupboard looking for books I had read way before the thought even dawned on me that I might be a writer. There was only one book left: Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux. It was soft and tattered and smelling old and dust-like. Where had all my other books gone, I wondered? Vanished, thrown away with the passing of time and my moving from country to country. Did I remember any of them? Mosquito Coast for example, what is it about? Something about an island and savages. I decided I must reread it, because somehow I remember that being the best book I ever read.
I suppose that sums up middle-aged life really, doesn't it? Reliving things we already did but have forgotten about and then to do so consciously this time. Not necessarily because we want to, but because we feel we have to. Fall in love consciously. Party consciously. Eat consciously, hell even sleep consciously. And friendships, make friendships consciously.
