My Tropic of Cancer

Thursday

MY GOOD LUCK

"You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses."-Tom Wilson

I stopped writing the blog for a while because frankly, I didn`t have it in me. Things got worse. Way worse. I had to leave Paris suddenly and writing about being back in Canada didn`t seem to make sense. This blog was supposed to be about living in France. Paris may be a moveable feast but I didn`t much feel like writing about anything that was going on here. My vie en rose had grown too many thorns. I am in the eye of the storm now and my Tropic of Cancer has just taken on a different meaning. And maybe it`s time to open up again. Here goes.

Unlucky is a feeling I am oh so familiar with and it’s never really bothered me before now. If nothing else, it’s provided my life with a much needed sense of humour and a light-heartedness that lets me laugh at the cliché moments where life meets cartoon: think Julie slips on a banana peel in an intersection and is swept off her feet or Julie sits on a white wet paint bench in black pants or Julie’s grocery bags split open while wearing white and the only thing to fall and break is the bottle of Heinz Ketchup. There have been too many to count. And yes, when these things happen, they suck. They are frustrating but laughable. I’ve always said that my life was full of these little mishaps because minor mishaps leave us unscathed by the bigger stuff: cancer, accidents, ruination.

I told a friend a couple of months ago that I was feeling cursed. Bad things happen to everybody and I don’t like to be a complainer because I’m usually an optimist. I’ve got a lot of faith and hope and goodwill under my belt but lately, definitely moreso in the past year than ever, God and I are more on the outs than before. It is disproportioned. I am feeling like we’re enemies but not sure why. He has all but shat in my mouth at this point. I’ve still got a smile on my face but you can see in my eyes that I'm full of shit. I’m still getting up every morning and forcing myself out the door with plain ol’ coffee and cigarettes.

YOU: “How are you doing?”

ME: “Fine thank you, and you?”

I have this conversation several times a day. I want to tell the truth and I am biting my tongue to keep it inside.

YOU: “How are you doing?”

ME: “Shitty. I don’t understand why these things are happening. It feels unfair. I’m exhausted and I ask myself every day if I deserve this. Do you think I`m cursed?”

The truth is, these truths are met by a dirty looks, not on purpose, but because people just don’t know what to say when you tell them your life is in shambles and whining & complaining makes everybody uncomfortable. Especially when people can’t quite relate to what it is you’re going through. Everyone should know that it is equally uncomfortable to be the Truth-Teller. I know that nobody wants to hear that my father is slowing dying from the lime-sized tumour in the cavity of his brain. Nobody wants to hear about my post traumatic stress from finding that woman who jumped out of the window this winter. No one wants to know why my ex and his family aren't speaking to me or why I can't set foot in his restaurant or why my SECOND marriage is in shambles or why my neck hurts from the hit and run. No one wants to know because they don’t know what to say to someone with that much bad shit happening to them. Partly because it upsets them but mostly because complaining about it just makes everybody uncomfortable.

YOU: “I’m so sorry to hear about all these things that are happening to you. I’m really sorry to hear about your Dad. I am worried about you. It`s all just so bad, I don`t even know what to say.”

ME: “It’s okay. Thanks, though.”

It’s not really okay. Shit maybe I shouldn’t have said that it was okay. I can already see that worry in your eyes is taking over. Now you think I’m in denial and I’m some kind of time bomb who might just have a nervous breakdown any moment. I can see the look. There is as much pity as sympathy. My phone has stopped ringing because no one knows quite what to say to me and also because there`s no good time to hang out with a grieving downer. My outfit is the same every night: unwashed hair, a sad look on my face and an inability to concentrate or listen to others’ problems. That’s not usually me but it’s me right now and I’m losing friends fast because of it. And you don`t know what to say because there is nothing to say. And I don`t know what to say because no matter what answer I come up with, the response is the same.

Here is the answer I`d like to give:

ME: “I believe I am cursed. Can you believe I didn’t win the lottery?!”

YOU: “What do you mean? Millions of people didn’t win the lottery. That doesn’t make you cursed.”

`You’re right. Millions of people didn’t win the lottery. And millions of people are suffering and going through ridiculously painful shit too. Cancer is rampant. People are dying. We are aging. Everyone has their own share of misery at their doorsteps. No one needs a precise description of mine, nor is it any worse or better than any others’, I just happen to be raking up extra points for quantity of stress. But, on the other hand, if I say: ‘I’m fine thank you’, I’m a liar and will more than likely be mistook for a rude bitch when I fade out during someone’s story about how their boyfriend means well or the topic of their thesis. Sometimes, it’s better that people know that you’re going through things. That you’re not able to take their call right now but if they leave their name and number, you’ll get back to them (and hopefully yourself) as soon as you can.

When my friend died back in 2002, I remember the odd shock of the first couple of months that followed his funeral. You’re not really there but you are. I remember feeling, possibly even being high for most of it. I couldn’t concentrate anyway. School was a joke. Sex was pointless. I couldn`t talk to friends about it because they didn`t understand. Food didn’t taste like much and I didn’t even have an appetite. I suppose this is what they call depression but I’ve always considered depression to be a sadness that emerges from nowhere and not so much a sadness that comes from true horror. I tried to keep to myself as much as possible and shut down to friends and family because I couldn’t handle the thought of telling the truth.

And that’s the other thing. I’m not a big fan of secret depression. It’s the scariest beast of all because it`s usually one that leads to suicide. Suffering in silence is polite and all but it only makes you feel that much more isolated than the rest of the planet; something anyone going through too much pain is already more than familiar with. So I took the right steps this time right off the bat in hopes of not losing too big a hunk of time this time since the first time around, it was these things that helped me pry my way out of the Bell Jar and back to something that ressembled a hopeful reality. I sought counselling immediately. I did massage, reflexology, physio, yoga, meditation. I tried to eat healthy and drink plenty of water. I was open with the people around me about my limitations. I stayed away from drugs and alcohol. I talked to my doctor about stress. He told me the hard truth: if you want to try antidepressants, go for it but otherwise, there is nothing I can do for you – you just have to live this out. The reality is, sometimes life just sucks and there isn’t a pill that’s going to stop these things from happening. He said I could give it a shot. I opted for riding it out. Circumstance doesn’t justify medication and my grieving is garden variety. This time around I am trying to be vocal about these depressive feelings (which probably isn`t helping my social life but an essential element to my mental state at this point). I asked some coworkers the other day if they ever felt like living was just too much. They laughed. It made me laugh because I knew how absurd it must have sounded but I meant it. I feel overwhelmed and exhausted and every time someone questions my mental state my answer is the same – It`s either continuing with one foot in front of the other or putting a bullet in my head. That`s the truth and my options, though both equally terrifying seem as plain as that.

There has been a little too much tragedy in my own life these days and I only say too much because I’m finding myself at wit’s end and I’m not laughing anymore. It doesn’t feel like dark comedy the way it once did it just feels dark. I was crying at a friend’s house about all the bad things that were happening to me the night we got the phone call that my dad’s depression wasn’t depression at all but a stage four inoperable terminal brain tumour that had imploded and that required emergency surgery to drain the fluid in his brain to stop the horrible pain my father was having for weeks. I fell over when I got the news. My body literally lost its ability to stand up straight. Once that simmered down, there were more deaths, more cancer, more bad news. It seems we couldn’t make it through a day without something adding to the bucket of misery.

And yet, no matter how bad it gets, the moment I think to myself, it can’t get any worse, it does. The other night, after some advice from my counsellor to try to relax a bit more (apparently the massage, meditation and mantras just aren’t enough), to indulge and to do something nice for myself, I decided to buy some music on iTunes and make myself a killer cd. I was in a great mood. My dad had a good night on Monday, he thought he was in Germany but other than that we were able to have a nice chat and what almost seemed like a normal evening with no vomiting and minimal complaints of pain. I had a great day at work. A nice visit with my university roommate and friends I haven’t seen in a while were coming from France for a visit the next morning. I was feeling hungry and actually excited about the day and some of the new projects I’m delving into (writing, catering, etc…). Happy to be moving to the lake next week and ready for red wine and raw meat. I sent a message to a friend about what a good day I was having and how everything would be okay.

So,when I woke up, I decided not to bother making myself a cup of coffee in the morning, decided not to smoke a cigarette with that ‘first day of the rest of your life’ feeling bubbling in my belly, I put the new cd in the player – a CD which I titled ‘MY GOOD LUCK’ after a Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson song, put the car into first and headed to Starbucks to treat myself to a far too expensive cappuccino and maybe I’d even buy a cake and eat it too.

I’m not even two minutes away from the house, driving in the right lane, when I notice two cars stopped in the left lane in front of me. There is a truck and a silver car. The truck is turning left and the silver car is waiting behind him. I proceed through the intersection and BAM! The guy decides just at the moment I am passing to not check his blind spot and sideswipe me head-on on the driver’s side, hard. So hard that my car was slammed, my neck was fucked and I was pushed right off the road and way up onto the curb. I watched the car slow down for a second after the shock of the impact, figuring he would pull over just ahead and come exchange info but instead, sped up and drove off as fast as he could, leaving me with a busted car with a door that won’t open, a brutal headache and unable to turn my neck to the left. This is not happening.

I’m going to be late for work. I’m going to miss my friends from France. I need the car to get to the lakehouse or I haven’t got a way to get there. My dad just paid this car off, he’s going to be so upset. Insurance? Fuck. I don’t even know what to do. I don’t move. I just sit there. I can’t believe this is happening. I wasn’t even able to see if it was a man or a woman, a license plate, nothing. Nothing! Do people really do this? Just leave? What if I were dead or an old woman? They didn’t see me either.

This morning I’ve got whiplash, my neck is aching and my back hurts a lot and I’ve still got a bad headache. We’ve got a personal support worker at the house for a couple of hours this morning so that we have time to buy groceries and go to the pharmacy and all that stuff but instead, we need to take the car into the shop to be repaired and assessed and after spending the day with the police and at the hospital in x-rays yesterday, I’m scheduled for a bunch of physio for the rest of my free time this week. It’s good, I want to get better but a bit annoying to have yet another challenge to overcome.

I’m not feeling suicidal. I don’t want to die but I don’t really want to live either. It’s fucking annoying and without the F-ing incentives: Family, Fun & Friends, it doesn’t really feel worth it. Nothing good happens. Literally, NOTHING. I don’t remember the last time I had ‘fun’. I don’t remember laughing or smiling. I don’t remember that excited feeling in my belly. Food doesn’t taste good. I’ve got no love. No resources. No hopes. No money. I don’t care about anything and I am out of faith. Out of faith in many of the people I really counted on, cared about and cared for. I’m out of hope because it seems just too dangerous and I am out of resources because literally all of these issues have cost a shitload of money, time and energy. I’m tapped.

What I’ve concluded is that survival does not justify faith. If there is a God and he is responsible for all of this, I’m not a fan. I don’t see the lessons here and I don’t think it’s just my impatience kicking in. I feel that things are seriously unfair. I feel that people are not good. I feel that life is pointless. I regret buying into optimistic bullshit as a child. I regret believing in love. I regret having hope and I certainly regret trying to live as a good person. Where has it gotten me? Absolutely nowhere. No one's around. No one calls. And if I died tomorrow, I doubt a soul would take notice.

My close friends are around when they can be but of course every one of them has their own bag of shit to deal with as well. Emotional turmoil, troubled relationships, money problems, cancer. I need people around but people need time to themselves - c'est drole. I keep trying the ones who promised they would be there but they’re either busy with work or just can’t do it. It’s no one’s fault, it’s just another unfortunate truth.

The grief counsellor told me that in his experience, the hardest thing to come to terms with is that the people you expected to be there for you in a crisis were actually the ones who shut down completely or just left you high and dry. That afternoon, I contradicted him saying that I had an especially good group of friends and a support network and that I didn’t think that would be the case with me but he was right, within a matter of days, the phone stopped ringing. Offers for help disappeared and suddenly it wasn't all just hard, I was lonely on top of the rest. Every plan I’ve made, even the unimportant social ones is cancelled, usually only minutes before it’s supposed to happen. People tried their best to be helpful for the first couple of weeks: offering food and the occasional couch to sleep on but I don’t need helpful, I just needed company: friends, family, people around me smiling and talking about nothing. Even if I can’t really listen or participate, I need to not feel more alone. I’m worried that I’m already surpassed the point where that’s possible as I’ve mostly abandoned even the attempt of making plans with people because it’s only another thing to fall through and I’m entirely done with feeling disappointed. There just isn’t time for that on top of the rest. THIS is why I’m moving by myself in the middle of nowhere. There is no point to be in the city, surrounded bymillions of people if all that does is make you feel more lonely. I’ve always been a big believer that solitude and loneliness are two very different entitites. Solitude is wonderful because it’s a choice. Loneliness is standing alone in the middle of masses (a quote from a poem I wrote about depression a few years back which I am attaching to the bottom of this post). I truly believe this. There's no worse feeling than being around a group of people and feeling like you don't belong. Think back to Grade Nine dances. It's that but times a thousand. It's got nothing to do with self esteem, either. It's just life. It's why love is so important. Because THIS feels too bad to describe. I'm sure it's only amplified because of everything that's going on and that if things were easier, none of this would be so un-nerving but right now, it's weighing on my mind and my shoulders and my patience a lot.

Anyway, my good luck...not so good. Obviously. But I’m going to stop caring about it and maybe that will change. But I’m not counting on anything (I say to cover my ass).

I’m not going to say I hope tomorrow will be better; I'll assume it won’t be.

I’m not going to say I know my friends will call me tomorrow; I'll assume they won't and that if they do, it’s only to say they’re sorry but they’re tired or busy or working or can`t make it tonight after all.

I’m not going to say anything else that I hope might happen because Hell, that seems to be my jinx in the first place.

In a sincere attempt to comfort me, another friend this week told me that:

“I believe that like attracks like. Of course right now it's hard for you NOT to see the negative in everything. No fault of your own, but please take care of yourself.”

If I were giving myself advice, I’d most likely come up with one of these too. Bad things happen to good people. It’s not your fault, positivism breeds positivism etc…I already know all – I believe, though I`ve never actually read it, that this is the mantra of The Secret. See the good things happening and they will happen. I tried to go there for the first few tragedies. I genuinely tried not to let life get me down but it doesn’t change the fact that bad things are happening and if like attracks like, I’m a bit fucked. I’m not trying to see the negative in everything at all. At this point, I’m not trying to see anything but tomorrow in front of me. Hell, even that’s an overstatement. I’m looking as far as the next ten minutes only. If I can make it through those, I can make it through everything. I’m trying to keep a smile on my face and do good when I`ve got the strength. I’m trying to say thank you and to be as grateful as can be for the good things I`ve got. I’m trying to keep up with my own creative and work projects and being vocal about my limitations. I`m learning to say `no` and I’m trying to be supportive to friends in need. I’m trying a lot of things so if like attracks like, I`m screwed. I’m absolutely fucked. I`d much rather go with the rock bottom philosophy. That the good thing about everything going wrong is that things can only go more right from here on; I just won`t make the mistake of saying it aloud again.

I don’t know where to go for some peace but I’m hoping that this house on the lake, a little isolation, a little water, a little writing, a little coffee with baileys, no television, phone or internet and nothing but time to read, write and reflect – I`m hoping this brings about a change in me that is positive. It probably won’t (I believe it will but I’m saying that as a ‘just in case’) but who knows, right? For now, I`m trying to take Corrie`s advice and focusing on the fact that my Dad is sleeping through his pain somewhat peacefully today, that the deductible for the insurance is only $200 not to mention the accident could have been far worse, that I`ve got free physio and massage for a few weeks, that I`m lucky I`ve got such understanding bosses, that the friends who aren`t around aren`t worth having around anyhow and the ones who are in my life are truly great people and finally, that the food poisoning I got for my birthday last week helped me forget that no one remembered the sixteenth of August and better still, the vomiting and diherrea has allowed me to fit into my way-too-tight-for-years blue jeans. Like attracts like but with my good luck…Nah, I`m not even going to say it.

I wrote this poem years ago when I was going through a lot of emotions over a troubled relationship. Oddly enough, it's more fitting than ever. Poor Eve. Please don`t let me eat myself to death. And to both Tom Wilson and Corrie and the rest of you, I will do my best to stop complaining about the thorns in my roses and try my best to remember the roses that grow from my prickly thorns and eventually will widen my scope from ten minutes to ten days to ten years again. I'll get there. I will. But I'm not going to lie to you and pretend I'm just fine. Those thorns, they do cut and I'm bleeding and it fucking hurts like Hell.

EVE in PARADISE

Winter had gotten her pregnant with possibility
But she lost the baby in the springtime and this,
This third miscarriage would be the end of her.

Eve never liked roses; she preferred daisies.
Roses brought sacred promises and sacred hearts
That were easily broken to bits.
So, Eve plucked them when she found them growing.
She brought them home,
Turned the heat on high and dried them out while
She filled her bath with hot water, then drained it
And filled it again a second time,
Because it wasn’t wasting water
If it made her feel something.

Lately, she'd noticed the birds were talking to her,
Black cats were looking white.
She’d started seeing Hemmingway in the jasper again,
And worried if someone didn’t save her soon
She’d go back to Henry Miller again.
Tortured by the lovers she’d had
And those that had her,
Eve stood alone in the middle of masses
Wondering how she got here and
Who gave her the bad directions?
So Eve went to Paris
Because it was closer to Paradise.
Her suitcase, full of rocks, and Being and Nothingness and
The past,
It proved heavy, even for Eve.
Heavy enough without the books she carried in her handbag
But she’d sworn she’d make it through this story,
This time, without skipping
Straight to the end, without cheating, the way she did sometimes
With all the anticipation and good intentions of Christmas morning
And the dénouement that comes on the twenty-sixth of December
With its empty boxes and spoiled magic,
Learning patience was not worth the wait.

Instead, she’s woken up with hope to find her stocking’s full of clementines but
She wanted chocolate.
Still, He didn't listen.
And even if they were cheaper and better for her,
Clementines would never do for Eve.
Clementines were devoured too quickly
By morning, they were gone and forgotten.
But not before she’d peeled them,
Skinned them to their naked core.
Not before she’d sucked out the juice
Mashed up the guts, chewed their intestines and swallowed
Everything but the seed.
Eve always spat out the seed.
Or two, or three or four or more, depending on the fruit
Because the seed always killed those juicy moments
With a bitterness she never anticipated and
The disappointment that came with fruit being substituted for chocolate
And Boxing Day falling on a Monday.

In Paris she learned that morsels of bread could always be summoned up,
To soak up whatever pleasantries were left on the porcelain.
Stale could be brought to life with soft salted butter and somehow
Just crumbs, yesterday’s spoiled loaves, were enough to nourish her.
Enough to fill her up.
But even when she was full, Eve always needed more
So she could clean her plate clean.
It wasn’t politeness that drove her but gluttony.
She would still be hungry even if she were full.
And when the man at the Boulangerie would ask her
If she wanted three croissants for two euros
Or two for one euro eighty, she had no doubt
That twenty centimes could not only buy her happiness
But temporary satiety and also, that she would finish
The whole bag herself before her crème was done.

Still, she had time this time
So, she invited Beaudelaire for a second,
And he said he was dying for a drink and would she like to meet him
In an Artificial Paradise?
"Pourquoi pas?"
They brunched in the park and had wine before noon
And she noticed their noses
Ran at the same time as
They dragged themselves along the same sorry path.
Eve was sure it was love.
Two full stomachs that were
Still empty and manual flashlights
So they wouldn’t get lost together
In the dark.
They were two strangers needing exactly the same thing:
For Milton to be wrong.
She wasn't sure what it meant,
When he hesitated to make love to her for the first time
In French or in English
Huxley had left too many door open
And perception was hard to narrow down.

Eve was afraid of heights because she had fallen twice before,
And she knew bloodied knees
Were more painful than they appeared and that
Praying had gotten her nowhere in the past.
As always, before too long, she caved.
She let him climb her to the top of the catholic church
And when she was able to stand fearless on the steeple
He took her through tunnels and caverns and catacombs
And Hell.
And the park.
If she asked, he always came with her.
She wanted him to come always
Because he brought her chocolate bars in the morning
And taught her to ride a bicycle when she didn’t think
She knew how.

Eve lost her fear and he lost his way
And red was looking blue to him and the blue was turning grey
And there were broken promises and broken condoms and somewhere
Between the Eiffel Tower and Tokyo
In a little hotel near Trocadero,
He gave Eve the child she always wanted.
And when her belly was finally full
He left her and
She lost it.

Eve continued to suck the marrow from life alone,
Only, through a thin straw,
Careful not to let too much happiness through the plastic.
Where she once saw swing sets, she began to see hanging ropes and
The watery tombs of the Seine were calling her vertigo to attention
And attention was called to the sky.
It had laid itself
On the river and she wanted to throw something
Over and up but
All Eve had ever thrown in were towels
And her home beckoned for her with baskets of laundry
Already brimming with broken dreams and dirty sheets
But she knew she would never be in the mood to deal with the wash.

By May Day, Eve started edging herself
Closer and closer towards the grey line of the metro,
Watching the 01 flash to 00 and the people get on and off,
Only remotely surprised that no one else today
Had thrown themselves into the tracks of the Line Three
Between République and Havre Caumartin.
They’d be better off, she felt,
Ending their pain now instead of later
Before all of Paris,
With rush hour as their audience.
Eve knew she should have opted for the Eight.
But she’d never had much luck finding Bonne Nouvelle.
Dommage, done.

So Eve consoled herself.
She drank demis by the dozen
And laced her tobacco with cocaine
So she could continue drinking
Until the whisky went sour.
Until she was drunk enough to forget
That her eyes had gotten so busy watching watches,
She'd always miss the way day and night made love at six o’clock.
Beaudelaire had broken her heart
For good.
So, when a stranger offered Eve a rose in the street;
A red one,
She took it with jaded thanks and instead of keeping it,
Instead of caring for it and helping it grow full of life,
She ate it.
Petal by petal,
Thorn by thorn,
Leafless to lifeless.

That rose disappeared into the six foot hole in her stomach
That she had dug herself to grow potatoes someday.
But potatoes would never grow here.
“He loves me nots” lined the lining of her insides and she didn’t believe
In Princes or Knights or Magic or a Miracle Man anymore.
The rose had made her barren and
She couldn’t eat a damn thing.
And when the man at the Boulangerie offered her four croissants for free
She didn’t even take one and twenty centimes,
It bought her absolutely nothing.
And that afternoon, she knew she’d lost her daisies for good.

Eve couldn't bare another Fall so
She left Paris,
And her rocks,
And her past behind her.
She left the wash to the river,
And the chocolates to the Clementines,
And she emptied her handbag so she could
Be light.

They found Eve in the park on a Thursday morning
Bleeding on a rosebush.
She had cut out her own heart and eaten it whole.
At last,
She had found Paradise in night,
And filled herself pleine,
And her story was finally done.
"Et la vie simplement la vie", they said
When they buried her in the park
Leaving flowers on her tomb.

All the flowers,
They too died before morning came.
Before Beaudelaire came back
For her
With daisies at dawn.
It was too late.
Impatience had already gotten the best of her.
Before she’d given winter the chance to come again
A rose was just a rose and
Eve was as cold as Springtime.

Sunday

Give Me The Simple Life - A week in Gué Bas

There is a giant black bug crawling across the carpet and it's so big, I can't be sure what it is. Last night, there was a spider the size of my fist on the wall beside my bed. My face is covered in mosquito bites and the bees here are the size of birds. If I were in the city right now, I'd be calling an exterminator.

But I'm not. I'm in Heaven. And here, I'm in good company.

A couple weeks ago, it was decided that my apartment would be painted this week. After three long years in the place, the owner has decided to put it up for sale and we're getting it into tip top shape for 'la vente'. In the meantime, I'm homeless and on holidays. What to do? Maison de Campagne, Basse Normandie, thanks to my sweetheart and his father who have arranged for me to have the place to myself for the week to work on my book.

It's hard to explain the euphoria of being in a place this beautiful and rustic and perfect in words but I'll try.

I get up at seven. The sun is shining through the bedroom and I write best in the morning. Get the coffee going. Add Baileys. One cigarette and I'm off. If I'm lucky I'll be able to complete a whole chapter by nine. It's so easy to write when it's quiet. When the phone doesn't ring. There's no better accompaniment to the sounds of birds singing than a little Motzart.

Never in the city would I have 40 pages done before 9 AM. No way. Maybe I'd have blewn my hair dry and on a good day, taken a half hour to pick out something to wear.

At nine, I come into the kitchen and make breakfast. Two fried eggs, four pieces of bacon, one croissant, a small glass of fruit juice, a yogourt and half of a grapefruit in the garden. Maybe I'll do some editing, maybe I'll read. Either way, I need more coffee. More Baileys and one more cigarette before I bathe.

I might as well be bathing in the lake, this bathroom is that perfect. Stone walls, stone tub, I wash my hair and comb it and get dressed. Clothes I like to wear not something to blend in with the rest of the Parisians. Jogging pants. Overalls. Tank tops. Straw hats and flips flops. I let the sun dry my hair and try to get some yardwork done before it's time to get back at it. Pick dandelions, water the field, talk to the cows for a while.

Then inside to write while I get lunch ready. It's too sunny to see the screen from the big wooden table in the garden and anyway, I've probably got a sunburn as it is. A ham and cheese sandwich will do or maybe a salad with peppered goat's cheese, shallots and tomatoes.

I should have a nap. I know it because I'm feeling so good, I'm certain to have sweet dreams but there's a tv with a satellite and there is the option of changing the language to English. It's been so long since I've seen a show in English, I can't resist.

Then, back at it. I've got the place set up for writing. All my research spread about on the table, beside it, an owl feather and a rope. Symbols of the demise of my hero. An Oxford dictionary and a Roget's thesaurus. A little more coffee, maybe a coke and I'm good to go for a few hours more. Until it's time to get dinner ready. You would think that I'd be depressed writing about death and suicide all day but I'm not. I'm alive and I'm happy and my fingers can't help but pump out page after page. In Heaven there are no telephones, no interruptions, no responsibility. Writer's Block begone!

Around six o'clock, I take a break and lay in the sunshine, taking in the property, listening to the birds sing and the cows moo. I'm reading Proust at the moment which fits perfectly as it's about a region just a ways from here. It talks about Chartres and its famous Cathedral I visited one afternoon when I had a free train ticket and no idea where to take a day trip because Paris was all I knew of France. I imagine Combray being not unlike this place.

I take my MP3 player outside and the mini speaker I bought so I could use my new iPod this winter while my dad and I took a long drive to Ottawa. Motzart seems appropriate. I play it loudly because it reminds me of being in church. The best church on Earth. I am in God's land now. The cows hear the music and come to see what all the fuss is about. I imagine they don't get much excitement in their short lives before becoming dinner – steak haché, entrecote, bifteck. They come right to the fence and look me in the eye as though they recognize me or the music I can't be sure. I smile and wave 'hello', not because I'm strange but because it's probably the closest I've ever been or will ever be to these beasts, my asthma having always kept me at bay from such magestic places. There aren't many farmhouses to visit that don't contain at least one farmer who works among the dander. Then, all at once, to the music, the cows gallop off for feeding time. The bees are getting feisty too and the mosquitos are rampant. I should go inside and get dinner ready.

I marinated the meat in the morning with onions and salt and pepper and wine so that by dinner time the meat would be perfectly tender. I'll boil some potatoes and steam some vegetables and I'm all set. I set up the table in the garden, even though I know that I'll be hounded by the bugs, I can't stand the thought of missing out on the sun tucking behind the long trees over the hill and the orange glow of the sun on the castle up the way. A little glass of wine and everything is perfect.

After dinner, before the sun sets, I'll take a walk. Down the garden path and up the quiet country road which is interrupted only every half hour or so by a passing car or tractor on their way home for dinner or back to the little villages they've come from. The roads are lined with all manner of beauty, butterflies, brown squirrels, fields of gold and purple and green. Across the road there is the guardian's house. I contemplate taking the pathway to explore but I retrace my steps when I hear a strange sound in the bush, knowing that I haven't got a hope in Hell against any animal with my allergies or my inability to run fast. I opt to stay on the country road until I arrive at a little cemetery with tombs that date back to the 16^th century and a gate worth the jaunt from the house. Before the sun sets, around 20h30, I should be back at the house. I don't know the area well enough to explore at night and despite the infinite beauty, I am terrified of coming upon someone who is unkind or worse an animal in search of dinner. Having been in a city so long, I feel out of my element in Heaven and am far more accustomed to the brutalities of Hell, or Paris, as they like to call it these days.

I watch the sun and the moon trade places around 21h. It is beautiful and soon I will retreat back into the house to set up again for an evening session of typing. There are things to edit, others to finish but anyhow, I'm getting nearer to the end and it's exciting to see your project come together. It's exciting to piece together a year's work page by page until you realize you've got more than three-hundred on your hands. This time I'll back it up. This time I'll back it up twice.

I write until my eyes are too tired to keep going or until there is a good movie on the television. While my steak was cooking, I've peeled the leftover apples and covered them in butter and sugar and crumbled some Petit Bruns on top. I'll stick it in the oven and enjoy my little treat before bedtime. I know I probably shouldn't but there is nothing quite as fun as watching a thriller when you're alone without a vehicle in a house out of the way of civilization and public transport.

Sometime before midnight, I turn the heat down in the living room and up in the bedroom, lights out, apart from a little reading lamp beside the sleigh bed with satin sheets and a down comforter. Again, probably not the best way to call on nice dreams but still good to stay on topic, I'll read about suicide or some other philosophical text from the vast library that Michael's father calls the Living Room. And then, when the moon is bright and high enough to bring the outdoors in, I'll sneak out one last time in the darkness to soak in the starry sky to smoke a cigarette and to watch Orion's belt come undone. I've never seen the stars so clearly in all my life. Afterwards, I'll come back inside, turn out all the lights and close my eyes while I listen to the frogs sing their songs until the birds stand-in at dawn. It's been so long since I've known quiet like this that I manage to sleep through the night without waking up. No drunks throwing things at my window; no women being harassed by five men down the road at five AM; no punks screaming from below begging me to invite them up. Just me and the moon and the stars and the snakes and the mice and the bugs. And that's enough.

Thank you to Michael and Viorel who made this week possible. It meant more to me than I can even say.

Needless to say, I feel like I've spent a week in Heaven and feel revived. Here, with all its maginificent creatures and sounds and lights and colours and tomorrow, when I board the train at Nogent-Le-Routrou, while I'm sipping a café allongé in the little bar just outside la Gare, it will be hard to bade adieu to Gué Bas. Hoping that the next visit isn't too far off because I could definitely get used to this.

And as for the book, no, it's not quite done but it's very close and I can't wait to see 'ce que ca donne!'

If this is what life could be, I want to live forever.

Bisous a tous.

Wednesday

This is a love letter.

To my dearest friends -

Make no mistake. This is a love letter.

I'm in another hotel bar, eating the same snacks I sold from 2001 to 2004 when I took that job at the Fairmont to pay for school. I swore ten years ago I'd never be like these idiots: buying over-priced shit to show off. I'd never be a big wallet tourist. You'll never see me in this kind of place.

The Manhattan is expensive but it's strong and the barmaid has brought me three cherries and a pen and paper so I'm feeling warm in my jeans and t-shirt while the rest of the room swarms in with their ballgowns and tuxedos. I feel like I'm in love. It is a perfect end to my perfect day in Canada's capital. Skating, poutine, beavertails, shopping for syrup, The Bay, CC.

This year has been heavy for us all. Deaths, marriages, babies, bankruptcies, lawsuits, violence, hospitals, breakups, breakdowns – pure madness. I can't believe we've made it through and yes, I realize it's not even close to over but we're getting over the hump...(when people say life is tough, this is precisely the kind of shit they're talking about!)

Thirty wasn't quite what I was expecting. As a little girl, thirty looked a lot more like white picket fences and rugrats and a lot less like this jet-setter fanstasy that is becoming my life. Living in Paris seemed like one of those things people said they'd do but never came through on. I expected to be settled down by now – somewhere in the country with a couple of kids, an apple tree and a typewriter; that was all I ever wanted or needed. By twenty, I seemed well on my way. A ring on my finger, finishing school and already talking about making littles ones. And then, before I knew it, I lost it all and my blank slate and empty bank account looked me square in the eye, gave me a big fat F and said 'do over', drowning me in debt and heartache. In shame and self-destructive behaviour.

And thank God it did. Because for everything I lost, I sure have made up for it in spades by making friends with the likes of you people.

Since LONG before I got married, love has been more than a bit of a fascination of mine. What the HELL it means; who's got it; who doesn't; how to win it and lose it; how to kill it dead; our tendency to convince ourselves we've found it when we're totally lost and how we never know just how good we've got it until it's gone. Love is that thing that both fuels us and ruins us. We're desperate to have it but once it's in the bag, we just don't appreciate it anymore. It's inate, in all of us and it's that one piece of sustenence that nobody tells you about when they send you on your way with your diploma, harping only about the roofs, the clothes and the shelter you're going to need down the line. Nobody tells you just how much you need love in your life. Youth swells the illusion of the urgency of it, age distills the hope a bit, even breeds cynicism until one day you look around you and you can't find a single happy couple in the flock and again - it puts it all in doubt and that terrifies me. Because, when you've spent a lifetime looking for the answers to these questions, if there isn't love in your life, you've got to ask yourself why you get out of bed in the morning at all. I've asked myself that question more times than I'd like to admit.

Not so long ago I was sitting in my apartment in Paris second-guessing every decision I'd made so far: the moves across the country or to new ones all-together, the jobs, the degrees, the men; the loyalty, the trust – every damn bit. My once glass half full of dreams was sitting empty on the kitchen table with a chunk of red sediment in the bottom of it and suddenly that cup wasn't half full anymore, it was just an empty, cracked, piece of shit Ikea goblet. I drank a four euro bottle of Bourgogne before dinner that night and was passed out cold by eight o'clock thinking dark thoughts alone in a dark room. The darkest thoughts I've had in a long while. Everyone was in so much pain. I couldn't make a single phone call home without hearing how shitty your days were, how bleak things were looking. It wasn't just me, it was all of us. Everything was so intense and it was killing me. Where was the love? Where did it all go? I know I had it once – I know because I wanted to drive with the windows open and hold hands and laugh all night long. I once wanted to make love in the grass and run through wheat fields and forests with no clothes on. I know I felt whole not so long ago. It was what had gotten me to Paris in the first place but lately, I hadn't been recognizing it anywhere, in anything or anybody. It was all just a big pile of poo. One stolen manuscript, one depressing apartment with mice and cold showers, one boyfriend who was all over the map, zero people in town I'd call 'friends' (not because I don't care about them but they're just not you - friendship takes time and trials to develop properly), a shitty job that paid shit just so I could stay in a country I wasn't even sure I wanted to be in. A country that just might eat me up and spit me out if I wasn't careful.

And then one of you walked into my apartment and made me laugh. You dragged me out of bed with cans of beer and André Ethier and you were obnoxious and rude and you woke me up. When I drunkenly blurted out that I wanted to die, you told me to shut up but I know you were listening even though you turned the music up so loud - almost so we couldn't hear our own voices - then looked me square in the eye and said maybe the single most important thing anyone has ever said to me to pull me out of the quicksand:

'If you do it, I won't come to your funeral.'

In the moment, I didn't care much but a good half hour into the evening I remembered what I'd forgotten all alone out there in Gay Paris – I already had love and apparently that was all we needed. I had LOTS and LOTS of it. It had filled me up and out and it was the reason I got out of bed in the morning. I once wanted to make the lot of you proud. And I definitely wanted you at my funeral. Shortly afterwards, that pretty picture I'd set out to paint in real life was bullshit and my thoughts were a heck of a lot clearer again. It wasn't real, these things I was suddenly after again and I'd given that kind of life a good hard try already once and walked away from it - more than that - ran away from it, sprinted even, after only a year and a half of marriage and a fistfull of pain. It all came flooding back. I'd never been such an angry, miserable, uninspired, lonely, bored, and heavy bitch in all my life as I was after walking down that aisle. So what was it I was waiting for? Why all of the sudden did I feel like I was missing something?

Because I was. I was missing you people.

I wasn't a fool. I knew that moving to France was a huge risk. People always say they'll keep in touch but rarely do. It's not malicious and I'm not judging; it's life and I'm no exception. It's hard enough maintaining regular contact with people who live in the same town as you but feeling close to friends when they're out living their own lives in another country – it's an awfully great expectation and it's too much to ask of anybody. And still, when I needed you most, you all came through for me. As usual. As always. Phone calls, emails, skypes, cds and all the words I needed to hear. And like Hermann Dune insisted 'Don't you worry a bit. Try to think about me.' It worked. And remembered what I was doing it all for. Why I was writing, living & loving - it was because you people existed. It was because we loved eachother (well, I hope you feel the same). That was worth celebrating.

Just when I was starting to think that it was all going to be okay again; despite everything; despite writing for years and producing shit; despite my up and down drama of a relationship; despite all the craziness that was happening to the lot of you; I had this sneaking suspicion that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Still unsure about what to do next – visa on the way out, a second wedding looming (this time for VERY different and far more practical reasons), feeling like I just couldn't be a thirty year old babysitter any longer, I played hookie from work and pretended I was sick. Turns out, mentally, my excuse would likely hold up in court and I wasn't quite right in the head – that time off was not only deserved but necessary). That morning, I was determined to figure it out on my own. I boiled some water, made a cup of coffee and listened to a cd from an ex-boyfriend that to this day is still one of my all-time favourites because it reminds me of a time when everything was up in the air and life was throwing signs at me by the dozen. I would ask God for a sign. If my eyes were open and my stomach was willing to accept the hard truth it usually preferred to deny, it ought to work, it usually did.

Minutes later, my neighbour jumped out of the sixth floor window and landed in my courtyard. I found her lying there, almost lifeless, shocked and apart from calling the Pompiers, I had no idea what to do next.

That fucked me up more than I can tell you. You all know the story by now: the blood, the bones, the breakdown. The woman survived and I made it out of there with just nightmares and anxiety attacks. Could've been worse. Could've been much worse. It had this strange effect on me, though. I was dreaming about it again and again, obsessing over the details of the day and, like any woman – wondering what it all meant. I couldn't nail it down, though. It could've meant a whole slew of things:

1.-I ought to just go through with it myself already.

2. -I saved someone's life. I should be thankful, proud, even feel good about myself.

3. -DO NOT get married again, you idiot!

4. -This town is not for you, leave, PARIS, VITE! You don't belong.

5. -It doesn't get better. It only gets worse. If I'm not careful, I'm next.

6. -Finish this fucking book about suicide already, loser!

The possibilities were endless. God could really be an asshole when he wanted to be.

I couldn't figure it out and my head was spinning with regrets and worries realizing that the rest of my life was moving on over here while I was over there trying to be bohemian but making a big ol' depressive mess of it all. After three long years of trying to shed the fear, it was back and all flared up again like a bad yeast infection that you're too embrassed to tell anyone about, one that's in far too private a place to scratch in public so you just go home and put some cream on it, hoping for the best but knowing that it's going to come back again and that this is only a temporary solution. Only one thing seemed crystal clear for me after the jump. I needed to come home. I needed to see my friends and my family. I know I wasn't supposed to need anybody, but I did. I needed you.

So I hopped on a plane back here yet again hoping that a little time here would cheer me up. It often does. A little tequila, some good music, a benny, a corned beef sandwich, sleepovers, bowling, guest brunch shifts after late nights of binge drinking – Canada is still my miracle cure for depression. It's not Toronto, though, it's you people that make this place. I've always known that this town wasn't for me. The drama, my inability to keep anything private or sacred, the booze, the money, the drugs – it overwhelms me. All of these lives and loves I've led and lost – this place has elements of them all. It's a lot for my fragile heart to take and I've always known that I needed to venture out there on my own to find myself (SO cliché, I know but that's me, cliché) and part of what propelled me to head to Paris in the first place was this weird series of coincidences and this feeling that I was meant to live in France (the French education, the last name, the food, the wine, the lovers, the writers, the free asthma medication – every compass pointed there) but without YOU, without the people who have made my life possible, I'd never have had the courage or the confidence to even try. Before I left in 2007, I was just a broken down Chevy and when General Motors went belly-up, you guys got my motor running again, paid for the fix-ups and the touch-ups and even offered to change my tires for me when it all went flat. You literally saved my life and got me back on track and I owe you my life.

Growing up in Oshawa and Vancouver and finally in Toronto, I couldn't have been farther from making it to Paris and settling down there to do what I love. And yet, suddenly, here I am, not so far from this fantasy that I dreamed up as a girl. It most definitely hasn't all been easy or fun but it's incredible all the same, this irony that's coming to life and hey, if we don't suffer, what the Hell do we have to write about, right? It's all got me to thinking about worries and regrets. All of us, we've spent so many years worrying about what our lives would become, what they could become if we weren't careful: accidental babies, mental breakdowns, business failures, divorced, alone, bitter, poor, having to speak French all day every day..GASP! In the end, none of the worrying did us much good. We've all had to face our destinies as they've come for us with black cloaks and those scary reaper scythes and all those lives we were trying so fucking hard to avoid, they got every one of us and, let's face it, they're not so bad. In fact, some of them have actually improved our quality of life. They've given us futures.

Life is what it is. It's a happy accident and that's it. I think of the hours I've spent making plans for this future or that future, rather than just going with it, I'm amazed at my own naiveté. Who did I think I was, anyway? We've all been through the shit and not only have we survived but we're doing pretty okay for ourselves. No, we may not be rich or in control of a God Damned thing but we're good people and that's something, it is! I for one can say that those things I've always dreamed of finding: real love, a family, traveling, spending my days reading and writing and playing music and not working for an asshole in a place that inspires me, that's worth a lot more than cash. Christ, I've pretty well done it all. And much like my grandma said just before she died:

'At night, I lay in bed and I think to myself – I really have done it all. Nothing's really fun anymore, you lose that, but I appreciate things and I am so thankful for my life. It's amazing'

I see it now and I'm fucking glad that woman jumped out that window while everything was up in the air. It's brought me back to you guys and now I remember again.

I'm happy to say I've already got more love in my life than most people ever get in a lifetime. It's in my blood and my bones. You're the smile on my face, that spinny buzz in my head like when I've had few too many beers, you're the consciences perched on these shoulders of mine and that warm feeling I get in my heart whenever anyone says the word 'love'.

I'm not looking for love anymore. I've found it. I've found you all. And they're right. Love is all you need.

I've got myself a big, happy, dysfunctional family full of new adorable babies, picket fences & typewriters and well, I'm going to plant that apple tree this spring in Normandie and soon I'll have had everything I've ever needed. So, one day, when I finish this book and publish it and make my fortune, I'll pay you back for everything you've done for me over the years. I'll call you all and fly over for Thanksgiving (because it's the only sacred holiday left) and I'll make you a duck-stuffed duck because they don't quite get the turkey dinner thing over there yet. We'll eat foie gras with griottes and eau de vie and drink bottles of delicious cheap wine and when it's time for dessert, we'll all head out there together and pick an apple a piece: peel 'em, chop 'em up and soak 'em unpasteurized butter and brown sugar; maple syrup too if you're bringing it. While it's in the oven, we'll nibble on stinky cheeses and let the kids play around in the yard, fantasizing themselves about how one day they'll create something for themselves like the lives that we live now. And when it's good and hot and cooked through and through, we'll take it out and each take a fork and dig in together and remember these times and laugh at the thought that we'd never make it through.

So do me a favour and keep your fingers crossed for me and think positive thoughts of me locking myself in a library basement and finally finishing this puppy. I'm due.

You are the great loves of my life.

Thank you.

You are literally everything to me.

*********************************************************************

HERE ARE THE SONGS ON THE CD I've made for you all. I hope you love it and I apologize for the bad sound quality of my piano. This digital recorder isn't the best and I haven't played in ages. Each song on this album has a special meaning and if you know me, you'll get why. If you don't, just listen. There's some good shit on there.

TOURIST IN MY TOWN:

- Winter 2011 -

FUCK YOU – Cee Lo Green
CASTLES & TASSELS – Adam Green
US – Regina Spektor
AXIS: THRONES OF LOVE – Pink Mountaintops
IF THERE'S SUCH A THING AS LOVE – Magnetic Fields
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE – The Smiths
THERE GOES THE FEAR – Doves
FIRST DAY OF SPRING – Gandharvas
TRY TO THINK ABOUT ME – Hermann Dune
HOME – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
I DON'T REALLY LOVE YOU ANYMORE – Magnetic Fields
HOLIDAY – Pink Mountaintops
SHANGRI-LA – M Ward
ANOTHER TOWN – Regina Spektor
DON'T THINK TWICE – Me, on piano
TOURIST IN YOUR TOWN – Pink Mountaintops

If all goes well, I'll be back on the 1^st of June for a visit and to get my visas sorted out. Looking forward to every minute of it.

Lots and lots of love.

A bientôt.

Julie Jolicoeur

XOXO

Monday

La 'Positive Attitude' des Paresseuses

This week a lot of stuff happened but nothing happened at the same time.In many ways, it felt like a scene I've already lived, already wtinessed, already watched from outside myself and felt alongside of me, burdened by every awful and beautiful emotion known to man in the process. It's all a bit much to digest. And I find I keep thinking about THE END.

For those of you who don't know, I've been writing a book about a man who fails to kills himself. No, he doesn't throw himself out of a window. He'd never be that brave. And while some events/places may ressemble my past, they say to write what you know and this isn't me here at all and it's entirely fictional and hey, I'm much more used to telling the truth than being able to make up whatever ending I'd like to.

As a teenager, the boy takes a pile of pills with some vodka and feels like an idiot the next day when he wakes up and realizes, he can't even get suicide right. He leaves for University the following autumn and after a humbling experience, decides to try love instead. He really loves. But all that love, it gets mixed up in a pile of firsts and fears and he jilts his bride at the altar, gets in his car and just drives until he can't anymore. He eventually finds himself pulling over in the middle of nowhere when his car breaks down, closes his eyes and goes to sleep.

He recalls a dream he had as a child several times before. A house. A strange ceremony of death and spirituality that he still cannot understand in his adulthood. He remembers cloaked men tearing off their faces one by one in a hall of mirrors. He sees claws in the place of hands and the head of an owl where the head of man should be. When he looks in the mirror, he sees that he too is exactly the same.

He awakes the following morning to a tap on the window, a farmer up early to check his cows, asking if he needs a hand with the car. The nice family takes him in, gives him work and the quiet he needs to figure out his life, they make him one of the family. But the man can't help himself. His needs and desires grow larger than he and the man gets caught jerking off to a picture of the farmer's daughter in her room while she's at college. He is asked to leave and isn't particularly troubled about his moral capacities.

He moves to Toronto where he tries to reconstruct his life but makes a bigger mess of things than he means to. Works in a crapy old pub on King St. East and befriends all sorts of people he never imagined himself knowing. There are a lot of drunken nights and a lot of free-flowing drugs and girls and when he is asked for help by two people in the same situation, one on the 'good' side, one on the 'bad' side, he is torn. His hesitation leads him to quit and makes him ponder where his sense has gone to. He hasn't a clue what to do now. His ex-wife wants nothing to do with him. The only girl that he's had even slight feelings for since has already left him for the bus boy at the bar. He knows it's time to move on but to what?

He travels to Paris, rents a small apartment in the 11^th and tries to figure out his next move. He meets another woman. She is terrified of love. She is worried that it will swallow her up again, like it did the last time when she let someone in and he cheated and lied and broke her heart in two. Walking around the Bastille Market on a Sunday afternoon – when she stands him up for their date - he notices that she is indeed there and following him, watching his every move but saying nothing. He confronts her and for the first time in a long time, he really feels as though he's getting to know somebody. He wants to love her. She is beautiful and interesting and makes him laugh. They marry in Paris the following Februrary and start a life there and a family soon after. Life couldn't be better and he is finally able to shed his guilt and confusion over his last relationship. They have a son. For the first time, he is happy. He sees the world for everything he had always hoped he would see it for. There is magic again and light until one morning, on the 27^th day of his 27^th month, his son suffers from a heart complication and dies in his arms.

The couple try to recover from the tragedy but cannot. They are devestated. Each one spending sobering night after night facing the bleakness of it all. One night, they finally have a powerful connection and agree to make it work but by dawn, she has packed her bags and left him. Alone again.

He has nothing left. No reason to live.

The man, who cannot face another moment of so-called living goes for a final walk. An all-day stroll through Paris to see its beauty and filth walk alongside one another and to remember. When the Pont des Arts finally empties, he will hang himself from it. It will be done. Parisians would like the statement. It would be a good death.

He visits one last person before he ready to go. A guard he used to smoke hash with in front of the Mazzarine Library who asks him to come insisde and read while he does his rounds, then he will join him for a cigarette. While he's in the library, the man discovers a story that is almost identical to his. The similarities are too strange: the women's names are almost the same, the events scarily akin . He flips through the pages and can't help but see something beautiful in the fact that his tale makes for such an interesting one. A tragedy but a great read. He wonders whether he lives or dies. Even his strange dream is in there. How bizarre. Was it a strange coincidence or a sign? That depends on the ending...

He flips to the last page and sees the end of his tale. He smiles. It was a good ending. A really good ending.

He leaves the library and stands on the empty pont des arts. Paris is so beautiful before the break of day. After the drunks have fallen over and the shops are closed and the last kebabs and after hours are locked up. The Eiffel Tower is but a shadow in the distance and only the occasional taxi disturbs the perfect silence. The cobblestone roads, in all their quiet glory act as a sounding board as the river licks its banks. The air feels fresher. He understands now. He gets it. He wants to jump into the Seine and celebrate. He wants to live! He can't remember ever feeling this alive.

Just then, an owl perches on the bridge beside him. The owl speaks but of course he cannot understand him, they are not real words. The owl's eyes pierce through him and then the animal bends over and pecks at the man's toes until he falls from the bridge to his death; hanging himself unconscious with his own rope before drowning face down in the filthy Seine.

WHAT? You just told us the end? Yeah, so? It's such a small part of the story.

So, this week, my neighbour jumped out of the window and survived. The last guy I was in love with had a baby with someone else. My boyfriend's psychotic ex girlfriend called AGAIN, fucking up my work week AGAIN. I confronted her, she acted like a spoiled maniac and said really hurtful things and told me I won, as though it were a competition. Thanks to her, my boyfriend and I have spent the weekend on constant replays of 'the big talk' because that's what happens when someone interferes too much in your life. I'm on stress overload. How much suffering can a person handle before they melt down? When does the good part start? Please God, tell me when the good part starts!

I have a plane ticket leaving for the 28^th of December that I don't know what to do with. I could stay here and ruin my chances of ever becoming legal in this country and let go on the love of my life forever aka, play it out til it's good & done. I could go back to Toronto but I feel like like that ship has sailed. I could go to the countryside but I'm not sure retreating to the middle of nowhere at this point is a very productive move either or I could go somewhere else and just pretend like there is no beginning and no end. Anybody know how to get to Never Never Land by any chance? I've been watching an awful lot of LOST re-runs to get myself in the mood but as usual, I keep having nightmares about monsters and the black smoke.

The point of this story is - there are no happy endings in life. No story's a good one anyway until it's done and the main characters aren't supposed to know what happens before the author tells them. Snooping is dangerous.

Eventually you've got to stop trying to write pages and focus on letting the story write itself. When I can't find anymore words for feelings, it's because there aren't words left to describe how I'm going to miss this if it's gone. Still, with everything going on, I'm trying my best to keep a positive attitude.

I bought this ridiculous book at the FNAC about things to do to STAY positive. It's really silly and reminds me of a really long Cosmo article. Perfect bathroom reading. It's called La positive attitude des parasseuses and reccommends all the things I'm already doing to deal: magnesium in high doses, less coffee, more sports and ample meditation. I have the warm baths and the comfort food and I'm trying not to drink either (it's not easy when I remember how all-too easy it is to drown your troubles away in a couple of gin and tonics and some basement bar with loud music). The rest of the book basically breaks down the important tenets: Self-confidence (check...fine), Personal Development (c'mon, I actually caved and bought a self help book, I'd say I'm participating here too), Worring about ME (I think I've had my dose of this), Tears are good for you (good thing because I've had an abundancy), Moral or WILL in English (I've still got a bit, not to worry), Orgasm (check) Heaven (this one, i seriously don't get. It suggests I imagine the wonders of Heaven...seriously, France? To give you an idea of the grand sophistication of this book, it refers to Heaven as a magic country where allt he shops are open on Sundays where hairstylists never mess up their haircuts and where silver grows on trees – they MAY simply be referring to Canada but I cannot be certain...) Then they warn you of the two greatest enemies of man:

LAZINESS and PESSIMISM.

A good friend this week told me to keep my head up. I think I'm going to keep it up. Already, I'm going to buy some Christmas lights today for my mini tree, do a couple good deeds and throw a clothing swap dinner party. That ought to keep me busy and bubbly for a couple of days.

Maybe it's because of the defenestratror, maybe it's because Ive had so many beatiful messages from good friends lately, maybe it's the simple fact of being in a place where you have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHAT TO DO but, I'm writing again. After a big long break of paralysis, I'm writing again and I'm glad. And I am going to boil it all down to the lobotomy that occurred when my neighbour jumped ou the window for me to find her, changing the order of the universe and putting things back into perspective. After all, we can't obsess over the end. It may make things a Hell of a lot more clear but there's a whole lot more to the story than just the end. And right now, I'm going to concentrate on why I came to Paris in the first place - to write.

I'm going to take a little bit of everybody's advice this week. I'm going to forgive. I'm going to ignore. I'm going to write more and worry less. I'm going to keep busy and positive. I am going to try to stop worrying about the END and start succumbing to the fact that just like everyone else, I'll just have to wait and see. Oh, and I'm going to assume that the end really only is a very small part of the story and that all the tragedy makes a lot more sense after you've skipped ahead and read the last pages. It'll be a good ending. It'll be a very good ending.

What's going to happen next?

****Eventually she dies too. But that is only a small part of the story. ****

Defenestration means acquainted with the night.

Within the first few weeks of arriving in Paris, thanks to a scholastic friend and Merriam Webster's word of the day, I learned a new word.

DEFENESTRATION: a throwing of a person or thing out of a window.

Over the weeks that followed, like any good student or keener, I tried to toss the word out there with locals, after all, the first important French lesson I learned in France was that all words ending with 'TION' were the same in either language.

« DEFENESTRATION , ca veut dire jetter quelqu'un ou quelque chose d'un fenetre »

« More than that, it can also mean to throw oneself out a window ».

Really? An entire word dedicated to going out the window? Are there that many people going out the window? Apparently, no one here seemed shocked when I brought up the word. In fact, I was rather shocked at the lack of shock. Everyone here already knew the word. There were defenestrations all the time. We lived in Paris, after all. From then on, I started hearing the word regularly. It was in the news almost every other day.

A couple weeks ago, in the 20^th neighbhourhood, there was this amazing thing that happened. A ltitle boy, a year and a half old, I believe, fell out of the sixth floor window. Sounds like the beginnings of a mejor tragedy but a miracle ensured making this one of the few pieces of news I actually followed. The baby should have been dead but he wasn't. Three kids were left alone in the apartment.

The night before the accident (this happened on a holiday Monday), the bar beneath the apartment was set to close their awning, like always, like every night, every closing. But it wasn't working. The mechanism was broken, had a glitch – in any event, the owner gave up and would try again Tuesday.

At the same moment, on the very same evening, a man, a doctor, was walking his kid down the same street. The child, not much older than the toddler who DEFENESTRATED himself, looked up, noticed the baby about to jump and got his father's attention by pointing up. The doctor, able to see the child was about to fall was able to prepare himself, put his arms out and be ready to catch the child.

The baby fall six stories, bounced on the awning below, back up into the air and right into the arms of the doctor, father, saviour. Within seconds, the baby fell right to sleep. Shock for sure.

DEFENESTRATION. Alright, alright. Here is my new example for the word, I thought to myself.

Then Friday morning happened.

I was supposed to be at work. A couple days of flu-like symptoms, vomitting, aches, a sick baby all week and very little sleep, I needed a morning off. Michael offered to go watch Zac for the morning so I decided to sleep in. When he got up to shower, like any two people who are going on little to no sleep, we got in an argument over the laundry in the bathroom (I don't always like to fold 'au plus vite' and sometimes I'll make a point of taking a bath, rather than shed my laziness for 5 minutes to fold the laundry that hangs over the tub; Friday was one of those, 'I don't know if I'll ever get it to it...' kind of days). Anyway, I was convinced that my morning of sleeping in was already ruined by our little spat and lay in bed staring at the wall for a couple hours, thinking my angry thoughts and sending bitchy text after bitchy text.

It was always a strange feeling to be at home when you weren't supposed to be there. You heard day-time noises that you often missed out on. The sound of the postman knocking on door after door trying to find the woman to whom this package or that package is addressed. The sound of kids running down the stairs and off to school. The sound of exhausted mothers trudging back up again after the drop-off.

By noon, I gave up. I wasn't going to fall back asleep. I might as well get up, grab some breakfast on the way to meet Michael & Zac, maybe pick up some kind of thank you for taking my place for the morning. I got up, made my way to the bathroom to get ready, pulled the shower curtain closed and undressed and then I heard a strange noise, a very strange noise.

BAM!

It's hard to articulate in words but imagine this sound to feel like the person who lives above you must have just dropped a bar bell on the floor. It was loud, it made a physical impact and for the life of me, I couldn't imagine what the Hell it could have been. And then, I heard it. I heard whimpering in the courtyard behind my shower wall. Anyone who's ever been to my apartment, likely remembers that my bathroom houses 3 strange holes to the outdoors. Two windows the size of cookie boxes and an open great across from the toilet, allowing the room to air out and making the tiles feel like a hockey rink in December. We Canadians weren't completely used to that much outdoors in our bathrooms. I heard another little voice. It was strange. I had never heard a sound from any of the other apartments before and this, this was literally as though there was someone right in my bathroom.

But that was impossible. There was nothing out there but tin roofs and pigeons. There was no way to get out there without going out the window. Unless.

I opened the little window above my shower and there she was. One of the only neighbours in my building I saw on a regular basis, always smiled to, quick hello, a held door here and there. I didn't know her name but I knew her.

« Oh my God! Are you okay? What happened? Did you fall? I'm going to call the pompiers, okay? »

She was looking around for me, half in a daze, almost as though she wasn't really there. When she finally noticed me in the window, I looked around at her body to see the dammage. Her leg bone was coming right out of her leg and staring me in the face. She was bleeding a lot. Jesus Christ. How the Hell did this happen? Still, I didn't think much about it. There wasn't time. She needed help and I was thankful for fight or flight.

I figured she fell out the window, that the terrace broke or the window broke or something along these lines. At this point, defenestration is the furthest thing from my mind. This woman lives only a floor above me with her little kids. She dropped a tea towel once onto my balcony and came down to my place to pick it up. It was pretty cold out, though, I should check again, see if she needs a blanket while we wait for the fire department. Seeing her leg bone is making me nauseous but I know there's no time for this crap. I've got to get help and fast. She's in a lot of pain.

I bang on my neighbour Martine's door and we call the fire department together. My cell phone keeps dying every time I hit dial. They answer, ask a lot of questions and eventually, Martine just tells them to hurry and suggests I don't throw my duvet out the window if I'd like to keep it. It'll just be covered in blood. She's going to be okay, anyway. Martine, like me, remembered her apartment wasn't much higher than ours. She reassured the woman by telling her the fire department was on the way and I ran upstairs to knock on her door to make sure the children or someone else wasn't home or at risk and I ran into the hallway to see if there wasn't a window I could climb through to get to her. Rushing through the hallway, and back up and down the stairs to the courtyard to see if anyone else knew how the Hell I could get on the roof, I crossed a man looking somewhat frantic on his cell phone as well. I noticed the cleaning lady by the mailboxes and told her that a woman had fallen out of the window and needed help. The firemen were on their way but did she know if...

« NON! » the man screamed at the top of his lungs, running faster than I'd ever seen anyone run in my life. People were rushing in and out of the apartment to see what had happened and the man, it was obvious, knew her quite well. He propelled himself out the window and onto the roof and within seconds was by her side, holding her head and crying.

The cleaning lady informed me that she had just seen the woman between the 5^th and 6^th floors. And then I realized, this wasn't a little fall and it wasn't an accident. Another woman said she had heard that she and her husband had broken up a few times and that she wasn't dealing very well. They had kids.

In the next half hour a lot of things happened. The firemen showed up with ladders and re-animation equipment, covered her body with blankets and were checking her signs. Did she have feeling in her legs? What happened? Soon after, the police showed up in numbers. There were people in the hallway, people on the roof, people in the apartment. And then I heard it:

« Defenestration, 115 rue St. Maur. Woman. Mid-30s. »

After an hour or so, they were eventually able to put the woman on a plank and pull her out the window. She lay outside my apartment door for quite a while, oxygen mask, panic, vitals. One paramedic told me that he didn't think she would make it, that he wasn't sure she was even conscious. There was a lot of blood and she had fallen from a good height. Another told me that she was conscious and not to worry. Then another, that if she survived, it would be a miracle.

I was in total shock. I hadn't cried yet. I had been too busy processing everything that had happened. Eventually, I was able to call Michael to tell him why I was late but that I was on my way. If only so I wouldn't have to be alone in here anymore.

On my way to the subway, I noticed that they still hadn't moved the ambulance. It was sitting stationary in front of the apartment and I assumed the worst. What if she hadn't made it? What if this was a suicide? What if I hadn't gotten there fast enough? How could this be happening?

The weekend was a bit of a blur. Saturday, I found myself re-playing the event over and over in my head wondering what exactly made her defenestrate. Wondering if she was alive. I kept seeing her vacant eyes staring back at me, her leg bone popping through her pale skin. I kept seeing the sheer terror in her husband's eyes. Panic attacks ensued. I was terrified to be alone in the apartment, every little noise made me jump, burst into tears. I didn't want to be in here but I couldn't move. This wasn't an accident, I kept telling myself. She'd just had enough. I couldn't take a shower or go outside. I was paralyzed. And all because of a woman I barely knew but what if she was right? If she couldn't handle it, how would I?

We all think about, from time to time, what it would be like to take our own life, most of us just aren't able to talk about it without people thinking we're absolutlely nuts. It's not, for most of us, that we really want to do it - that we want to die - but sometimes it can just feel like the only choice we have left. It's Plan B. The In-Case-Of-Emergency, little blue pill. If push comes to shove. It's there and throwing yourself out the window was as good a way as any to end it, unless of course you live.

The worst of it wasn't even wondering what had happened. The worst of it was living this moment of pure darkness with these strangers. The worst of it was that these kinds of things happened all the time, to families, to mothers and father and other lonely young people who I smile at every day without even noticing that they are so close to the edge. The worst of it, is that even when I feel those pangs of emptiness myself, no one can see it on my face, either. What fools we are to take people for who they pretend to be. Isn't it partly our responsibility to intervene? No. We can't. That path has its own word too – GUILT. We can't be responsible for everyone. But why not? I could have offered her a cup of coffee sometime or offered to help with her kids or carried her groceries up the stairs. I could have done something. This woman lives only meters away from me. If not me, then who?

I kept my phone off all weekend. I didn't feel like talking to the police or recounting Friday's events again to anyone. Friday night I couldn't sleep, I just kept seeing her face over and over again and it was making me tremble. It was making me think of Robert Frost. I tried to forget. Tried to think of other, funnier things, anything really but what had just happened. Every time I tried, the same thing would happen over and over again, my heart would beat faster and I couldn't breathe and I imagined how she could have been me. She could have been anyone.

What if she hates me for calling the fire department? I mean, who expects to jump out of a window to their death and instead of seeing pearly gates, sees only their young Canadian neighbour and her leg bone protruding from her body? Is this final humiliation going to give her the will to live? I doubt it.

There are days of such despair among us all. I'll bet you all know more than a few people who think about defenestration all the time. Not because they want to die but because they just give up. Because it's too fucking sad. Too hard. Too much. C'est lourd. I'm not going to lie, sometimes when you look at the bigger picture, looking into your possible futures, it sure looks a lot less like the Disney movie we were projected as kids and a lot more like The Silence of the Lambs. Love isn't easy. The day-to-day isn't easy. You can't just make a happy family happen. Most of the beauty in our lives comes, not from things that we witness alone but how connected we feel to those around us. And sometimes, it's just plain lonely out there. Heck, I've got enough friends that I should never feel alone and still do. What about someone who has nobody? Sometimes we forget just how much other people are suffering alongside of us and this great waste of lifethat is what happens when, for one reason or another, we just can't be with other people. It's a symptom of depression, isolating yourself from the rest of the world. We all do it occasionally. Death does it to me, every time. Break-ups. Cancer and just plain despair.

You know what I'm talking about: 'Things are never going to get better. It's time to be a realist. People aren't good and life is fucking hard. This is as good as it gets'

I am sad today. Sad for a lot of different reasons. Sometimes it's easier to have a concrete reason for your tristesse. Today I was planning to buy a Christmas tree. To listen to Frank Sinatra and hang my stockings while I drink coffee with Baileys and fry eggs and bacon. But I am not. Today I am thinking about a practical stranger who jumped out of the sixth floor window hoping to die and how my being there at the right time had to mean something. It was a sign of something. It has to be because I can't think of anything else. Maybe we're more connected than we think. This woman lives only meters away from me, every day and had I not been here Friday morning, I would have never known what had happened to her. I'd have never known she wanted to die, that she was ready to go. That it was over. It's too much to process. All I can see is her face at what she'd hoped would be the end.

Just to cope with it, I've got to focus on the fact that it's snowing outside and I'm overwhelmed. I can't find more words than that because there's nothing more to it. It's too much.

Her husband stopped by last night to update me. Only her legs are broken. She is alive and it's a miracle she landed on the roof and not on the concrete. It was a miracle someone happened to be home to hear it and find her. It was a miracle she had survived the ordeal with only broken legs. He was greatful that I was there and thanked me for calling the fire department right away. He looked sadder than anyone I had ever seen in my life. It was too much. I told him I could help him with the kids for a few weeks if he needed some time to be at the hospital and wasn't surprised when he didn't elaborate on what exactly had happened.

Later, I heard him in the stairwell, coming home with their kids telling them that mommy was still in the hospital because she broken her legs falling out the window.

Too much.

I got it. DEFENESTRATION was a very important word. Important because nobody, NOBODY could handle hearing the whole story, in all its gruesome details and black reality. It was just another way of saying 'too much.'

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry

Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;

And further still at an unearthly height,

O luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.

I have been one acquainted with the night.

-Robert Frost