Looking for my motivation

It was sunny when I woke up. But, as they say, if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes.

Paris is off in the distance behind the hills on the other side of the trees and the Seine. I know because I remember it and how to get there. The map tells me that it is about 70 km to the southwest. I could follow the Seine, but that would add many kilometers with it's meanderings. The highway is faster. There is also a train. I have taken it before. Or my motorcycle, but it's battery keeps dying.

Come to think of it, my motorcycle and I share a similar energy level, only I can take it to the garage and hopefully it will get better right away. I don't know what it will take for me.

It's been almost two months since I have gone into the city. I used to walk all over it and love doing that, stopping at a café. I feel I am too busy now. Now I zoom in and out, accomplishing my objective and leaving that fast. It's a good thing that I need to get my hair cut again soon. Maybe I will stop by MORA and see if cast iron skillets for Tarte Tatin count as baking supplies.

Too busy? Too busy as I sit here and don't do everything I'd be so delighted to have done? No. It's not too busy. It's not too busy at all. It's too under the influence of the effect of isolation and the the continuously gray skies that find it in themselves to pour water down upon us every day for a period of time between moments of diffuse light cutting across the landscape, making the leaves glow for a brief instant. I need to rake and mow the scruffy lawn -- or what's left of it since the workers criss-crossed it with scaffolding and wheelbarrows of stucco and cement for months on end --, but I know that I will hear chuckling as soon as I have my rubber boots on, and my gloved hands hold the rake: the rain will begin to fall again. It's much harder to rake and burn sodden leaves. This has not been crisp fall weather. For once, the summer crisped everything.

I got one coat of sealer on the balcony planks on an afternoon when it didn't rain long enough to go from one end to the other, not having to squeegee the puddles first. I worried the planks were too damp, and since the bottoms are not treated, I hoped that the humidity could escape from the bottom. However, under the beaded up water are saturation marks in the planks. I need to do another coat, fast.

There are the windows I have not yet done. They depress me.

Three is also the little problem of the Paris Bercy Masters 1000. It's day 4.

Now I know, anyway, why they hold the Blues festival in Mantes, Blues sur Seine, in November.

I have, however, looked into getting a wood stove installed in the cold, unused fireplace, and to my credit, I have nearly finished my end of the work. Dispatched that in a couple of afternoons.

It was relatively easy. I knew what models interested me, and I knew the constraints of our fireplace and conduit.

"Madame, auriez-vous la possibilité de venir visiter notre showroom?" Yes, I replied, I would have the possibility of coming to visit your "showroom", but only after I have determined that any of the some 400 models you carry will work in my home. I prefer to do this by Internet. I can see what they look like perfectly well, merci, and I know how they work. I just need to know which, if any, will work here.

That's when I launch into my architect routine. I tell them that our house dates from 1865 (I always hear an indrawn breath of the dawning of comprehension) and that the fireplace does not work, has not, in fact, ever worked to our knowledge. Without drawing breath, I explain that I stuck my head into the grate, lying on my back, and saw two 150 mm metal pipes leading up through the bearing wall. The fireplace, I go on, was an afterthought, the consequence of a flight of imagination from -- most probably -- the cinema producer, who is said to have bought the house to spend his weekends in the countryside (he couldn't have been very successful, I always think, looking around me at this small house), and who preferred something more dramatique et imposant than the sort of insert common in the 19th century, such as can be seen at the house of Monet and the salle at L'Hôtel Baudy in Giverny.

..

..

"C'est un décor de scène," I finish with a flourish, leaving my interlocuteur impressed with my understanding of the situation. I know they are nodding their heads in agreement.

"Oui, oui, Madame. C'est sur. Les maisons du 19ème ne sont pas de tout adaptées aux normes d'aujourd'hui." I can feel their great sympathy with my plight.

"Mais, il y a quelque chose qu'on peut faire installer, non?" Here I explain that someone else, a vague someone else who might very well be their competition, told me that there are smaller poêles with conduits that can work in the hollow space in the wall.

"Ah, oui!" I am assured. They have one. It's exactly not what would work, but I have to have the information to get the information, or talk to exactly the right person first by great good fortune because I have had several different, contradictory, replies to that question. I decided I trusted most the guy -- the first guy -- who told me that he would not want to sell me the Shaker at more than 3,000 euros (plus conduit and installation), but one that cost 1,000 euros less, the Morso, the only one in their line of Danish design wood stoves with the smaller 120 mm conduit.

"Il y a les normes d'aujourd'hui et je suis responsable comme installateur -- comprenez?" Yes, I understood. I want someone who respects the current building standards. I want my wood stove to work and my house to remain standing.

There was the guy, very nice and from Brittany, Douarnenez to be as specific as he was, who told me, "Mais, Madame! On peut toujours réduire tous nos poêles!" I didn't like the sound of that, although my husband thought it made sense when I told him. I explained that another guy was happier to lose the profit on an extra 1,000 in sales rather than propose such a thing, and he seemed pretty convinced by that. Then I showed him the picture.

"J'aime bien celui-là. C'est bien."

"Laisse-moi te montrer celui que j'ai beaucoup aimé." I scrolled and clicked and the picture of the Shaker came up, "C'est ça, mais sans le banc."

"Je préfère l'autre. Celui-là fait un peu," he hesitated, "araignée." It was "arachnid". I could see his point. I was a little worried about its longish Shaker-style legs inside our fireplace, too. The fire might look like a robot with his head on fire, staring helplessly out of the fireplace at us. Besides, we have some city friends who are terrified of spiders, but they come out here anyway, expecting us to rid the premises of everything with eight legs, especially the ones with thick and hairy legs and bodies. I am referring to the spiders, of course. Those are the really impressive ones.

If we order the poêle by the 15th of the month, we can still work out a way to benefit from the 40% tax credit for the wood stove and conduit, significantly reducing its cost to us. I might try one other dealer to see if they can quote us a lower installation price.

By January, we should be enjoying the radiant warmth and atmosphere provided by a wood stove in our hearth.
....

Wisp

....

Nearing the last problem for the petit balcon

Where his rail will go

We haven't even gotten to the real problem, even after all the ones, big and little, of materials and tools, requiring time and perseverance, that my husband, the doctor turned carpenter, has had to solve to get this far. It is in the photo above. This is where the old balcony was. Long ago, the contractor was hired to rebuild this entire structure over the entry that isn't really the entry. Or, not the one anyone actually ever uses, unless no one is home when they come in. It gets bolted again behind one's entry to keep the big cat, Shadow, from opening it and letting drafts in. I could tell you about the winter nights she let herself out, when we had forgotten, and ran the furnace at full tilt all night long; the thermostat is right next to this door. But that's another story.

When the workers decided to do less for more, my husband picked up the job of making the new balcony railing. He had been itching to build something around here for awhile, and he saw his chance. I was worn down. We needed a balcony railing. I was sick of the professionals. Perhaps it was better that he give it a try, after all, if it didn't come out so great, he had an excellent excuse, and I thought I could summon up the generosity of spirit to find just about anything he did wonderful.

The only problem is that once he began, working from my drawings, I realized that there was going to be -- a problem. When I drew up the new balcony railing based on the old one, I assumed it would be built at the same time as a new structure for the little roof below it. As such, it would be anchored in the supporting structure. This, I realized once he had started cutting the tenons and routering out the mortises --don't ask -- was not what was going to happen, since the old structure ended up being left in place. The old rail had sat on top of the beams, and this was the only thing left to do now, short of tearing the whole thing below apart.

This is not ideal. This is fragile. I brought it up a few times, but he didn't seem interested in exploring the problem. He had others, more immediate, and more pressing.

I'm not so sure, though.

Maybe I can find a galvanized Simpson post base we can attach to the beams and sink the pin into the bottom of the posts. Let us hope, because what's there is not acceptable. Notice the nails sticking up from the corners. That's what held the posts in place.

Alright, there is also the fact that the handrails and horizontals are embedded in the stucco, but.

Those are some of the paving brick samples anchoring the straps to apply pressure while the wood glue sets.

Speaking of paving, still no word from the workers, who have not yet returned to finish.

"On sera là, Madame, je vous le promets, dès que les briques sont livrées." We shall see.
....

The Square of Angels and the pursuit of happiness

Or, The Garden of Innocents

Since the passage by the house of HR 3962 Saturday, my inbox has been mercifully inactive. Only a handful of new messages every day, and many of them offering great holiday deals from Amazon or announcing the imminent shipment of the "dazzling tulip and daffodils displays for spring". I stayed up all night Saturday, watching the debate on C-SPAN through Livestream (it didn't skip and required only very occasional refreshment, like I). I chatted by email with other political stalwarts back in the US, similarly glued to their screens, and only insisted my husband listen occasionally. He finally went to bed around 3 pm, as the estimated time for the vote was moved further and further back.

"Tu as entendu ça?" It was rhetorical, largely. I didn't really expect him to be following from where he was sitting on the sofa behind my post at the kitchen table, not far away. He does not boast passable English, and our very public and even more voluble political life, with our placards and t-shirts, our coolers and our beach chairs in front of the cameras and microphones puzzles him. We trot out our personal stories for speeches, with props -- mute children or adults with a politician's hand on their shoulders in a gesture of empathy, to lend support to any point they are trying to make --, the baby kissing, the shouting and grandstanding , the hyperbole and nonsensical arguments conceived to whip up visceral response, they say, "American politics. You are politically immature."

It's quite a hopeful point of view, really. Immature can always mature. They watch us fondly, like children they like a lot, busy growing up, while they have been through it sometime in their long history and come out seeing other things, "We discuss ideas; you try to move emotions."

It was watching the procedures that reacquainted me with the facts of the American political landscape and the real hopes for more than we got Saturday. It wasn't enough, but only Kucinich could afford to make the symbolic vote to which he was entitled against HR 3962, The Affordable Health Care for America Act. Conyers split their vote and voted for its passage, along with my congressman, who endeared himself to me as a man of principal and spine, standing with 193 other Democrats and voting "no" to the Stupak Amendment, an assault on women's reproductive medicine and her right to chose whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term. I view that as an assault on men, as well, because there is an overlooked aspect in the epic struggle over abortion, the bioethical.

Not all pregnancies are terminated for carelessness. Some are terminated because the fetus is found to have severe chromosomal abnormalities, such as trisomy 13 and 18, which means that baby is likely to die before birth, and if it survives birth, it will, in some 87% of cases, die in the first days or weeks of its life. The baby will suffer during this time. Ask a neonatal pediatrician, or an ob. The children who survive will be severely mentally and physically handicapped. There is no hope for them to live the life a child born with trisomy 21, or Downs Syndrome can hope to lead. No couple is told they must terminate the pregnancy for such devastating diagnoses made during pregnancy, but late-term abortion is offered as an option, and humanely, even by doctors who do not choose to practice elective first-term abortion.

But what happens in the United States in such cases? Politicians and pro-lifers begin to yell about "partial birth" abortion. My husband, an ob/gyn practicing in France for more than 25 years, did not know what they could mean by this. I explained. He was aghast, "But, why do they do this? They cannot!" He meant, Surely they cannot really do such a thing. "It is not necessary," he said; he still didn't believe me, "It is barbaric."

"Congress passed an act that became law in November 2003 against it. Congress does not pass laws against procedures that are not performed." He shook his head. "Tell me, how is it done here?"

"It is not done in this way." He said, and he explained how it is done.

In the cases where the couple elects to end the pregnancy, always a heart-wrenching decision for the parents, looking forward to welcoming a healthy baby to their family, the fetus is given a suitable dose of anesthesiology by an anesthesiologist. His department was one of the first to develop this procedure, back in the 1980's. Years ago. Once asleep, and unable to feel, a dose of heart-stopping medication is injected into the umbilical cord. It reaches the heart nearly immediately, ending the baby's life instantly, without pain or suffering. This is of huge comfort to the parents, who understand very well what they are doing, and are hurting. Then, the medical staff, in hospitals -- public and private --, wait for labor to start; the body knows when a fetus has "demised", and begins to expel it on its own. If this takes too long, artificial hormones will be administered to help labor start.

Once the baby is born, just like in most American hospitals offering similar procedures, the grief counseling team steps in. The parents are allowed to hold and to photograph their child. If far enough along in the pregnancy, to name their baby, which will receive a birth and a death certificate so that they may arrange for burial, or other funeral ceremonies. In France, if the baby is not old enough or large enough to have a good chance of survival -- the official age is 22 weeks gestation, or 500 grams in weight to be able to receive a birth certificate --, the parents may still hold their child, who will be cremated. The family may then hold a funeral to bury his ashes in le carré des Anges, or the The Angels Square, of certain local cemeteries, with all the other babies whose parents had to make such a terrible decision, or who lost their child to a miscarriage, before their child was even old enough to be officially recognized as a viable life.

Le carré des Anges
http://elwood.over-blog.org/article-19635367.html

Un petit espace à gauche, prêt de la sortie du cimetière, semble indépendant ; à l’abri des badauds, presque hors du temps, sobre et propre, ce lieu n’a aucun signe particulier. Pas de fleurs, pas de plaque.

Cet endroit est la ; c’est tout.

Mais quel est ce lieu, qui attire sans que l’on sache pourquoi?

Ici on l’appelle pudiquement le jardin des innocents...

C’est le carré des anges.

Joli nom, mais pourquoi avoir baptisé ce lieu ainsi?

C’est en fait l’espace réservé aux anges, c’est ainsi que l’église nomme les enfants morts avant d’avoir reçu le sacrement du baptême. Les enfants mort-nés principalement.

Carré des anges ou carré des limbes, limbus du latin qui veut dire lisière. L’église dit que ces petites âmes, si elles ne reposent pas dans le carré des anges, se perdraient dans le néant et erreraient pour l’éternité... bon un endroit est consacré aux repos des anges, c’est bien.

Le nom de faiseuse d’anges donné aux femmes (principalement) qui faisaient « Passé les bébés non désirés » a retenu ange dans le sens donné par l’église, des enfants mort-nés, juste après, ou un peu avant, avec l’aide d’une faiseuse d’anges.


Translation:

The Square of Angels

A small space to the left, near the cemetery gate, seems independent; protected from gawkers, nearly outside of time, sober and clean, this place has no sign. No flowers. No monument.

This place is here; that is all.

But, what is this place that draws us, while we cannot say why? Here, we call it modestly "the garden of innocents"...

It is the Square of Angels.

A beautiful name, but why baptize this place thus?

It is, in fact, the place set aside for angels, for this is how the Church called children who died without receiving the sacrament of baptism. Babies still-born, principally.

The Square of Angels or the Square of Limbo, "limbus" from latin which means the edge or the limit. The Church says that these young souls, if they do not rest in the Square of Angels, would become lost in nothingness, wander for eternity... and so a space is reserved for their souls. It is good.

The name of "angel maker" given to women (principally) who caused undesired children to die has kept the word "angel" as intended by the Church, to indicate babies who are born stillborn, dying just before or just after birth by the act of the "angel maker".


These carrés des Anges are common in France, this officially secular but traditionally Catholic country once known as la belle-fille de l'église, or the "daughter-in-law" of the Church, where abortion became legal in 1975 under Minister of Health Simone Veil, herself a French Jew who survived Auschwitz-Birkenau. Her mother and one of her sisters did not. While public funds were not made available to pay for IVG, the French term for abortion, until 15 years later, no one has ever seriously challenged the legalization of abortion in 34 years. Catholic Bishops do not lobby the Chamber of Deputies before important new health legislation. Abortion is available legally to anyone, including a woman who finds herself pregnant through a failure on the part of herself and her partner to protect themselves during sex, and who does not wish to have a baby. Abortion was legalized in France upon medical terms: to ensure that no woman should find herself in the frightening position of needing to seek an illegal and possibly life-threatening abortion.

But, we have forgotten, or in the case of younger women, come to sexual maturity since Roe v. Wade in 1973, never known what that meant.

Imagine, one friend writes to me of an illegal abortion she had in 1969, being dropped off on a remote corner in Chicago, cash in your hand, someone picking you up you have never seen before, blindfolding you, being taken somewhere you don't know where you are and no one else knows where you are -- in the days before cell phones --, and this unknown person is going to give you an abortion of which you are terrified anyway, and confused.

I harbor huge hatred for those who would force women in THIS COUNTRY into circumstances like that, and I was lucky because maybe the guy really was a doctor. I'll never know. Getting onto a table blindfolded.

Then being dropped off alone on a corner to wait for them to call your ride to come pick you up.

You don't know if you are going to be robbed, killed. And this was supposedly a good guy... but the terror around the entire situation, at least not knitting needles in the alley, has never left me not for one minute. I become so angry I could have a stroke. Women nowadays have no idea what they are loosing if they should ever have to have an abortion, and they CANNOT. They just have no idea what women used to go through.

Those who know, we cannot let those who would return us to the practices of the centuries before abortion was made legal -- for don't think for a moment that abortion has not existed since men and women first understood that the sexual act brought pleasure and pregnancy, wanted or not -- achieve their goal. This is not a moral question; it is a medical one.

Further, as anyone who has read me before knows, France has had a mixed private/public single-payer health system, paid for largely by social taxes imposed on workers and employers, in addition to taxes on certain insurance policies, the purchase of alcohol and tabacco, and etcetera, since the end of the 19th century, at which time it was provided alongside education to workers by the large corporations for which they labored, la Sécurité Sociale, and given legal definition as the the Second World War was drawing to a close by the National Council of the Resistance in the first article of the Law of October 4th, 1945:

art. 1^er — Il est institué une organisation de la sécurité sociale destinée à garantir les travailleurs et leurs familles contre les risques de toute nature susceptibles de réduire ou de supprimer leur capacité de gain, à couvrir les charges de maternité et les charges de famille qu’ils supportent

This says, essentially, "There is instituted a social security organization designed to guaranty workers and their families against risks of all nature causing them to suffer a reduction or the elimination of their ability to earn a living, to cover the financial demands of maternity and the ensuing financial needs of the family."

In the United States, we must fight for the most basic of what are considered human rights, as defined by article 22 of the Universal Human Rights Declaration of 1948, while much of the rest of the world bases its fundamental social economic policy on it:

Article 22

Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

It sounds remarkably like these words from our own Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, and quoted by some of the Democrats who rose to support HR 3962 Saturday in the United States Congress:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

It even (gasp!) sounds as if this is the purpose of government.

Even taking the text as literally as the teabaggers take the Bible in their own American Christianity, relying now, it would seem, on the Catholic bishops to do their shared Christian -- for once, Protestant and Catholic working in harmony -- work to prevent women, and the many men who love them, from pursuing their happiness, preserving their dignity and allowing the free development of their personalities by passing The Stupak-Pitts Amendment prior to and as a condition, even, of bringing the bill to the floor for a vote and its passage.

If we have been wrong to accept the passage of The Hyde Amendment, as an attack on low-income women, we are wrong to accept The Stupak-Pitts Amendment, an attack on all women, now.
....

Mots d'amour

By candlelight

That's a love note, written on a pharmaceutical laboratory marketing Post-it note. Or that's how I chose to take it, anyway. It has remained stuck to the center of the table, between where he and I sit for meals, since just after Halloween, when I came down one morning to see a piece of paper not where I had left one when I went upstairs the night before. There are usually pieces of paper trailing everywhere, but I noticed this one. I notice most things, even in the disorder. It's just that I don't find many things. That's not the same.

It was addressed to me, by my first name rather than "ma chérie". It must, I thought, be somewhat important. Even after 20 years of reading his handwriting, I still have to read at least twice to make sure I have gotten the topic and the full meaning of his words. It appeared to have to do with the dogs; it was somewhat indirect. It said:

Une des chiennes a laissé un souvenir ds [abbreviation for "dans"] le petit salon (pacquet & moquette).

There was also a little heart up in the corner. That's nice, I thought. He thought to add a heart. But, why would one of the the dogs leave a package in the "little parlor" (fancy name for a never finished room adjacent to the salon, scheduled for a tear-down and renovation)? How would they even know how to make a package, and why would one of them leave me carpeting? Was this my husband's way of shyly leaving me a present? If so, why, then, the carpeting? And, there isn't a "c" in paquet.

Why, come to think of it, would he leave it in the "petit salon" and not just leave it on the table, in place of the note?

I turned to start the coffee machine, when it came to me. Read it again, I thought. You missed something. An awful idea was starting to formulate in my foggy morning head, as a word association started all by itself, suggesting an unpleasant possibility: "chienne", "souvenir", not "pacquet" at all, but "parquet", which was made obvious by the presence of the word "moquette". I headed to the "petit salon", Quaker Oats box in hand, to verify my hunch. There was a very small blob of dark dog doo and a very large pile on the very old carpeting Audouin never tore out when he started to build the storage system, laying the parquet only up to the outside edge.

I went for paper towel -- two sheets -- and a plastic vegetable bag from the supermarket, passing Baccarat along the way to the kitchen. I looked at her. She looked back at me, balefully, of course. She knew where I'd been, and what I'd seen. It was too late to say much. The last time I tried to get her to come to my call to witness her "mistake" with me, I ended up having to drag her, and we both regretted our actions very, very much. I looked at the note again. Of course it really said:

Une des chiennes a laissé un souvenir ds le petit salon (parquet & moquette).

You can understand the mistake. After all, souvenirs are nice things that might actually come in packages.

It was, mercifully for her, bad Black Lab, full of something that looked like cranberries. Where on earth, I thought, did she ever find cranberries? Anything at all is possible until you have had your oatmeal and coffee. I peered a little closer. It didn't smell that badly, which raised another question: how long had it been there? Never mind. Upon closer, much closer, inspection, I recognized the telltale color of the yew berries, falling over Chez Eugénie G.

At least, I thought, she has an excuse. They made her have to go when she least expected it, and couldn't hold it, although it wasn't all that runny, which while much harder and more disgusting to clean up, especially from that old carpeting that continues under the floorboards (she's done this before; don't ask), elicits much greater sympathy from me.

Baccarat. Bad dog.

"Darling, there's a vast pile of dog doo in the office. I leave it lovingly for you to clean up. Have a nice day."

To shame my husband, I have left it on the table for nearly 2 weeks, holding on to the only love note I have had from him since -- Wait. Let me think.

You take what you can get in love.
....

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For all the late-breaking news, click here.
....

Water pouring in

Wisp, on the window sill

She has been there since the rain began to fall, sometime around noon. It's 2:30 pm. The Yankees played and won the final game of the world series, and she is still sitting there, watching the rain fall on a November afternoon. The dogs are asleep on their cushions, where I moved them after washing them yesterday, onto the living room carpet.

"Tu ne vas pas les laisser là?" I notice that I have heard that formulation quite a lot since I finally got married, late in life for all my childhood dreams of Prince Charming. I had to start a career first, since being Prince Charming's wife isn't a career these days. Wait. Yes it is. I thought it wasn't and got a degree and started working before moving to Greenwich to discover that I had gotten it all wrong. Or, my mother had. At least in my case.

"Pourquoi pas?"

"Ils sont dans le passage, et -- elles vont dégueulasser le tapis." He hadn't noticed what I see everyday? The carpet is already disgusting and covered with Black Lab fur all the time. I swear la femme du baron is the only one around here who notices when it is dirty, and when it is clean. I let it drop. He won't move the cushions, and I don't even want a passage there at all. I want a real living room, with furniture suitable for the life I lead.

Which it, unfortunately, is, broken down and hand-me-down and covered with Black Lab fur as it is.

What furniture do I need? Not much, for starters. The house is small. Another of my complaints, actually; another is that it has no storage space. I dream about that, you know. Audouin and Sam left this morning, while the sun shone directly into the room. Le baron kissed me good-bye and wished me a good day (he always asks if I had a good day when he comes home, even when there is no reason either of us can think of for it to have been that or anything else; they are days), and I drifted back to sleep. When I woke up again, I knew it was 9:15 am. The sun was at precisely the 9:15 am angle. I had been dreaming.

I was in a big house with two staircases. It was tall. One staircase had a window that looked over a long drive, bordered by trees in fall colors on one side, a drop into a forest on the other. I knew it had another staircase because this one felt like a discovery to me. It had been raining, rain flooding into the house through cracks between the window frames and the walls, the walls and the floors, the roof. Water was coming in everywhere. No one else seemed concerned. I told my mother-in-law, for she was there, and it must be her concern. She looked at me like a had just spoken in a foreign language of a concern that existed only for me. I headed back upstairs, maybe the first stair, which must look out over the lawn. It ought to, anyway. It would be the main stair of a large house filling with water.

I found myself in a room with a door that, when opened, led to passages and doors and doors with shelves everywhere, a huge walk-in closet, as big, it seemed, as the house. My nieces were there. I told them how wonderful this was (they didn't like the house), and they shrugged; I was in paradise, and they couldn't see it. I insisted. This is wonderful. Really.

The phone rang. In my dream, but it woke me.

Closets. I dream of closets and storage. I dream of closets and storage space in a house filling with water.

You can't have everything.

"Avant," I told my trainer in between series of abs, "j'étais heureuse et fière de ce que je faisais dans la maison, mais maintenant, je me dis que ce n'est pas pour moi de nettoyer les carreaux et lasurer les fenêtres; quelqu'un d'autre avait été payé pour le faire. Ce n'est qu'une maison. Ca ne suffit pas." I was lamenting finding myself doing the work we had contracted workers to do, finding no pride in doing it better anymore, only frustration and disgust. Working on the house is thankless. It is only one house. And, there is so little budget for it and my motivation went away with something. Something I can't put my finger on and say, "That's it. That is why I lost my motivation."

If I could, I would know what to do.

It's when I shrug and tell my husband that it doesn't matter that the carpet in the so-called living room gets all dégueulassé, and he answers, "Mais, pourquoi? Il est très bien."

Non, the carpet is not perfectly fine, "Il est trop petit. Je l'ai acheté pour qu'il serve provisoirement." I bought it at IKEA a couple of years ago thinking the entire house would be redone by now. In my fantasies, it alway looks like the houses in the ads on television, perfectly clean and healthy. There is some clutter, though, or I'd be uncomfortable. I would not walk up the stairs and see them covered with the sand from the bottom of people's shoes, people heading up to the bedrooms and the bathroom in their outdoor shoes. I haven't been able to impose Japanese standards here, but my husband does insist he does care if the house is clean or not.

How can he when he can't see the dirt?

I watch sports on television. I put it on in the background, and sometimes I sit and watch it. It's physical. The spirit is involved in the body, not fighting it. You don't think. A lull in introspection, which my father-in-law (and Anaïs Nin) deplores as destructive.

I read Anaïs Nin, and my spirit rebels. The doubts come pouring in, like the water in the house that must belong to my mother-in-law. The water that doesn't even bother her anymore. It's my time in my life to face them. What have I done? What would matter if I did, or if I didn't, do it? It mattered to carve my pumpkins and make Halloween, even if there were so few groups of children, running up the street, laughing, the noise muffled by the thick walls of the house. I know what matters when suddenly I have to get up and do it.

I have been sitting, more and more.

I read Anaïs Nin, and I think again, It's 1946 in her diary, and it is the same today. Any year in her diary, and it is the same today; It's 2009, and I thought that yesterday.

We discover more, only to know nothing more.

We communicate more, only to say nothing more.

We are told so much, only to hear the same lies and continue to believe them.

I am not laughing today. I am about to stop following politics for the same reason Nin refused to follow it: it makes no difference. The only way to effect change is to do your own work and touch the world immediately around you. Imagine the future, don't lose your present reading newspapers that provide nothing more than the daily interpretation of what is happening. Create rather than content yourself with this reality.

The fall might be too strong a parallel for me this year, when my son turned 18 and will live the consequences of the decisions he makes; the autumn of my life. I have made myself clear. I have given my speeches until he could look at his watch and know precisely when he would be able to say, "May I leave the table now?" My work, as they say, is done. Soon, I won't need to be here. I won't have a legitimate reason. My husband has given me the opportunity of which many dream, to have to do nothing but what I chose with my time. I became Sisyphe.

I could take an entire spring to sift the rock from the dirt for my lawn, and do it over and over again. I could dig holes, remove the chalk and pour liters and liters of planting soil around new plants I would regret before the year was out, results that would disappoint because I had to admit that I knew less for all my learning than I needed to know. I could plaster walls and sand them, paint them carefully, finishing only two rooms, the hardest before me still. I could spend months watching the workers when they were here, and worrying when they were and when they weren't. Seven years passed, and I can ask myself, "What have you done?"

I ask myself, "What will you do?"
....